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thought I detected something almost chocolatey when I started with it (no idea why), but that was replaced by a more Belgian note, with a great full mouthfeel and, again, lovely “American fruity” aromas: very satisfying. Which I couldn’t say about Black Betty “black IPA” from Beavertown, almost the festival’s local brewery, from nearby in Hackney Wick. This was much more a heavily hopped sweet stout than a black IPA, and most of it went into one of the large plastic bins placed handily by each brewer’s stall for slops.
Fortunately Mikkeller was there to show how hoppy brown beers ought to be made, with Jackie Brown (or “Jackie Fucking Brown”, as it was labelled on the stall, underlying the link to the Tarantino movie): the sweetness was dialled right back, and a complexity of roast and chocolate malts came through, with laid over the top a lovely carrotty, gingery malt topping. That’s the way to do it.
Another disappointment arrived with Camden Town’s Gentleman’s Wit: it looked like lemon meringue pie, and tasted like it as well, sugary where it should have been sharp. Maybe an actual quarter of a lemon in the glass might have helped. Crate Stout, from another new Hackney Wick brewery, handled that side of the beer experience much better, a lovely light chocolatey glassful just lifting off at the end of the delivery from being too sweet.
The “craft keg” equivalent of cask ale’s Boring Brown Bitter is citrussy pale ale: so easy to do, so difficult to do well. Well done, then Siren Craft Brew, which only started up in February this year in Finchinhampton, near Reading, and supplied the LCBF with as good an English-brewed American IPA as any I’ve had. It’s not difficult to guess that the man with the brewmaster’s apron on here had masses of experience bunging hops into coppers, and indeed, Ryan Witter-Merithew has a hugely impressive CV encompassing well-known breweries in the US and Denmark. Soundwave IPA, unusually, lets the malt have almost equal billing alongside the mango and grapefruit, which walk hand-in-hand with a touch of burnt toffee. I shall definitely be drinking more Siren.
In all I had an excellent afternoon, marred only by the lack of any hard-line anti-craft keg Camra people around to grab by the hair while forcing them to drink a glass of Soundwave or similar and shouting in their faces: “Admit it, ye fecker – it’s great and yet it’s not cask!” Still, frankly, that’s an argument which is increasingly becoming irrelevant. I went to a talk in Bloomsbury earlier this week on “Using Digital Humanities Techniques to Study the History of Beer and Brewing”, by Harvey Quamen, associate professor of English and humanities computing at the University of Alberta, which was vastly more interesting than it might sound (and which gave me and the people I went with much amusement when a quote about the history of porter from one of my books popped up on screen during the presentation: it must have been unnerving for Professor Quamen to suddenly realise the author you are quoting is sitting in the audience staring at you). Afterwards I and Tim Holt, editor of the Brewery History Journal, went down to the nearby Holborn Whippet, for a pint of something craft. As we looked around the Wednesday evening crowd, it was clear that, just like the LCBF, the drinkers were all (apart from us) under 40, at least 40 per cent of them were smartly dressed young women, and everybody – including the smartly dressed young women – was drinking beer: not a pinot grigio rosé to be sighted. And I’d be prepared to bet that of the 153,000 members Camra now has, not a one was in the Whippet that night.
*Thornbridge, Dark Star, Redemption and Harviestoun, since you ask
0 0New York: Nearly 100,000 US citizens have signed a petition demanding that Melania Trump leave New York, as they do not want to pay for her security. It was announced that the soon to be first lady would continue staying in Trump Tower until her son finishes his current academic year.
Traditionally, the family of the new president elect immediately moves into the White house in Washington. According to the Independent, the security cost to keep Melania in the luxurious penthouse in the 58-story skyscraper in midtown Manhattan amounts to $1,000,000 a day, which is paid out of the Taxpayers money.
The petition asks the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, and City Mayor Bill De Blasio to refuse to pay for Melania’s protection after Trump moves out of the Trump Tower.
“If this decision has been made, between the two of them they should be the ones to pay for it. Not New York taxpayer dollars that could be used on roads, schools, transit, sanitation, new jobs and other expenses that the city has,” one of the petitioners wrote. They added: “This is what tax dollars should be used for, improvements for the city and all the people of the city, not just one.”
According to a close source of the Independent, Melania became extremely close to her 10-year-old son Barron Trump during the campaign trail and does not want to disrupt his academic calendar.
“No official statement has been released by the Trump family regarding transition timing, but like any parents, they are concerned about pulling their 10-year-old son out of school in the middle of the year”, said Janson Miller, a spokesman for Donald Trump.
As Trump Tower is located in a busy street and has been surrounded by protesters, members of the press and police since the election result, their staying back would create a security challenge for the Secret Service and the New York Police Department.
If his family stays back, it is likely that Trump would fly back frequently to visit them. During the campaign, Trump was known to fly back late at night just to wake up in his own bed.Gary Habermas claims that the resurrection claim is well evidenced because most scholars accept it. That claim crumbles for many reasons (more here). Let’s move on to consider his larger argument, the minimal facts approach to the resurrection as documented in The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Mike Licona (2004).
I like the idea. Habermas wants to minimize the number of facts necessary to build his foundation and use only claims granted by “virtually all scholars on the subject, even the skeptical ones.” He thinks four such “facts” are sufficient to show that the resurrection actually happened. (Going forward, I’ll use Habermas as a stand-in for the two authors.)
Let’s see if the argument holds up.
Fact 1: Jesus died by crucifixion. Habermas points to the gospels, which are first-century writings that all report a crucifixion. From outside the Bible, he gives Lucian, Mara Bar Serapion, and the Talmud, but these all appear to be second-century writings and don’t add a lot. An earlier non-Christian source is Josephus, but Josephus’s two references to Jesus appear to have been added or modified by later scribes (more here).
Habermas concludes, prematurely, “Clearly, Jesus’ death by crucifixion is a historical fact supported by considerable evidence.” The story does gradually became widespread, though this was long after the time of Jesus. That doesn’t make it “historical fact.”
Fact 2: The disciples believed that Jesus rose and appeared to them. The disciples went from cowards hiding from the authorities to bold proclaimers of the gospels, even to the point of martyrdom.
Yes, that’s what the story says, but let’s be skeptical about stories. We don’t take at face value the story about Merlin being a shape-shifting wizard. We don’t even unskeptically take the very un-supernatural claim that Arthur was king of England. Why then take elements of the supernatural Jesus story as history, even the natural ones?
In the second place, the “Who would die for a lie?” argument (that the disciples’ deaths is strong evidence) also fails. In brief, the historical evidence for apostles’ martyrdom is weak (more here).
Finally, the claim that the gospels document eyewitness history is also suspect when we don’t even know who wrote them (more here).
The gospel mentions emboldened disciples, but until we have good evidence otherwise, this is a story rather than history. Both “But they were eyewitnesses!” and “But they died for their faith!” are poorly evidenced claims.
The sources
Habermas gives Paul as one important source. It is rather incredible that Christianity was so strongly shaped by Paul, someone who wasn’t even a disciple of Jesus. Paul claimed to have known Peter, James, and John and claimed apostolic authority, but some random dude is just going to step in and declare that he’s got it all figured out, and he becomes part of the canon? Paul is authoritative, just because.
Habermas argues that 1 Corinthians 15:3–5 is an early creed and so is very close to the events it claims to document. But a creed is simply a statement that is taken on faith, not evidence or an argument. His argument that these verses look distinct from the rest of Paul’s epistle could just as easily argue that they were added later. Note also that Paul’s Jesus story reads as mythology and is not grounded in history (more here).
Other authorities are church fathers Clement and Polycarp. Habermas argues that they were taught by the apostles, but his evidence comes from 150 years after the death of Jesus.
The innocence of a child
The credulity of Habermas is a little hard to believe. He says:
[The disciples] denied and abandoned [Jesus], then they hid in fear. Afterward, they willingly endangered themselves by publicly proclaiming the risen Christ (p. 56).
It’s just a story, and an untrustworthy one at that since we have a poor view of the original events (more here). Is this history? Show us.
Habermas again:
The apostles died for holding to their own testimony that they had personally seen the risen Jesus. Contemporary martyrs die for what they believe to be true. The disciples of Jesus died for what they knew to be either true or false (p. 59).
Habermas says that what we read is consistent with apostles seeing a risen Jesus, but of course that’s begging the question. Habermas assumes what he’s trying to prove. The honest interpretation is that we just have a story about Jesus and his apostles, and the stories of martyrdom developed decades later. Neither is history.
Naysayers
Here’s a common error that Habermas repeats several times.
If the news spread that several of the original disciples had recanted, we would expect that Christianity would have been dealt a severe blow (p. 60).
This is the Naysayer Hypothesis—the idea that a false story would have crumbled after the corrections of naysayers, those people who knew the truth. Here again, Habermas starts with the assumption that the Jesus story is correct and then wonders what would happen in various situations. This is backwards. Instead, start with the documents that we know exist and see where the evidence points.
I list 10 reasons why the Naysayer Hypothesis is flawed. To give just one, ask yourself why anyone who knew that Jesus was not divine would spend his life stamping out the brush fires of Christian belief throughout the Eastern Mediterranean.
And one final quibble: notice the word “recant” above. The only people I’ve heard who suggest that the disciples deliberately invented the story (and had something to recant) are apologists. I presume that the Paul and the gospel authors honestly believed, just like Christians today.
Since the original disciples were making the claim that Jesus rose from the dead, his resurrection was not the result of myth making. His life story was not embellished over time if the facts can be traced to the original witnesses (p. 60).
And again Habermas starts with an assumption, this time that the gospels come from the disciples’ eyewitness accounts. Habermas acts as if he can’t tell a story from history.
Next time: The remaining “facts” in Part 2
Our objective is to arrive at
the most plausible explanation of the data.
— Habermas and Licona,
The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, p. 83
Photo credit: British AmericanMike Tirico and Jon Gruden look ahead to Lions vs. Seahawks on Monday Night Football. Catch all the action on ESPN starting at 8:15 p.m. ET. (1:31)
ESPN NFL Insider Mike Sando spends each Sunday with ESPN NFL analyst Jon Gruden and the "Monday Night Football" crew. This week, they're in Seattle for the Detroit Lions-Seattle Seahawks Week 4 matchup (ESPN, 8:30 p.m. ET). Here are a few takeaways from Gruden regarding Seahawks QB Russell Wilson.
SEATTLE -- The Seahawks have a great head coach, a very good staff and one of the better coach-general manager combinations in pro sports. Their owner has given them resources that do not exist everywhere, including the green light to constantly evaluate available free agents and churn the roster as they see fit. Even with all those things going for Seattle, we would not be talking about Pete Carroll and the Legion of Boom today without a quarterback who still probably does not get his due.Few clinics follow patients long enough to demonstrate their programs’ effectiveness, although they point to individual success stories and say they do offer comprehensive behavioral counseling. Some are trying to improve treatment standards by employing doctors with backgrounds in obesity and certified nutritionists, while recommending only evidence-based treatments. And they say they offer real options to patients who have been shunned by mainstream medical providers.
“Doctors — even my own doctor — they would just say, ‘Stay under X calories and get lots of sleep and get lots of water,’ ” said Cris Cawley, chief executive of Thinique, a small medical weight-loss chain based in Texas. “But that’s really difficult.”
But often the clinics are overseen by doctors who have left other practices they found unprofitable. In many cases, the physician oversight amounts to little more than reading patients’ charts from afar, while the real weight-loss counseling is left to assistants with little training in the field.
One recent job posting for a medical director of a Medi-Weightloss clinic in Connecticut described the position’s hours as “not very demanding” and said the doctor would mainly be reviewing patient records remotely.
“This may be the opportunity you have been looking for,” the posting said. “There are no set hours and you will have no emergency calls.”
Dr. Edward Zbella, the chief medical officer at Medi-Weightloss, which has 76 locations around the country, said the requirements for clinic medical directors vary greatly from state to state, and in some places — like Connecticut — they supervise the work of nurse practitioners or physician assistants, who are the ones seeing patients.
How each clinic will benefit from the new law depends on where they operate as well as their business model. Under the Affordable Care Act, basic obesity screening must be covered by insurance, and some obese patients may qualify for additional counseling. Twenty-three states require some type of coverage for nutritional and obesity therapy, which can include weight-loss programs. In 23 states, insurers must cover weight-loss surgery, according to an analysis in 2014 by the National Conference of State Legislatures.Monday on CNN, host John King suggested that Bob Mueller’s relationship with James Comey could pose a problem for President Trump if he continues to attack the former FBI director.
Discussing team Trump’s response to the Comey hearing, King noted that “Bob Mueller, the special prosecutor, is a very close friend of James Comey. I don’t think trashing James Comey, especially if you’re trashing him in ways that are demonstrably false, is going to help your legal case.”
WATCH:
King’s could be implying that Mueller lacks the ability to separate his personal friendship with Comey from his professional obligation to the legal matter, a point The Daily Beast’s Jackie Kucinich seemed more than ready to agree with.
“You’re already seeing people affiliated with Trump start to trash Bob Mueller,” she added. “So this is part of maybe a couple step strategy that makes this looks like a partisan attack.”
“No one on the Hill, very few people on the Hill, are going to buy into that.”A 57-year-old bus driver was sent forward for trial today charged with buggery with an animal.
Sean McDonnell, 18 Rathmore, Churchill Meadows, Raheen, Limerick, is charged with buggery with an animal, namely a German Shepherd dog, at Laurel Park, Patrickswell, Co Limerick, on October 7th, 2008, contrary to Section 61 of the Offences Against the Person Act.
Mr McDonnell appeared before Limerick District Court today where he was served with the book of evidence in the case.
Det Sgt Paraig O’Dywer gave evidence of serving the book on the accused.
Insp Jerry Horan told the court the Director of Public Prosecutions had consented for Mr McDonnell to be sent forward for trial to the next sitting of Limerick Circuit Criminal Court in September.
Dressed in a dark grey suit and red tie the accused man sat in court accompanied by his daughter for the brief hearing. He was granted free legal aid to cover the cost of his solicitor Ted McCarthy plus two counsel.
Judge Eamon O’Brien, issued the alibi warning which means the accused must give the State 14 days notice of any alibi witnesses he intends calling.
Mr McDonnell was remanded on continuing bail.BALTIMORE (Reuters) - Thousands of demonstrators marched in Baltimore on Wednesday demanding justice and police reform as 3,000 troops stood by to enforce a curfew imposed after Monday’s civil unrest over the death of a 25-year-old black man.
The large peaceful protest that converged on city hall capped a day of calm in Baltimore, which saw its worst rioting in decades two days earlier.
Marchers said they seek answers about the fate of Freddie Gray, who died after suffering spinal injuries while in police custody, while also highlighting the need to change policing practices in the largely black city.
Baltimore is the latest flashpoint in a national movement to end racial profiling stoked by the deaths of black men over the past year at the hands of police in New York; Ferguson, Missouri; Cleveland, Ohio; and elsewhere.
“Can’t stop, won’t stop, put killer cops in cell blocks,” chanted protesters in the biggest march in more than a week of demonstrations since Gray died on April 19, a week after his arrest and injury.
Republican Governor Larry Hogan said protesters must respect the nighttime curfew, and that troops would not tolerate looting or rioting.
“This is for everyone who died wrongly at the hands of police,” said Noy Brown-Frisby, a 35-year-old hairstylist who attended the march with her young daughter.
But she recognized that high crime in the city of 620,000 people complicates relations with the police.
“There is so much tension. The crime is so high that when there is interaction between police and the community it becomes volatile,” she said.
Solidarity demonstrations were planned in a number of U.S. cities. Hundreds of people gathered in New York City’s Union Square chanting “black man, no justice.”
NO REPORT ON FRIDAY
Many Baltimore citizens were hoping to find out the details of Gray’s death on Friday when police have said they would conclude their investigation.
But at a news briefing on Wednesday, police spokesman Captain Eric Kowalczyk said the conclusions would not be made public.
“We cannot release all of the information from this investigation to the public because if there is a decision to charge in any event by the state’s attorney’s office, the integrity of that investigation has to be protected,” he said.
The U.S. Department of Justice is conducting a separate probe into possible civil rights violations.
Police line up shortly before the deadline for a city-wide curfew passed in Baltimore, Maryland April 28, 2015, as crowds protest the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died in police custody. REUTERS/Eric Thayer
‘SOMETHING TERRIBLY WRONG’
With police and National Guard troops patrolling Baltimore’s streets on Wednesday, schools reopened and business resumed.
Baltimore’s Major League Baseball team, the Orioles, played the Chicago White Sox in an empty stadium, a sign of the tenuous security situation. Baltimore’s Symphony Orchestra staged an impromptu concert for a gathering of several hundred people.
Police have arrested a total of 250 since Monday, 35 of them since a curfew was imposed on Tuesday. Police said some of those arrested may get released and charged later.
When violence erupted on Monday, 19 buildings and dozens of cars were burned, and 20 officers were hurt by rioters throwing stones and bricks.
While the city was returning to normalcy, residents in the most affected neighborhoods vented their frustration with police and expressed a desire to see at least some of the officers who arrested Gray, held accountable.
“The best (outcome) would be one where the officers were disciplined and officials realized what happened and owned up to their wrongdoing,” said Larry Little, 22, a Baltimore resident who joined the march on Wednesday.
Gray had been arrested on April 12 after fleeing from police in a high-crime area and was carrying a switchblade knife. He died a week later and after his funeral on Monday, rioters went on a rampage.
The violence in Baltimore prompted national figures - from the new U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton - to weigh in and vow to work on improving law enforcement and criminal justice in minority communities nationwide.
Lynch, sworn in as attorney general on Monday, called Baltimore’s riots “senseless acts of violence” that are counterproductive to the ultimate goal of “developing a respectful conversation within the Baltimore community and across the nation about the way our law enforcement officers interact” with residents.
Slideshow (8 Images)
Clinton on Wednesday urged police departments throughout the country to use body cameras and called for an end to excessive prison sentences that burden black communities.
“There is something wrong when a third of all black men face the prospect of prison during their lifetimes,” she said.
The Baltimore neighborhood that saw the worst of the violence was already filled with many burned-out buildings and vacant lots that had not been rebuilt since the 1968 riots that followed the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.Oops, I accidentally ran for president
Mitt Romney is desperately — DESPERATELY! — trying to be liked. With his unfavorables at tragically low levels, he’s now pitching himself as “a warm, friendly … who just happens to be running for president.”
Seriously.
Check out this email I got last night promoting his “On Board with Mitt” fundraiser:
Chris, Mitt’s a warm, friendly guy — and a very proud grandpa — who just happens to be running for president. If you happen to win this “On Board” contest and end up meeting Mitt on the campaign plane at 30,000 feet — I’m sure you’ll find him to be as grounded and down to earth as I do. But this contest ends tonight.
“Just happens to be running for president”??? Like, “Oops! Look what happened! I’m accidentally running for president! Gosh!”???
Mitt Romney has been running for president for years. His plans would harm the middle class and the poor, would eviscerate our social safety net, and would set our country back decades.
But, hey, he’s a warm and friendly guy. And, after all, he’s not Barack Obama.
[Romney photo by Anne C. Savage, special to Eclectablog]Election 2016: Pauline Hanson secures six-year Senate term, Derryn Hinch has three years until re-election
Updated
Pauline Hanson has secured a six-year Senate term, while Derryn Hinch has only three years before he faces re-election, under a deal struck by the major parties.
Senators are usually elected for six years at a time, but the July 2 double dissolution election put the fate of all 76 senators on the line.
A normal election sees only half the Senate face voters, with the exception of the ACT and Northern Territory, whose two senators each are up for re-election at every federal poll.
Cabinet Minister Mathias Cormann told Sky News the first six senators elected in each state will get six-year terms.
"Under the methodology used so far, the first six senators elected would get six years, whoever they are and whoever they represent," Senator Cormann said.
When pressed about whether minor party senators would be unfairly disadvantaged, he said the outcomes varied in different states.
The Opposition intends to back the move, ensuring it will be endorsed by the Senate.
Labor's Senate leader Penny Wong said: "Labor will support the Government's proposal to allocate senators' terms of office according to the order in which Senators were elected in each state."
"This is consistent with the Senate's previous practice following double dissolution elections and reflects the will of the voters."
There had been speculation about how the major parties would decide on the Senate terms.
There are two methods of allocation available — the "recount method" and the "order-elected method".
The latter method, which has been adopted by the Coalition and Labor after this year's poll, sees the first six senators elected in each state receive the longer terms, and the rest given three years in the Upper House.
In both 1998 and 2010, the Senate voted in favour of using the recount method following future double dissolutions.
That means Senator Hanson could lead her One Nation Party in the Senate for the next six years, alongside other crossbenchers, including South Australians Nick Xenophon and Stirling Griff from the Nick Xenophon Team and Tasmania's Jacqui Lambie.
Senator Hinch had pushed for the "recount method", arguing it would deliver a fairer result.
"The Government, of course, and the Labor party have decided no, they'll go the other way, and so yes, I have to face the polls again in three years," Senator Hinch told Radio National.
He had previously threatened legal action if he was pushed to take a half-Senate term.
"I'm not going to take legal action, I'd rather save the money for my re-election campaign," Senator Hinch said.
"Once I went through it all and talked to lawyers about it, it's not a constitutional issue, so I haven't got a legal leg to stand on, it's a Senate issue and [Senator] Cormann and [Senator] Wong are entitled to do this.
"I've got three years, if I don't do well in that three years, they're entitled to throw me out."
New South Wales Six years Three years Marise Payne LIB Concetta Fierravanti-Wells LIB Sam Dastyari ALP Doug Cameron ALP Arthur Sinodinos LIB Lee Rhiannon GRN Jenny McAllister ALP John Williams NAT Fiona Nash NAT Brian Burston ONP Deborah O'Neill ALP David Leyonhjelm LDP
Victoria Six years Three years Mitch Fifield LIB Jacinta Collins ALP Kim Carr ALP James Paterson LIB Richard Di Natale GRN Gavin Marshall ALP Bridget McKenzie NAT Derryn Hinch JP Stephen Conroy ALP Janet Rice GRN Scott Ryan LIB Jane Hume LIB
Queensland Six years Three years George Brandis LNP Claire Moore ALP Murray Watt ALP Ian Macdonald LNP Pauline Hanson ONP Larissa Waters GRN Matt Canavan LNP Barry O'Sullivan LNP Anthony Chisholm ALP Chris Ketter ALP James McGrath LNP Malcolm Roberts ONP
Western Australia Six years Three years Mathias Cormann LIB Patrick Dodson ALP Sue Lines ALP Linda Reynolds LIB Scott Ludlam GRN Chris Back LIB Michaelia Cash LIB Louise Pratt ALP Glenn Sterle ALP Rodney Culleton ONP Dean Smith LIB Rachel Siewert GRN
South Australia Six years Three years Simon Birmingham LIB Anne Ruston LIB Penny Wong ALP Alex Gallacher ALP Nick Xenophon NXT David Fawcett LIB Cory Bernardi LIB Skye Kakoschke-Moore NXT Don Farrell ALP Sarah Hanson-Young GRN Stirling Griff NXT Bob Day FFP
Tasmania Six years Three years Eric Abetz LIB Jonathon Duniam LIB Anne Urqhuart ALP Carol Brown ALP Peter Whish-Wilson GRN David Bushby LIB Jacqui Lambie JLN Lisa Singh ALP Stephen Parry LIB Catryna Bilyk ALP Helen Polley ALP Nick McKim GRN
Topics: government-and-politics, federal-government, parliament, federal-parliament, elections, federal-elections, pauline-hanson, australia
First postedJacquita Gonzales found comfort in quilting at the most turbulent time of her life. Photo: The Star/P. Nathan
The intensity of interest in the MH370 tragedy in 2014 has waned tremendously, but its mysterious end will forever haunt the loved ones of the missing passengers and crew.
The ensuing years have been most difficult and turbulent for MH370’s in-flight supervisor Patrick Gomes’ wife, Jacquita Gonzales, and their four children, aged between 18 and 31.
“Life’s been an emotional rollercoaster for us. While there are many news reports, books and countless theories on MH370, no one can provide me with concrete answers on how the plane vanished,” shares Gonzales.
Amid all the upheaval, Gonzales has slowly worked through her turmoil stitch by stitch, turning to needlework to make beautiful handiwork and undo the tangles.
“To find peace, I frequented bookshops and craft shops. During a visit to a haberdashery store, I was fascinated by intricate quilts appliquéd with floral and animal motifs, as well as block designs. It sparked my interest to stitch a quilt,” says the 55-year-old kindergarten owner, who signed up for quilting lessons a year after the plane’s disappearance.
She has gone on to attend other sewing courses, such as dressmaking and bag stitching.
In the span of two years, the grandmother-of-one has proudly completed various projects. She has made quilts, table runners, children’s skirts, drawstring bags and tote bags.
One of her sewing milestones is making over 40 tote bags for students.
“Sewing allows me to get lost in the world of creativity. I feel more calm and there’s a sense of satisfaction after each project is completed,” says the former Singapore Airlines air stewardess.
Research has found that sewing helps develop eye and hand co-ordination and keep our fingers agile. Studies discover that crafting helps ease stress and increase happiness too. Crafting can help those who suffer from anxiety, depression or chronic pain – whether it be through art, music, quilting or sewing.
There’s a sense of commitment and determination as Gonzales speaks about her labour of love.
Sewing has also helped Gonzales cope with her breast cancer relapse last year. She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006.
“With all the chaos happening in my life, sewing keeps me at peace. It kept me focused even when I was battling against cancer,” says Gonzales, who underwent mastectomy last year.
Due to her busy work commitments, Gonzales is only able to work on her needlework projects at night. On average, she spends between two and six hours on her craft each day.
Her sewing room – a covered up air well in her home – may not be very spacious but it’s her tranquil space.
She calls it “Jacqui’s Corner” and it is where she stores her sewing books, cotton fabric in various hues and dress patterns – all neatly displayed in racks.
Other sewing essentials such as buttons, threads, scissors and measuring rulers are stacked on her sewing table. Her trusty Juki electric sewing machine has been her faithful companion throughout her struggles.
Sewing, she says, has given more meaning to her life.
“After the plane went missing, I felt helpless and lost. Thanks to sewing, I’m doing something constructive while waiting for Patrick’s return. It keeps me occupied whenever my children aren’t at home,” says Gonzales, who hones her crafting skills by watching YouTube tutorials.
The educator, who stitched a lap quilt over the Hari Raya weekend, is already thinking about her next project – a memory quilt (featuring a collage of baby photographs) for her grandniece.
With the Yuletide a few months down the road, she has also started stocking up on materials for Christmas.
“I’m looking forward to stitching more bags, table runners and skirts as Christmas gifts. Even my sister, who’s based in Singapore, has been very encouraging and intends to place orders for table runners,” says Gonzales, who used to hand-stitch her three daughters’ dresses when they were toddlers.
Her advice for those wanting to pick up needlecraft is to simply be patient and persevere. “I enjoy using my imagination to create new designs, especially for quilts and tote bags. Plus, in sewing, you don’t have to panic after a mistake. All you need to do is unpick and patch it up,” she says.
Fellow sewing enthusiast Chong See Ming has also learnt and accepted that unpicking stitches is part and parcel of learning how to sew. Getting her finger pricked by needles and redoing stitches are part and parcel of needlework.
“When I first picked up the craft, it was a challenge to sew in a straight line. The secret is to start slow and learn how to control the speed of the foot pedal. My sewing journey has been interesting, once I understood the nuts and bolts of my electric sewing machine,” says the 45-year-old homemaker who signed up for sewing lessons a month ago.
Chong is proof that it is never too late to pick up a new craft. She was inspired to learn how to sew to upcycle her old clothes, material and vintage dresses purchased from second-hand shops.
“Instead of throwing out my old clothes, I decided to reinvent them to give them a fresh look. Plus, upcycling helps the environment as it reduces wastage and saves energy,” says Chong, a member of the Malaysian Nature Society.
After a few sewing lessons, Chong is most proud of the first beach bag she made herself. Although she has a large collection of handbags, her bright cotton beach bag is now her favourite carry-on.
“I love the bag because it’s unique. It gives me a sense of happiness to carry this bag because I stitched it. Plus it’s one-of-a- kind,” says the former SK Convent Teluk Intan student who learnt needlework as part of her school syllabus.
Although a newbie at sewing, she’s fuelled with passion for her next project – a quilt project using 30 vintage tea towels, inspired by projects she found on the Internet.
Sewing has given her the medium to express her creativity, and right now she is most taken up with the excitement of exploring designs and colours with tea towels.
“I picked up these beautiful tea towels from the flea market in Amcorp Mall, Petaling Jaya. I found the quilt project interesting as it breathes new life into old items with a dash of creativity,” says Chong, who also plans to make pillow cases using cotton material she bought from second-hand stores.
Next up, the mother-of-one intends to start a sewing circle in her neighbourhood. According to her, such activities are important as it enables the neighbours to connect with each other while learning a craft.
“Some of my neighbours are housewives and others are empty nesters. A gathering of this sort enables us to learn from each other and improve our skills. We can also work together to complete projects for charity,” says Chong, who is a follower of the Maker Movement, a social movement where individuals or groups create products using unwanted and discarded items. The movement is organised by Make, an American bi-monthly magazine.
Once Chong has mastered her sewing skills, she intends to create a mixed media installation (a combination of distinct visual art media) with her new found machine sewing skills.
She hopes to display it at a Maker Faire, a public event exhibiting hands-on workshops, demonstrations and do-it-yourself competitions.
“I have been an ardent fan of Make magazine and its Maker movement and Maker Faires since I visited my first Maker Faire in Singapore a few years ago. Maybe I will be able to join the next Maker Faire as a full-fledged maker,” says Chong, who is brimming with ideas and excited at the endless possibilities in needlework.Lakwan Hannah (Photo: Provided)
A Hilton man is facing robbery and assaults charges after an incident deputies say involved a hatchet and a hammer Saturday evening.
Lakwan Hannah, 23, was charged with first-degree robbery and second-degree assault, according to the Monroe County Sheriff's Office.
Deputies arrived to a residence on Bennett Road in Hilton after the report of a robbery, and learned the robbery may have occurred on Parkwood Lane.
Three men traveled to the Parkwood Lane residence in a van to meet with Hannah to sell him marijuana, according to a press release. Hannah entered the back seat of the van, was given marijuana and an argument ensued. Police say Hannah struck one of the men in the head with a hammer inside the van and then stuck another man with the hammer outside of the van.
Another suspect arrived on the scene carrying a hatchet and threw it through the passenger-side window of the van, according to police. The men in the van drove to the Bennett Road residence and called 911.
Deputies located Hannah on Parkwood Lane and took him into custody. Deputies found marijuana and cash in the basement.
The two men struck in the head were taken by ambulance to Unity Hospital.
Hannah was arraigned in Parma Town Court and remanded to the Monroe County Jail and is being held in lieu of $25,000 bail or $50,000 bond.
[email protected]
Read or Share this story: http://on.rocne.ws/2i3ZG0IImage copyright Chatri Sityodtong Image caption Chatri Sityodtong (left) still regularly practises his martial arts skills
If Chatri Sityodtong didn't party that much at Harvard University he had a good excuse - he had to share his dormitory room with his mother.
Born and raised in Thailand to a wealthy family, Chatri was studying at the prestigious US college in the late 1990s when the Asian financial crisis hit.
Back in Bangkok, amid the sharp economic downturn, his father's property company collapsed and the family lost everything.
Their home was repossessed, and bank accounts seized. Then Chatri says his dad ran away, abandoning them.
His mother then homeless and alone, scraped together enough money to fly to Boston, US, where Chatri had to smuggle her into Harvard |
can be integrated with many module/bundle loaders.
Install
You can install koto via bower by running:
$ bower install koto --save
or via npm by running:
$ npm install koto --save
Documentation
Browse the Wiki.
Example Charts
Build Instructions
Build requirements:
$ npm install $ gulp build
Community
The goal is to have a large library of pre-built widgets using this framework open sourced and available for all to use. I’m still thinking through the details but be expecting something to be released soon. If you’d like to contribute a widget (or 2 or 43), I’d welcome the support.
Examples
Basic Bar Chart (ES2015): http://jsbin.com/qopuwerixa/edit?js,output
Basic Bar Chart (ES5): http://jsbin.com/zutise/edit?js,output
Icicle Chart (github)
More coming soon
Acknowledgements
This project is HEAVILY inspired by the awesome work done by @jugglinmike and @iros and their charting framework called d3.chart.You’re retired, but that doesn’t mean that the expenses don’t keep coming. There’s also no doubting the fact that cash has lost its role as the primary way to pay in America. And don’t even think about trying to buy anything online without plastic. If you’re in the market for a new credit card, which should you choose? Here are six to consider.
Chase Slate
If you like big banks, you’ll like the Chase Slate. It has a 0% APR for the first 15 months for all purchases and balance transfers and no fee for any balance transfer made within the first 60 days.
After the introductory period the APR jumps to a minimum of 13.24%, going as high as 23.24% if your credit isn’t as good as it could be. You also get your monthly FICO score for free, no annual fee and no fee if you charge over your limit. There is a 3% foreign transaction fee, however, making this card a less than attractive choice if you travel abroad a lot. This is not a rewards card.
Blue Cash Preferred From American Express
If you’re looking for a card with a rewards program, check out this American Express card. You get 6% back at U.S. supermarkets on your first $6,000 of purchases for the first year; after that it’s 1%. You also get 3% back at U.S. gas stations and select department stores. All other purchases earn you 1%. These rewards come in the form of a statement credit.
The card comes with an introductory APR of 0%, which later changes to a minimum of 13.24%, going all the way to 22.24% if you have some work to do on your credit score. It has an annual fee of $75 and a 2.7% foreign transaction fee.
Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite MasterCard
If you’re planning to travel during retirement, you want a card that caters to travelers. The Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite MasterCard gives you 40,000 bonus miles when you spend $3,000 in 90 days, double miles on all purchases and 5% of your miles back when you redeem them.
The card comes with a 0% APR for 12 months on balance transfers within the first 45 days. After that it goes to 16.24% or 20.24%, based on your creditworthiness. You get a 0% foreign transaction fee, but after the first year you’ll pay an $89 annual fee. (For more, see Top Credit Cards With No Foreign Transaction Fee.)
AARP Credit Card From Chase
If you’re a member of AARP, check out the organization’s credit card from Chase Bank USA, N.A. You earn 3% cash back at restaurants and gas stations and 1% on all other purchases. You also get $100 back after you spend $500 in the first 3 months.
The card comes with a 0% APR for the first year and 16.49% after that. There’s a 3% foreign transaction fee, so it’s not the best card for travelers.
Citi Double Cash Card
This card seems to find itself on a lot of best-of lists and for good reason. When you make a purchase, you get 1% cash back. When you pay your balance, you get another 1%. You get 0% APR for the first 15 months, then a rate between 13.24% and 23.24%. The card has a 3% foreign transaction fee.
Venture From Capital One
This is another card for the travel enthusiast; you get 40,000 bonus miles when you spend $3,000 in the first 3 months, two times the miles for every dollar you spend and there’s no foreign transaction fee. With no introductory APR, the rate from day one is between 13.24% and 23.24%, and there’s a $59 annual fee after the first year. But don’t let annual fees scare you away if the card offers enough value. This is another card that finds itself on a lot of best-of lists.
The Bottom LineGarlic Jr. creates a race against time, as his Powers enable him to pursue both MPPV and DBV with blistering speed!
Garlic Jr. Level 1 ensures that you’ll advance with extreme consistency, even against Blue Protective Mastery. The damage modifier makes cards like Krillin’s Destructo Disk unable to deal Critical Damage, which might protect an early Dragon Ball.
On Garlic Jr. – Crazed, energy attacks without modification will have a difficult time dealing Critical Damage – shielding you from anger lowering/Dragon Ball capturing effects. Meanwhile, the amount of damage that you do take will raise your anger whenever a Dragon Ball is revealed.
His Level 3 modifier provides even more resiliency. In Orange, it’s easy to envision Garlic Jr. hitting Level 3 with Orange Hiding Drill and Namek Dragon Ball 6 in play. Your opponent will also have to think twice about capturing a Dragon Ball, as your Power makes it easy to snatch them back.
Things get real when you reach Garlic Jr. – Transformed. Can you gain 5 anger and win by MPPV before your opponent’s massive damage becomes overwhelming? Or, does taking extra damage actually help you find your Dragon Balls quicker for a last second DBV? The tension at the end of any Garlic Jr. match is always an exciting experience...
Garlic Jr.’s Counter Blast is an efficient energy attack, and it joins Enraged Blast in providing a flexible foundation for any speed anger deck. At the same time, it provides a similar role to combat leading cards like Red Destiny and Red Blazing Aura. Whenever Garlic Jr. opens with an effect that further modifies damage, he is most likely safe from having his anger lowered by Crits. Garlic Jr.’s Dead Zone is not as generally applicable, but it is a bombastic effect when properly featured.
Master Roshi impacts an enormous amount of cards. Captain Ginyu, Black Scout Maneuver, Orange Uppercut, Kami, Namekian Overtime, Piccolo’s Special Beam Cannon, Red Right Punch – these are just a few of the powerhouse effects that are shut down by the turtle hermit!
Red Restriction is the most disruptive effect in the game, and it enables aggressive Red decks to find windows for productive turns against control. Aside from turning off cards like Black Power Up and Confrontation, the card also replaces itself and cycles another card out of your hand. It has obvious synergy with some MPs like Trunks, and it can gain even more value by discarding a card like Red Sacrifice. Be prepared to face this card!
Orange Captivity Drill provides fuel for Orange decks that are active in combat. There are a lot of cards in The Movie Collection that promote a highly interactive build of midrange Orange. Saiyan Upward Kick is a sizable attack on its own, but the immediate effect can be crippling at certain junctures. In combination with effects like Saiyan Hanging Out Drill or Nappa – Smirking, it’s possible to string together multiple combats of total lockdown.
Dragon Ball Victory continues to gain new tools, and Information Gathering helps cement it as a viable choice. Decks that rely solely on Dragon Ball Victory will now have an answer to banished Dragon Balls, which is especially relevant in the Namekian matchup.Just like that, beached whale on Galveston is examined and buried
Officials conduct a necropsy on a whale near the Terramar Beach subdivision on Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2015, in Galveston. The 44-foot-long Sei whale died a day earlier after becoming stranded in shallow waters along the West End of Galveston Island. less Officials conduct a necropsy on a whale near the Terramar Beach subdivision on Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2015, in Galveston. The 44-foot-long Sei whale died a day earlier after becoming stranded in shallow waters... more Photo: J. Patric Schneider, For The Chronicle Photo: J. Patric Schneider, For The Chronicle Image 1 of / 33 Caption Close Just like that, beached whale on Galveston is examined and buried 1 / 33 Back to Gallery
Heavy front-end loaders Wednesday pushed the remains of a 44-foot whale into a deep beach trench as dozens of onlookers watched the rare burial on a warm Galveston Island afternoon.
The carcass was buried after a seven-hour necropsy, or animal autopsy, to determine what illness caused the deep-water dwelling mammal to beach himself on a sandbar where he died about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Examiners began the necropsy about 8 a.m. and raced against an incoming tide to complete their work before the whale became submerged. They cut deep into the carcass to examine its vital organs and take samples before finishing about 3 p.m.
The work was carried out on the shoreline in the Terramar Beach subdivision, where the whale was pulled from the surf with chains attached to two front-end loaders after it died.
After the necropsy, the front-end loaders owned by the Galveston Park Board pushed the carcass into the trench carved earlier, said Heidi Whitehead, state operations coordinator for the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network.
Burial in a beach trench is a common method of disposing of marine mammal carcasses, Whitehead said. Whales rarely are found on the Texas Coast, about once every two years, but in every case the remains are buried on the beach or trucked to a nearby landfill. Most of the 150 dolphins stranded every year are dead and they are typically buried on the beach, she said.
The necropsy determined that the whale was a male but failed to determine what caused it to abandon its home in the deep Gulf of Mexico for shallow inshore waters.
"We haven't found a cause of death at this point," Whitehead said after the necropsy. "It's way too soon to draw conclusions."
Whitehead, who led the necropsy with help from several members of her staff, said that specimens taken during the necropsy were being sent to a laboratory for analysis. But even then there is no certainty that the cause of the whale's death will be determined.
Determining the cause is like sorting through a puzzle, Whitehead said. The notes taken during the necropsy and laboratory results are puzzle pieces. "Then we can start putting the puzzle pieces together," she said.
Even if the cause of death is never determined, so little is known about marine mammals in the Gulf that results of the necropsy could help chip away at the questions about whales, Whitehead said.
A passerby had spotted the whale floundering in the shallow water early Tuesday morning, drawing people from around the region to observe what they hoped would be a rescue effort. But the whale was too ill to be saved, said network officials, who had planned to euthanize it before it died naturally.
Volunteers with the nonprofit network helped pull the dead whale from the water onto the beach. They stood watch over the carcass during the night.
The whale has been tentatively identified as a Sei whale, but further testing is needed to determine the whale's species, said network officials. Sei (pronounced "say" or "sigh") whales are members of the baleen whale family and are considered one of the "great whales" or rorquals, according to the National Institute of Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Sei whales, which usually grow to between 40 feet and 60 feet long and weigh as much as 100,000 pounds, prefer subtropical to subpolar waters and are typically seen in deep ocean waters far from the coastline. The whales do not usually inhabit near-shore waters in the Gulf.
Often, unhealthy whales can get confused or lose control in heavy currents and end up close to shore, said Dr. Chris Marshall, an assistant professor in the marine biology department at Texas A&M University in Galveston.
"If they are sick or something is why they come up in shallow waters," Marshall said.
In February 2011, a pygmy sperm whale that was found stranded in shallow surf along Galveston's West End was euthanized to end its suffering. A veterinarian who examined the whale determined that the animal could not live in captivity and was in no condition to be released.
Staff writer Dale Lezon contributed to this report.Looking for news you can trust?
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Facing his toughest reelection battle in years against a well-known and well-financed female opponent, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) recently boasted that he led the Senate in ousting a GOP colleague accused of sexual harassment in 1995. But news reports from that time show that late in the investigation, McConnell tried to stall the probe against his fellow Republican, Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.). He derided efforts by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to hold public hearings on Packwood as “frolic and detour”—after the Senate ethics committee had substantiated nearly two-dozen claims of sexual harassment leveled against Packwood by female lobbyists and former staffers.
Talking about the Packwood scandal this past week, McConnell noted that he was chair of the Senate ethics committee when Packwood resigned. In a Tuesday interview with the Lexington Herald-Leader, McConnell said he had taken “the toughest possible position.” The newspaper reported that McConnell had “offered himself as an example of how elected officials should handle situations when a member of their own party is accused of sexual harassment.”
But the bulk of the ethics probe against Packwood took place when the committee was chaired by a Democrat. When Republicans regained a majority in the Senate after the 1994 elections and McConnell became chair of the committee, he transformed the Packwood investigation into a partisan mess.
Here’s the backstory: In late November 1992, the Washington Post reported that at least 10 lobbyists and former Packwood staffers said they had been sexually harassed by Packwood. Several of the women claimed that Packwood had grabbed them or forcibly kissed them until they protested or pushed him away.
The story detonated a Washington scandal. Within a week, Packwood acknowledged the accusations, claiming his conduct was the result of a substance abuse problem. He called for a Senate ethics committee investigation of his own behavior. Bob Dole, then the Republican Senate minority leader, echoed Packwood’s call for an investigation. “The quicker the better,” he said. In subsequent weeks, several more women came forward. A former Packwood campaign volunteer told the Associated Press that Packwood had tasked her with gathering dirt on his accusers, and an official ethics inquiry was under way.
In the next year, Senate ethics committee staff interviewed 150 people across the country. This yielded 4,000 pages of sworn testimony and 1,000 pages of supporting documents. The investigators also collected new accusations from several women who had not spoken to the press.
Throughout this phase of the investigation, McConnell, the senior Republican on the committee, won praise from Democrats who had previously regarded him as the GOP’s junkyard dog. McConnell joined Democrats on the ethics committee in turning down a deal with Packwood to weaken the investigation, and he encouraged dozens of Republicans to vote on the Senate floor to subpoena Packwood’s diaries—audio tapes in which Packwood described his sexual misconduct in lewd detail.
Despite that Senate vote, Packwood held up the probe for about a year by challenging the subpoena for his diaries in federal court. As a result, it took the Senate ethics committee until December 1994 to wrap up its review of Packwood’s diaries. (The committee, by that time, was also investigating whether Packwood had altered the diaries and whether Packwood had instructed lobbyists to offer his ex-wife a job in order to lower his alimony payments.) The panel was on track to decide, in early 1995, whether Packwood had broken any laws or ethics rules. By tradition, if the committee decided Packwood had broken any laws, public hearings and testimony would take place on the Senate floor before the committee decided what consequences Packwood would face.
That’s when McConnell engaged in partisan obstructionism.
With Republicans now in the majority, McConnell, as chair of the Senate ethics committee, took control of the Packwood inquiry. And the investigation suddenly slowed down. As the committee missed its projected deadline for voting on public hearings by several months, McConnell dodged questions about where the investigation stood.
In mid-May, the committee announced it had acquired sufficient evidence to hold public hearings on the allegations. Its investigation had substantiated “18 instances of kissing, grabbing, groping or propositioning women,” often by force, the New York Times reported.
It was unprecedented for such serious ethics charges not to result in public hearings. But McConnell battled to keep the ensuing proceedings against Packwood closed. With Democrats demanding public hearings, McConnell canceled an ethics committee vote on holding such hearings without explanation. In the following weeks, he allowed committee debates over whether to hold public proceedings to drag on without a vote.
In July, fed-up Senate Democrats pushed for a vote before the full Senate on holding hearings. McConnell responded with a threat, according to the Washington Post:
Senate sources said McConnell told [Sen. Barbara] Boxer on Tuesday that he would hold [ethics] hearings on two prominent Democrats if Boxer persisted in plans to force the issue of public hearings on Packwood. According to the sources, McConnell approached committee member Barbarba Mikulski, D-Md., and told her, “You go find Barbara Boxer and tell her if she brings this amendment to the Senate floor, I’ll be having hearings on Daschle and Chappaquiddick.”
This was a reference to the 1969 incident involving the drowning of a woman companion of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and to allegations earlier this year that Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle, D-S.D., may have intervened improperly on behalf of South Dakota air charter company.
The sources said Boxer confronted McConnell later and asked him if he was threatening her. He responded, “I’m not threatening you; I’m promising you,” a source said.
The Associated Press recounted it this way:
“I want you to tell her (Boxer) if she does that, we will offer amendments for hearings on Daschle and Chappaquidick. It will work both ways,” McConnell reportedly said. “I want you to tell her that right away.”
At the time, political observers speculated that McConnell was trying to save Republicans from embarrassment. His refusal to hold public hearings generated huge controversy, with editorial pages in Kentucky and beyond calling for McConnell to reverse course. The Kentucky House and Senate both passed resolutions urging McConnell to allow public hearings, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. Sen. Richard Bryan (D-Nev.), the ranking Democrat on the ethics committee, publicly criticized McConnell. “There is simply no reason for the committee to delay further,” he told reporters. “I know of no reason the ethics committee has not met, nor any reason why the committee has not voted on holding public hearings.” McConnell promptly canceled another meeting of the ethics committee. He said he would not call a new one until Democrats quit demanding public hearings.
The next day, July 21, McConnell hinted on the Senate floor that he would kick off retaliatory investigations. “If Sen. Boxer takes us on another such frolic and detour, it will only further distract us and prevent us from concluding this important case,” he said. “So if we find ourselves on the floor in the coming days debating legislation regarding hearings in the Packwood case or any other subject related to ethics committee procedures, I will be prepared, and I am sure others will be prepared, to discuss and debate congressional action on misconduct cases in the past and other relevant issues.”
But early the following month, Boxer forced a Senate vote on her proposal to hold public hearings on Packwood. Republicans, at McConnell’s urging, filibustered, and a vote to break the filibuster failed.
The Senate ethics committee finally concluded the Packwood case the next month, on September 6, when senators returned from their summer recess. In a unanimous vote, the six members of the ethics committee, including McConnell, recommended that the Senate expel Packwood. By then, two more women had approached the committee claiming Packwood had harassed them. One of them said this had occurred when she was 17 years old. Packwood resigned a day after the committee vote. The full investigation had taken nearly three years. No public hearings were ever held.
“I am more than happy to stake my reputation on the way I handle a case,” McConnell said in the aftermath. And now, he’s using the episode to appeal to women voters: A 2013 “Women for Team Mitch” rally featured a female Kentucky lawyer who told the rallygoers, “The way Sen. McConnell responded to that situation was perfect.” With a sexual-harassment scandal now dogging a state Democratic lawmaker in Kentucky, McConnell has been pointing to his actions in the Packwood scandal as exemplary.
In response, the campaign for McConnell’s Democratic opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, circulated a New York Times editorial from 1995 that decried McConnell’s “bullying tactics” during the Packwood scandal. “It is improper for Mr. McConnell to hold the Packwood matter hostage to unrelated issues,” the editorial said, referencing McConnell’s Chappaquiddick threats. “That is an abuse of his power as chairman.”
“McConnell now must resort to rewriting history to save the only job he cares about: his own,” a Grimes spokeswoman wrote in an email.
“One fundamental problem Alison Lundergan Grimes has with reality here in Kentucky is that she actually believes the New York Times editorial page is the arbiter of truth and fact,” Allison Moore, a spokeswoman for the McConnell campaign, wrote in an email. “The internet would be a good resource for her to find out how Senator McConnell led the fight to expose and expel a senior member of his own party for egregious sexual harassment of women in the Senate.” Moore added that Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) praised McConnell’s actions shortly after Packwood resigned.
This is not the first time McConnell has highlighted the Packwood scandal during a campaign. In his 1996 reelection effort, he ran an ad during the summer Olympics boasting that he “took the lead” in ousting Packwood. McConnell, the ad said, had displayed “courage and independence—rare qualities in Washington these days.”Henry Molaison's graduation picture Wikimedia Commons A disastrous brain operation left Henry Molaison forever stuck in the same moment. But his amnesia proved a gift to science.
I first met Henry Molaison more than half a century ago, during the spring of my third year in graduate school. I have tried to resurrect the details of my interactions with him that week, but human memory does not allow such excursions.
The explicit minutiae of unique episodes fade as time passes, making it impossible for us to vividly re-experience the details of events in the distant past. What I do know is that I was very excited to have the opportunity to study such a rare case as Henry, and I had spent months preparing.
Looking back at the results of all the tests he did that week, it was clear even then that the consequences of the operation carried out on him in 1957 - an experimental procedure to cure his epilepsy - had been catastrophic. Henry was left in a permanent state of amnesia, unable to retain any new information.
At the time of Henry's operation, little was known about how memory processes worked. The extensive damage to the inner part of the temporal lobes on both sides of Henry's brain made him a vital case study for memory researchers then and now.
As the years passed, his fame grew and eventually spread to countries outside North America - and all that time Henry was stuck in the same moment. From time to time, I would tell him how important and well known he was, and he would smile sheepishly, as the praise was already slipping out of his consciousness.
In his lifetime he was known as HM; only after his death, in 2008, was his identity revealed to the world.
I moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1964. There, we were fortunate to have a Clinical Research Center on campus where my colleagues and I could admit patients for days and weeks at a time to conduct research.
Henry visited us there on 50 occasions, and I got to know him better and better as the years went by. In addition to collecting groundbreaking data in our experiments, we also documented details of his medical condition and daily life.
His nursing home chart was replete with examples of persistently failed memory. Even after living there for years, he needed directions to his room, bathroom, and lounge areas.
Not only was he confused about finding his room but, once there, he was uncertain about which of the two beds was his and which side of the double closet housed his clothes. But occasionally, his memory was surprisingly intact.
In the Eighties, when he was still allowed to smoke, the staff noted, "Henry, at times, seems to exhibit a selective memory. He has absolutely no trouble remembering when and how many cigarettes he's had and can at times recall staff names."
During the same period, he was troubled by false memories. On several occasions during a period of three weeks, he insisted that another resident had a pillow that had been his father's, stating, "It has great value to me."
Then, one day, many years after his mother died, "Henry came out of the lounge and stated,'my mother is coming to visit me, and there are no chairs for her to sit in!' When the nurse tried to convince Henry his mother wasn't coming, he became very insistent, throwing himself backwards and almost falling."
The note in his chart concluded, "It seems you have to agree with him, or he becomes quite upset." For most of the day, Henry saved a chair "for mother".
He never really knew who I was but, beginning in the Eighties, he would say that he knew me from high school. We had both grown up in the Hartford, Connecticut, area but he was 11 years older than I, and we attended high schools in different cities.
So, what gave him the idea that we were schoolmates? Over the years, he heard my name over and over, and saw my face on many occasions.
As a result of this constant exposure, he built up a sense of familiarity, a sense that he knew me, and this feeling likely became stronger over time.
I was not the only person he claimed he knew from high school. At his nursing home, there was at least one nurse whom he said he had encountered during those years. One of my fondest memories of him is that he created a special name for me: "Doctress".
Henry was a gentle person, and also intelligent, friendly, and altruistic. In 1992, when I asked him how he felt about being a research participant, he said, "I don't mind. What is found out about me helps you to help others."
And that "I figure that's more important in a way, and it helps restore my memory, too. And that's the important part right there, I say to myself. Because I know that if I could get my memory back in a way, that others can do the same; and possibly they learn too."
In talking with a student who was conducting a research project in my lab, Henry said, "It's a funny thing, you just live and learn. I'm living, and you're learning."
I was able to track down a few of Henry's high-school classmates, and they all described him as a quiet person who kept to himself, and they noted that he was very polite. He smiled a lot and enjoyed interacting socially, but he lacked initiative. He waited for people to speak to him, but when they did he was very conversational.
Among the memories of Henry that my colleagues and I cherish are his "Henryisms". These were the trademark phrases that dominated his conversation, such as "I'm having an argument with myself," "There I have a question with myself," "Question mark," and "Knock on wood".
Why was he always having an argument with himself? His unrelenting amnesia kept him riding on the horns of a dilemma, which must have been unsettling. He could never be sure if he had acted improperly or like a gentleman, whether he had met a particular individual before, how old he was, what month and year we were in, and whether his memory for current events was accurate.
Henry knew that he was different, and unlike many of us who keep our cards close to our chest, he told us what was on his mind. His dream, his ambition, was to be a brain surgeon, yet he believed this career path was closed to him.
He cast himself as disqualified not because his academic credentials were insufficient but because he wore glasses. Even though he was an intelligent man, he did not consider the possibility that some neurosurgeons do wear glasses or that doctors often use a microscope to view the operating field. In this case, reason was trumped by Henry's overriding concern that he would harm the patient.
Although he was a quiet person, his inner thoughts imagined various catastrophes. When he retreated into his imagination, he witnessed the tragic scenarios that might have occurred. This line of thought was not altogether fantasy because Henry's neurosurgeon had deemed his operation experimental, and the experiment had failed.
Henry had amazing insight into his tragedy. He knew he had epilepsy and was constantly aware that he forgot things. He also knew that his operation had been tried on only a few people before him, and he had a sense that the outcome was not good.
In 1985, Henry shared these thoughts with a postdoctoral fellow in my lab, Jenni Ogden, a neuropsychologist from New Zealand:
Ogden: Do you remember when you had your operation?
Henry: No, I don't.
Ogden: What do you think happened there?
Henry: Well I think it was, well, I'm having an argument with myself right away. I'm the third or fourth person who had it, and I think that they, well, possibly didn't make the right movement at the right time, themselves then. But they learnt something.
We get a sense here that Henry had come to terms with his catastrophe. It is a challenge to fathom what it must have been like to live as Henry did, with his memory decimated.
We can imagine at least two scenarios. In the first, we would wake up every morning without a memory, and it would be like dropping into hell. We would be suspicious of any new person we encountered because we did not know whether the person was a friend or a foe, and we would be hesitant and guarded when confronting new people and places.
We would constantly be stressed, agitated, and mistrustful for fear that something bad would happen.
In a different scenario, we would greet every new person with a handshake and a smile, with a glass-half-full approach to the world. We would judge new people as friends, not foes, and we would be happy to engage in conversation with anyone who spoke to us.
Henry was the latter type, which made his life much more enjoyable than if he had viewed everyone as a potential enemy.
Henry's operation took a toll on behaviours apart from memory. His sense of smell was almost completely eliminated by the removal of areas in his cortex that process the odours that enter our body through our nose.
All he was left with was the ability to say that one test sample contained an odour and another did not. He could not identify specific odours or tell whether two odour samples were the same or different.
When attempting to name odours, his responses were unusual. On one occasion, he called cloves "fresh woodwork", and on another he said, "dead fish washed ashore". We know that the smell of food and drink contributes to our appreciation of them, but fortunately Henry's loss of smell did not inhibit his desire to eat and enjoy his meals.
Whenever I asked him whether he was hungry, he typically said, "I can always eat."
In addition to removing the memory circuits in the temporal lobe, the surgeon took out his left and right amygdala, a complex structure that sits just in front of the hippocampus.
The amygdala is one of the main sites in the brain for processing emotions, especially fear, so we wondered whether Henry was ever fearful. His caregivers could not remember his being afraid of anything.
The one exception occurred in 1986, after he underwent hip-replacement surgery. His doctor told me that Henry was afraid of being alone, but that was temporary; he eventually returned to normal after the effects of the anaesthesia had worn off.
The damage to Henry's amygdala did affect other behaviours, and in particular, he seemed to be out of touch with his internal states.
Even though he enjoyed his meals, he never commented on being hungry or thirsty, and he did not complain of pain unless it was extreme. On one occasion, when a psychiatrist asked Henry in various ways about his sexual desire, he indicated that he did not have any, and believed that he did not masturbate.
In other words, the operation rendered him asexual.
Although not interested in sex, Henry was sustained by a different kind of motivation. Throughout the time I knew him, he clung to the belief that his research participation would benefit other people, and it did.
His case alerted neurosurgeons that they must never remove the hippocampus and surrounding structures on both sides of a patient's brain because if they did, the person would immediately become amnesic.
An offshoot of this knowledge was that neurosurgeons who wanted to remove key memory structures on one side of a patient's brain (say the left) had to be sure that the corresponding structures on the other side (the right) were intact. If the right side were damaged, then removing the memory area on the left side would cause a bilateral lesion and guaranteed amnesia.
To protect against the possibility that Henry's tragedy would be repeated, doctors devised a test that could be given before an operation to see whether the alleged "good side" was in fact undamaged.
The procedure was to inject each side, on separate days, with a drug that would temporarily inactivate one side of the brain. If patients showed impaired memory when the drug was given to the abnormal side, then the conclusion would be that the alleged healthy side was not functioning properly, and the operation would not be performed.
As crucial as this lesson was for science and medicine, Henry's life had a more universal impact. He showed the world that you could be saddled with a tremendous handicap and still carry on with your life and make a significant contribution.
He did not complain or ask for pity, and he was always a willing and cooperative research participant. Henry engaged his strong intellect to cope as best he could, and his resilience continues to be inspirational to humanity.
He stood tall in the face of his limitations, and never gave in to his tragedy.
' Permanent Present Tense'by Prof Suzanne Corkin (Allen Lane, RRP £20) is available from Telegraph Books at £18 plus £1.35 p&p. Call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk
Follow Telegraph Books on TwitterWINNIPEG — It’s often a last resort for many Winnipeggers dealing with drug and alcohol issues. However,Global News has learned the “Intoxicated Persons Detention Area” at the Main Street Project (MSP) is facing partial closures.
READ MORE: How the WRHA plans to cut spending by $80M
The IPDA has 20 holding cells used to provide a temporary space for intoxicated people who police would otherwise have to take to emergency rooms or the remand centre.
The executive director of MSP said the facility has been losing roughly $100,000 a year keeping that portion of the facility open 24/7. A move they feel is not sustainable.
“As a charity we can’t continue to bear the burden of this cost,” executive director Rick Lees said. “If we can’t make progress in the next month, my board has made it clear to me that we cannot go into another budget year running a deficit in that program.”
Lees said this was not a funding cut but the organization has consistently needed that extra $100,000 per year to sustain intake levels. The organization said it would be forced to close the IPDA during the daytime to allow it to continue to operate during peak overnight hours.
“We do 11,500 intakes (per year), that’s pretty consistent,” Lees said. “We know that 20 per cent is during our daytime shifts, with the other 80 per cent happening at night. If this facility wasn’t available, many of those clients find their way to emergency rooms where they seek help.”
A potential problem after the province recently announced the closure of three emergency rooms.
RELATED: ‘We’re very concerned’: Health care workers in Manitoba shocked with changes to health care system
The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority said it cannot comment on a “potential” closure and what that would mean for ER’s.
Main Street Project has already started restructuring its staff of nearly 120 people, a move it claims is not due to any funding cuts but for efficiency and to provide better care.
“We’ve recognized that with the increase in fentanyl and some pretty scary drugs, we need to up our game around staff skill sets,” Lees said. “We are restructuring and building a new class of staff around case managers where everyone who comes to MSP will have access to case management who stay and follow them through the system.”
Regardless, the MGEU, the union that represents those workers, said its concerned with the layoffs. Michelle Gawronsky, the union president, said at least nine members have already received layoff notices within the past 48 hours.
While MSP acknowledged there have been layoffs, Lees said the restructure is needed due to a changing and complicated client base.
“MSP has grown over the years to have multiple programs where clients access at different entry points. That can be dangerous if we don’t have the full history of the client,” Lees said. “Out of the 120 employees we’ve been able |
of security that really messes with everyone.
I don’t know if you watched The Talking Dead last night, but Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman went out of his way to explain that Daryl is straight because of all that hubbub where he mentioned in the letters section of the comics that there had been talk of having the character be gay at one point. Does it amuse and confuse you as to why people are so invested in Daryl Dixon’s sexual orientation?
[Laughs] It’s funny that you brought that up because he caught of a lot of grief for even mentioning anything. Sometimes stories just get blown out of proportion. Whatever they gave me to do, I would happily do it and I don’t think it matters one way or another his sexual orientation. He’s an honest, badass dude and he has a lot of heart to him and it doesn’t really matter. It’s so funny when you meet people and their reaction to this and to that — and believe me they go from all the way far left to all the way far right. I didn’t really address that when it came out because it doesn’t matter. And whatever they give me to do, I would have done. But it’s kind of funny watching him cover his tracks a bit. A lot of times stories do get blown way out of proportion.
Also make sure to check out our deep dive with Andrew Lincoln, midseason finale Q&A with Emily Kinney, and burning questions with showrunner Scott M. Gimple. And for more ‘Walking Dead’ intel, follow Dalton on Twitter @DaltonRoss.sassrelay:
Bioware is the company who made a canon bisexual woman only available for male shepards
Bioware is the company that had a fucking beauty contest for me3’s default femshep’s appearance
Bioware is the company that made Femshep’s unable to call Kaidan out on his shit if she romanced someone else in ME2 & he tried to pull the whole “cheated” line while Maleshep’s could instantly shut down Ashley in the same scene
Bioware is the company that made a race of sexy, blue aliens and then proceeded to slut shame them & toss any agency or respectfullness that a long-lived species could have had out the window for the male dudebro’s titillation
Bioware is the company that created a genetically engineered “perfect” woman and then had every character in the game call her bitch, slut and every name in between.
Bioware is the company that made zero mention of there even being a female Shepard until the last game of the series
Bioware is the company that made it so that FemShep was the only Shepard that had an LI die on her no matter what they did in the previous games.
Bioware is also the company that made it so one of FemShep’s LI’s cheated on her and got another woman pregnant and then had that LI come back later and say they were going to name the baby after her & Shepard had to be totally fine with it.
Don’t you fucking dare reblog something from me about the underrepresentation & mistreatment of women in Bioware games and tell me how ” they are all for what you want” when this shit is not what I want in my video games.The home of Germany's ambassador to Greece was sprayed with gunfire from automatic weapons on Monday morning, in a suspected terrorist attack the government said was aimed at hurting the country's image before it takes over the presidency of the European Union. No one was hurt.
Anti-terrorism police cordoned off streets around the official residence of Wolfgang Dold following the pre-dawn shooting on a busy road in the Halandri area of the capital. They recovered more than 60 bullet casings from the scene.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Six people were briefly detained for questioning and released without charge while investigators examined video from surveillance cameras as well as a stolen car found near the scene of the shooting, police said.
Lead bailout lender Germany is often the subject of strong criticism in Greece, which is suffering through a sixth year of recession and tough austerity measures imposed as a condition of the country's international rescue loans.
On Monday, Greece's prime minister, Antonis Samaras, and his foreign minister telephoned the ambassador following the attack. The government said it was intended to tarnish the country's reputation during its 1 January to 30 June presidency of the EU.
"The Greek government expresses its outrage and outright condemnation of today's cowardly terrorist action which had the only apparent and objective of (damaging) Greece's image abroad … The perpetrators will soon be brought to justice," the foreign ministry said.As far as I can tell, 1990 had more series-destroying sequels than any year before or since. And most of these sequels to popular films didn’t exactly go out on a high note, like, say, Return of the King. Most of them deserved their fate.
Of course, not every sequel was poorly received in 1990. Die Hard 2: Die Harder made more than its predecessor and led to other successful sequels. Child’s Play 2 still made a decent amount compared to the original Child’s Play, and it even had a few popular sequels of its own. And, while Back to the Future Part III made significantly less than the first two films in its series, it’s still a fantastic film.
With that said, here are 16 sequels that either outright killed or significantly hobbled their popular film series in 1990. I separated them into six categories.
Obscure Sequels
Two movies came out in 1990 that I bet you didn’t even know were sequels to popular films.
Graffiti Bridge
Remember 1984’s Purple Rain, Prince’s breakthrough hit movie? Me neither. But apparently that non-classic made enough money to warrant a sequel, even if it didn’t have enough of a story to warrant one. The result, which was written and directed by its star, Prince, is so bad it couldn’t even recoup its $6 million budget. Oh, and the bridge it was named after was torn down shortly after the film was made, just to add insult to injury.
The Two Jakes
Chinatown – the epitome of ‘70s cinematic cynicism – got a sequel 16 years later in the form of The Two Jakes. The film was directed by its star, Jack Nicholson, and it was supposed to be the second in a trilogy of films, but those plans were frustrated by The Two Jakes’ inability to find an audience. That’s Chinatown, Jake.
Horror-Comedies
The 1980s spawned a lot of scary yet funny movies. But the sequels to those films couldn’t recapture the magic of their predecessors, despite all the effort that went into them.
Bride of Re-Animator
1985’s Re-Animator is a quirky horror-comedy that blatantly ripped off the score from Psycho while its characters were ripping off people’s heads. Its sequel was pretty good, but not enough to get out from under the original’s shadow. Oh, and in 2003 they made another entry in this series, but it hardly qualifies since it debuted on the Sci-Fi Channel and it barely even got a theatrical release.
Gremlins 2: The New Batch
This movie is crazy. The original Gremlins took people by surprise with its sudden shift from family drama to violent comedy. Its sequel ups the ante so high it becomes a live-action cartoon. Everything you could want from a movie about homicidal puppets is stuffed into Gremlins 2: The New Batch with plenty of zaniness to spare. Why did this film fail? Maybe they waited too long after the first film or maybe its release date was to blame. It came out the same day as Dick Tracy and just two weeks after Total Recall. Whatever it was, maybe it’s a good thing they never tried to top this movie. I don’t know if that’s humanly possible.
Follow-ups to 1987 Action Classics
Talk about tough acts to follow. Predator and RoboCop deserved better sequels than what they got.
Predator 2
Predator 2 was doomed from the start. John McTiernan was busy directing The Hunt for Red October and Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn’t interested in reprising his role as Dutch, so the two best things the original had going for it were out of the picture. The filmmakers tried to make a decent action movie out of what they had to work with, and they succeeded in some ways. But the sequel is a major disappointment after the first film’s brilliant simplicity. Years later they made a few quasi-sequels in the forms of Alien vs. Predator, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, and Predators. But the first sequel hobbled the series and it never recovered the same level of quality as the original Predator.
RoboCop 2
This film is just a shadow of the first RoboCop, especially in light of the fact that the first film is an almost perfect chiasmus. I haven’t looked at RoboCop 2’s structure too closely, but I think it’s safe to say this movie didn’t achieve anything as aesthetically pleasing as its predecessor. You just can’t top greatness sometimes, even if you’ve got the director of The Empire Strikes Back at the helm. RoboCop 3 came out three years later, but Peter Weller wisely bowed out of the titular role. That movie comes across as a silly kid-friendly version of the original. I’ve heard the same criticism of the 2014 remake, too.
Long Overdue
1990 saw the resurrection of many long-dormant movie series. Unfortunately, they all came back to life just long enough to see themselves be killed again.
The Exorcist III
It had been 13 years since the last Exorcist movie came out when this little gem came along. Unfortunately, time hadn’t made people forget how horrible Exorcist II: The Heretic was, nor had it led fans of the original to clamor for another sequel, so this movie fell below most moviegoers’ radars. That’s too bad because it is a genuinely frightening film with great performances by George C. Scott and Brad Dourif.
The Godfather Part III
Much has been written about The Godfather Part III’s place as the black sheep of its series. To sum it all up, Paramount made Francis Ford Coppola an offer he couldn’t refuse, Coppola made Robert Duvall an offer that the actor flat out refused, and the resulting film feels tired and lacking creativity when it should have been an epic conclusion to the Corleone family legacy. It’s not a terrible movie, but it could have been so much more, especially if they had included Duvall’s character in the story.
The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter
1984’s The NeverEnding Story is a wonderful children’s movie. It speaks to the destruction of children’s imaginations as they forget about old books and good storytelling and instead turn to mindless entertainment. Unfortunately, the sequel traded these deep ideas for shallow characters and contrived situations. They made an even worse third film, but hardly anybody saw it after they saw this sad excuse for a sequel.
The Rescuers Down Under
The Rescuers came out during Disney’s forgotten era of animation. They hadn’t made a great film since 1967’s The Jungle Book. The Rescuers introduced some interesting characters, but didn’t take time to develop them. Fast forward 13 years and Disney is back on top, having just made the hit film The Little Mermaid. Their next project? A sequel to The Rescuers. But this time around they fixed the original film’s pacing issues, lame music, stilted dialogue, and other problems and turned out a truly great film that ranks as one of my favorite sequels. But tragically, few paid attention to The Rescuers Down Under when it arrived in theaters. If you haven’t seen this movie, you should definitely check it out. You are in for a treat.
Quick Demise
At least these filmmakers had the decency to hurry up and pump out a quick sequel that never pretends to be anything good.
Look Who’s Talking Too
Just one year after the sleeper Look Who’s Talking came out, its sequel hit theaters. And it was terrible. While the original had a funny voiceover by Bruce Willis, the sequel adds Roseanne Barr’s grating voice into the mix and focuses a lot of attention on potty training and the whole thing goes south awfully quick. Five years later the filmmakers tried to squeeze a few more dollars out of this dead series, but audiences were smart enough to stay home from Look Who’s Talking Now.
Three Men and a Little Lady
Leonard Nimoy’s 1987 blockbuster Three Men and a Baby is an enjoyable, if dated, comedy of errors. It certainly didn’t need a sequel, but the smell of money was just too much and thus Three Men and a Little Lady was born. And it’s about as fresh as a three-year old used diaper. There’s basically nothing that this film does that the original didn’t do better, and all of the new elements it introduces, like the evil fiancé and the last-minute race to stop the wedding, have been done to death in other better movies.
Young Guns II
1988’s Young Guns had an all-star cast, including Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Palance, and Terence Stamp. Critics didn’t care for it, but it made a decent amount of money. The sequel added a few new faces, like Viggo Mortensen and Christian Slater. Critics disliked it even more, but it made an almost identical amount of money as the first one. Luckily, the filmmakers knew when to quit and they ended up ahead.
Trying to Regain Former Glory
By the end of the ‘80s, some actors could sense they were starting to enter a downward spiral in their careers, so they tried to relive the glory days by making a sequel to their past successes. But it proved to be too little, too late.
Another 48 Hrs.
The early ‘90s were not kind to Eddie Murphy. Not only was the wildly successful comedian from the ‘80s experiencing the lowest point of his career, but he was also suffering from severe depression. Apparently he thought it would be a good idea to return to his old successes to try to rekindle the magic from his early film career. Unfortunately, Another 48 Hrs. was not the answer. Its title sounds lazy, the chemistry between Nick Nolte and Murphy is gone, and it’s just a very forgettable film. This movie made more money than the original 48 Hrs., but it cost Murphy his audience for many years to come.
Delta Force 2
With his Missing in Action series coming to a close two years earlier and his other films underperforming at the box office, perpetual B-list action star Chuck Norris tried returning to the Delta Force franchise in 1990. It didn’t end well for him. The film earned a paltry $6.7 million, $11 million less than the original. They did make a third Delta Force movie, but it was so bad that Chuck Norris didn’t even appear in it.
Rocky V
Poor Talia Shire. She had starred in the first two Godfather films and the first four Rocky films and she saw those popular series through to the bitter end in 1990. Rocky V majorly underperformed, earning about a third of Rocky IV’s worldwide gross. The movie tried to emulate the original Rocky in many ways, but it wound up being a major embarrassment for everyone involved. The Rocky series was brought back for one final farewell for the beloved boxer in 2006, but Shire was a no-show that time around. It’s hard to blame her.
A Cautionary Tale
As Hollywood tries to milk every recognizable franchise they can with remakes, sequels, prequels, and reboots, it’s important to keep in mind that that isn’t always a recipe for success. Not every year is going to be as bad as 1990, but that doesn’t mean we’ll never see a repeat of that year’s string of disasters. The focus should always be on the quality of the product and not just its marketability.
This is the Deja Reviewer bidding you farewell until we meet again.
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AdvertisementsThe never-seen-before features of the new service including new livery and elegant business class– and that is a must try.
The PIA start its premier service from 14th August initially from Islamabad to London.
PIA spokesperson Danyal Gillani tweeted pictures of the newly-launched service featuring well-designed interior and cabin crew sporting the new creations of a local designer.
Take a look here:
According to PIA statement last month, the national airliner had advertised for leasing wide body aircraft in June and Sri Lanka’s national carrier expressed interest in leasing out its four new wide body A-330 aircraft to PIA. A high-level team of PIA led by CEO, Mr. Bernd Hildenbrand recently visited Colombo to inspect these aircraft and to negotiate a contract.
These planes are primarily being used for PIA’s premier service which kicking off from 14th August. With new aircraft, more professional crew and improved service standards, the new service aims at providing an altogether different experience to passengers. “This service will go a long way in helping PIA regain its market share both domestically as well as internationally.”
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commentsPakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Thursday slammed the PML-N's "four years of economic misrule" at a press conference in Islamabad, saying that Pakistan's economy has "never been worse" than it is today.
Flanked by MNA Asad Umar, Khan accused Finance Minister Ishaq Dar of being "Pakistan's economic hitman", and claimed that the country's economic performance during the PML-N era had been worse as compared to the eras of former presidents Pervez Musharraf and Asif Zardari.
The PTI leaders said that although the government claims the economy is progressing, investment is falling whereas debt is on the rise. They pointed out various economic indicators during a slideshow which they said was based on the government's own data.
Umar accused Dar of attempting to "invent new economics".
"Investments have always fallen whenever Nawaz Sharif has come into power... and this time they are even lower than Zardari's era despite China-Pakistan Economic Corridor investments," Umar claimed.
Debt
"Record Borrowing by any government". —Photo courtesy PTI
Asad Umar claimed that a record Rs10.8 trillion had been borrowed by the PML-N in its term, which he said was considerably higher than the Rs8tr borrowed during the PPP's five-year rule, and the approximate figure of Rs2.2tr borrowed under Musharraf.
Umar added that a large chunk of the borrowing is external debt.
Investment
Investments have fallen during PML-N's rule, PTI claims. —Photo courtesy PTI
"Nawaz Sharif spent Rs2.7 million per day on foreign trips courting investment," Imran Khan claimed. However, investment decreased during the PML-N's term, he added.
"Investors neither from inside nor outside the country are investing" because of rampant corruption, Khan alleged.
"This is resulting in an increase in unemployment," he said.
Exports
A slide shows depleting foreign reserves. —Photo courtesy PTI
"Our exports have gone down from $25 billion to $21bn, while exports in India and Bangladesh have increased in the same period," Umar claimed.
A slide showed reporters appeared to show only a slight increase in India's exports between 2013 and 2017, whereas Bangladesh's exports registered approximately $8bn growth over the period.
Umar, pointing to an "alarming current account deficit and depletion of foreign exchange reserves, claimed that the country was moving towards another bailout package.
Taxes
Tax reserves, Umar said, were only increasing on the back of increased indirect taxes while direct taxes had registered a decline.
Tax revenues have increased on the back of indirect taxes, PTI claims. — Photo courtesy PTI
"It is difficult for them to collect taxes from the rich because they have put a corrupt person in charge of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR)," Khan alleged.
"They have done this to protect their own money but other powerful people also benefit from it," he added.
A slide shows power shortfall has increased to 6,000 Megawatts. —Photo courtesy PTI
The two leaders also alleged that the country had the most expensive electricity and gas in the region, with circular debt also on the rise.
Although the PPP left Rs480bn in circular debt which was paid off by the PML-N within the first few weeks of its tenure, the figures have again crossed Rs400bn, the PTI leaders claimed.
Umar also claimed that the power shortfall has increased to over 6,000 megawatts despite tall claims by the government.The Atlanta Silverbacks will be playing in 2016. After ceasing operations in the NASL in January, it appears the club will merge together their senior and reserve sides and take the spot of the Atlanta Silverbacks B squad in the NPSL. Our good friends at Non League America let the world know on Monday:
It was no secret but we have been given official clearance to state the Atlanta Silverbacks will 100% be playing in the 2016 NPSL season. — NonLeagueAmerica (@NonLeagueUSA) February 23, 2016
It's been a long and tiresome year for Silverbacks supporters who waited months just to learn that no owners could be found for their beloved club and they would be folding up shop in the NASL. Now a few months later it seems as it there is a little light at the end of the tunnel with news that they'll be competing in the fourth-tier of American soccer this year.
The NPSL season kicks off in May and the Silverbacks will be in the South Atlantic division alongside the Carolina Railhawks U-23's and fellow Georgia side the Georgia Revolution.In a move that fueled yet more criticism from the opposition Israel’s far-right government today agreed to add another $18 million to their funding for settlements in the occupied West Bank, with Netanyahu saying the funding would “assist small businesses” in the settlements.
The move didn’t sit well with the opposition, with several MPs noting that the government is doing little to nothing to boost the economy insist Israel itself, while at the same time it keeps throwing money at an effort which is both fueling security problems and harming Israel’s international standing.
The far-right coalition’s dedication to the settlers movement has been a hot topic in Israeli politics recently, with former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni declaring that settlers’ councils are effectively dictating the entire government’s agenda, even though they are only a small minority of Israel’s population.
United ideologically and prone to acting up when they don’t get their way, Israel’s settlers have always punched above their weight as a political force, but as Israel’s government continues to shift rightward, there are fewer and fewer members of the coalition who don’t see them as their primary constituency.
Reflecting just how much the settlers can drive politics in Israel, opposition leader Isaac Herzog publicly rebuked his own spokesman for a Facebook post critical of the settlers, adding that his own Labor Party had helped build settlements in the first place.
Last 5 posts by Jason DitzCloris Leachman (born April 30, 1926) is an American actress and comedian. In a career spanning over seven decades she has won eight Primetime Emmy Awards (record tied with Julia Louis-Dreyfus), a Daytime Emmy Award, and an Academy Award for her role in The Last Picture Show (1971).
As Miss Chicago, Leachman competed in the 20th Miss America pageant and placed in the Top 16 in 1946. Leachman's longest-running role was the nosy and cunning landlady Phyllis Lindstrom on the CBS sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off, Phyllis, in the 1970s.
She also appeared in three Mel Brooks films, including Young Frankenstein (1974), starred as Beverly Ann Stickle on the NBC sitcom The Facts of Life from 1986–88, and appeared as Granny in The Beverly Hillbillies (1993).
In the 2000s, Leachman had a recurring role as Grandma Ida on the Fox sitcom Malcolm in the Middle, and appeared as a roaster in the Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget in 2008.
She was a contestant on the seventh season of the ABC reality competition series Dancing with the Stars in 2008, paired with Corky Ballas. She was 82 at the time and is the oldest contestant to have danced on the series.[1] From 2010–14, she starred as Maw Maw on the Fox sitcom Raising Hope.
In 2017, she played the role of Zorya Vechernyaya on the Starz drama American Gods.
Early life [ edit ]
Leachman was born in Des Moines, Iowa, the eldest of three sisters. She attended Theodore Roosevelt High School. Her parents were Cloris (née Wallace; 1901–1967) and Berkeley Claiborne "Buck" Leachman (1903–1956). Mr. Leachman worked at the family-owned Leachman Lumber Company.[2][3][4][5]
The youngest sister, Mary, was not in show business. Middle sister Claiborne Cary (1932–2010) was an actress and singer.[6] Her maternal grandmother was of Bohemian (Czech) descent.[7]
As a teenager, Leachman appeared in plays by local youth on weekends at Drake University in Des Moines.[8] After graduating from high school, she enrolled at Illinois State University studying drama, and later, Northwestern University, where she was a member of Gamma Phi Beta and a classmate of future comic actors Paul Lynde and Charlotte Rae. She began appearing on television and in films shortly after competing in Miss America in 1946.
Career [ edit ]
Early career [ edit ]
After winning a scholarship in the Miss America pageant placing in the Top 16, Leachman studied acting under Elia Kazan at the Actors Studio in New York City. She was cast as a replacement for the role of Nellie Forbush during the original run of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific. A few years later, she appeared in the Broadway-bound production of William Inge's Come Back, Little Sheba, but left the show before it reached Broadway when Katharine Hepburn asked her to co-star in a production of William Shakespeare's As You Like It.[9]
Leachman appeared in many live television broadcasts in the 1950s, including such programs as Suspense and Studio One. She made her feature film debut as an extra in Carnegie Hall (1947), but had her first real role in Robert Aldrich's film noir classic Kiss Me Deadly,[10] released in 1955. Leachman was several months pregnant during the filming, and appears in one scene running down a darkened highway wearing only a trench coat. A year later, she appeared opposite Paul Newman and Lee Marvin in The Rack (1956). She appeared with Newman again in a brief role in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).
She continued to work mainly in television, with appearances in Rawhide and in The Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life" as well as the sequel "It's Still a Good Life" in the 2002-2003 UPN series revival. During this period, Leachman appeared opposite John Forsythe on the popular anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents in an episode titled "Premonition". She later appeared as Ruth Martin, Timmy Martin's adoptive mother, in the last half of season four (1957) of Lassie. Jon Provost, who played Timmy, said, "Cloris did not feel particularly challenged by the role. Basically, when she realized that all she'd be doing was baking cookies, she wanted out."[11] She was replaced by June Lockhart in 1958.
That same year, she appeared in an episode of One Step Beyond titled "The Dark Room", in which she portrayed an American photographer living in Paris. In 1960, she played Marilyn Parker, the roommate of Janice Rule's character, Elena Nardos, in the Checkmate episode "The Mask of Vengeance". In 1966, she guest starred on Perry Mason as Gloria Shine in "The Case of the Crafty Kidnapper". In late 1970, Leachman starred in one episode of That Girl as Don Hollinger's sister, Sandy.
Awards [ edit ]
Leachman won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Last Picture Show (1971), based on the bestselling book by Larry McMurtry. She played the high school gym teacher's neglected wife, with whom Timothy Bottoms' character has an affair. Director Peter Bogdanovich had predicted during production that she would win an Academy Award for her performance. The part was originally offered to Ellen Burstyn, but Burstyn wanted another role in the film.[12]
The Mary Tyler Moore Show (August 1973) Betty White (left) and Leachman (right) as Sue Ann Nivens and Phyllis Lindstrom on(August 1973)
Leachman has also won a record-setting eight Primetime and one Daytime Emmy Awards and has been nominated more than 20 times, most notably for playing Phyllis Lindstrom on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Lindstrom was a recurring character on the program for five years and was subsequently featured in a spinoff series, Phyllis (1975–1977), for which Leachman won a Golden Globe Award. The series ran for two seasons. Its cancellation was partly due to the deaths of three regular or recurring cast members during its brief run: Barbara Colby (murdered under mysterious circumstances in a Los Angeles park), and Judith Lowry and Burt Mustin (who played a newly married couple on the show; both were in their 80s and died of natural causes).[citation needed]
Cloris Leachman as Phyllis Lindstrom, 1974
In 1977, she guest-starred on The Muppet Show, episode 2.24.[13] In 1978, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theater. In 1987, she hosted the VHS releases of Schoolhouse Rock![14] and portrayed the evil witch Griselda for Disney's Cannon Tales production of Hansel and Gretel. In 1986, she returned to television, replacing Charlotte Rae's character Edna Garrett as the den mother on The Facts of Life. Leachman's role as Edna's sister, Beverly Ann Stickle, could not save the long-running series, and it was canceled two years later.
She has voice-acted in numerous animated films, including My Little Pony: The Movie (as the evil witch mother from the Volcano of Gloom), A Troll in Central Park (as Queen Gnorga), The Iron Giant, Gen¹³, and most notably as the voice of the cantankerous sky pirate Dola in Hayao Miyazaki's 1986 feature Castle in the Sky. Dubbed by Disney in 1998, Leachman's performance in this film received nearly unanimous praise.[citation needed] Leachman played embittered, greedy, Slavic Canadian "Grandma Ida" on the Fox sitcom Malcolm in the Middle, for which she won two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series (in 2002 and 2006). She was nominated for playing the character for six consecutive years. The win marked four consecutive decades with a Primetime Emmy Award for acting, dating back to the 1970s.
Later television credits include the successful Lifetime Television miniseries Beach Girls with Rob Lowe and Julia Ormond. Leachman was nominated for a SAG Award for her role as the wine-soaked former jazz singer and grandmother Evelyn in the Sony feature Spanglish opposite Adam Sandler and Téa Leoni. She had replaced an ailing Anne Bancroft in the role. The film reunited her with the Mary Tyler Moore Show writer, producer, and director James L. Brooks. That same year, she appeared with Sandler again in the remake of The Longest Yard. She also appeared in the Kurt Russell comedy Sky High as a school nurse with X-ray vision. In 2005, she guest starred as Charlie Harper's neighbor Norma in an episode (#3.9, "Madame and Her Special Friend") of Two and a Half Men.
In 2006, Leachman's performance alongside Sir Ben Kingsley and Annette Bening in the HBO special Mrs. Harris earned her an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie as well as a SAG Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries. On May 14, 2006, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Drake University.[15]
Leachman was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2011. That same year, she was ranked #23 on the TV Guide Network special Funniest Women on TV.[16]
On June 20, 2014, Leachman received an honorary degree from her alma mater, Northwestern University.[17]
In 2017, she received PETA's Lifetime Achievement Award for her dedication to animal rights issues.[18]
Mel Brooks [ edit ]
Leachman in 1975
Leachman appeared in three Mel Brooks films, including Young Frankenstein (1974) in which the mere mention of the name of her character, Frau Blücher, elicits the loud neighing of horses (this was an homage to a cinematic villain stereotype; Leachman claimed that Brooks told her that Blücher was German for "glue", though it is not),[19] High Anxiety (1977) as the demented villainess and psychiatric nurse Charlotte Diesel, and Madame Defarge in History of the World: Part I.
In 1989, Leachman starred on Brooks' short-lived NBC sitcom The Nutt House[20] in dual roles as head hotel housekeeper Mrs. Frick (a variation of the Frau Blücher character) and Mrs. Nutt, the senile owner of the hotel (who was only featured in the two-part pilot).
She auditioned to revive her role from Young Frankenstein in the 2007 Broadway production opposite Megan Mullally (who replaced Kristin Chenoweth) and Roger Bart. However, Andrea Martin was cast instead. Brooks was quoted as saying that Leachman, at 81, was too old for the role. "We don't want her to die on stage," he told columnist Army Archerd, a statement to which Leachman took umbrage.[21] However, due to Leachman's success on Dancing with the Stars, Brooks reportedly asked her to reprise her role as Frau Blücher in the Broadway production of Young Frankenstein after the departure of Beth Leavel, who had succeeded Martin.[22][23] The Broadway production closed before this could happen.
Dancing with the Stars [ edit ]
Leachman was a contestant on the seventh season of Dancing with the Stars, paired with Corky Ballas, the oldest of the professionals and father of two-time champion Mark Ballas. Leachman is the oldest person to compete on the show to date.[citation needed]
Present projects [ edit ]
Leachman played the role of Memaw in the film I Can Only Imagine, which is about the story behind the song of the same name by MercyMe.
Personal life [ edit ]
From 1953 to 1979, Leachman was married to Hollywood impresario George Englund. Her former mother-in-law was character actress Mabel Albertson. The marriage produced five children, four sons and one daughter: Bryan (died 1986), Morgan, Adam, Dinah, and George. Some of them are in show business. Her son Morgan played Dylan on Guiding Light throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.
Leachman in November 2015
The Englunds were Bel Air neighbors of Judy Garland and Sid Luft, and of their children, Lorna and Joey Luft, during the early 1960s. Lorna Luft stated in her memoir Me and My Shadows: A Family Memoir that Leachman was "the kind of mom I'd only seen on TV". Knowing of the turmoil at the Garland home but never mentioning it, Leachman prepared meals for the children and made them feel welcome when they needed a place to stay.[citation needed]
Leachman was also a friend of Marlon Brando, whom she met while studying under Elia Kazan in the 1950s. She introduced him to her husband, who became close to Brando as well, directing him in The Ugly American and writing a memoir about their friendship called Marlon Brando: The Way It's Never Been Done Before (2005).[24]
In a parody of Demi Moore's famous Vanity Fair magazine cover photo, Leachman posed nude on the cover of Alternative Medicine Digest in 1997, body-painted with images of fruit. A vegetarian, she also posed clad only in lettuce for a 2009 PETA advertisement.[25] She starred in a comedic 2013 spay and neuter ad for PETA, opening a condom wrapper with her teeth.[26]
Leachman has described herself as an atheist.[27]
Her autobiography Cloris: My Autobiography[28] was published in March 2009. She wrote the bestselling book with Englund, her former husband.
Leachman's granddaughter, Anabel Englund, is a singer.[29] In addition to Anabel, Leachman has five other grandchildren—Portia, Skye, Arielle, Jackson, and Hallelujah—and one great-grandson, Braden.[30]
Filmography [ edit ]
Awards [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]Two years ago I couldn’t have imagined myself leaving a meeting about company finances and jumping into work on redesigning our database. Startups really require a diverse set of skills and lots of flexibility. As a co-founder at AnimalBiome, an early stage biotech startup, I get to use and grow different skills almost every day. Because a lot of people transitioning into industry from academia wonder if working in a startup might be right for them, I wanted to share my experience and some of the things I learned during my Insight Fellowship that have helped me in my new role.
From environmental science to data science
“By transitioning into data science I knew I could still do some of the things I loved from my previous life, like wrestling with messy data and discovering patterns, while having more |
German prosecutors are investigating Turkish imams for spying on alleged Gulen followers in Germany.
Relations with Turkey have also become a political football ahead of national elections in Germany in September.
cw/jm (AFP, dpa, Reuters)This recent ranking survey from goo Ranking was quite an effort to translate, a look at current net slang that are not yet widely known. Here is a related survey from a couple of years ago.
Demographics
Over the 5th and 6th of October 2012 1,064 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.2% of the sample were female, 10.5% in their teens, 13.7% in their twenties, 26.6% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, 11.7% in their fifties, and 9.9% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.
Number 16 was the first one I knew, having seen it used and explained on TV just last week!
Here’s a video for number five:
Ranking result
Q: What current net slang do you think is not yet widely known? (Sample size=1,064) Rank
日本語
Reading
Meaning
Score
1
アイエエエ
Aieee
Japanese transcription of a typical scream from American comics, “Aieeee!”
100
2
わこつ
Wakotsu
On Nico-Nico live net broadcasts, there was initially a low limit on the number of simultaneous broadcasts, so people would spend up to an hour pressing a button to try to capture a slot. Once they got started, people would congratulate them using わこつ, short for 枠取り作業お疲れ様.
97.4
3
ふぁぼる
Faboru
To make something a favourite, particularly on Twitter
93.6
4
承前
Shouzen
Indicates that the current Tweet is a continuation from the last, due to hitting the 140 character limit.
90.6
5
ggrks
Guguru Kasu
Go Google it!
89.8
6
ksk
Kasoku
Speed up, used when a thread on 2ch or other bulletin board takes off
88.3
7
hshs
Hasu hasu
Heavy breathing, from haku-suu, breathe out-breathe in
87.2
8
ファビョる
Fabyoru
A not very polite way of describing a Korean getting mad
87.2
9
kwsk
Kuwashiku
A request for more details
86.8
10
ブヒる
Buhiru
To squeal like a pig at a moe (cute) anime
85.3
11
△
Sankaku
He/she/it’s cool! Starting from, for example, “Ken san kakkouii!” (Ken is cool), we get “Ken△”
84.2
12
ROMってろ
Rom-tteru
Initially was “Just read this, don’t talk about it”, but now also “Read Only Monitor”, for someone who reads but doesn’t post to a bulletin board
82.7
13
ステマ
Sutema
Short for Stealth Marketing
81.6
14
＼宣／
Sky High
The victory pose of The King of Heroes, Sky High, from the Tiger and Bunny series
81.2
15
クラスタ
Cluster
Here indicates a grouping of fans, used as for example, AKB48-cluster.
80.8
16
オワコン
Owacon
Short for Owari (finished) contents. Something that is in the past
80.5
17
呼びタメ
Yobitame
Short for yobisute and tameguchi, an informal (perhaps a hint of looking down at people) and frank talk
78.9
18
ズッ友
Zuttomo
Short for “zutto tomodachi”, usually used when exchanging photo seals. Japanese equivalent of BFF
75.9
19
美ジョガー
Bi-jogger
Beautiful female jogger
75.6
20
DQN
Dokyun
Stupid, anti-social person, perhaps a Japanese chav
75.2
21
ェ・・・
…
Yes, it’s a silent “…”, apparently from Naruto manga
73.3
22
チート
Cheat
Now used to praise people for nice tricks or game hacks, etc
72.9
23
デフォ
Defo
An abbreviation of “default”, in the sense of “usually”. An example sentence would be “Weekday nights at that ramen shop sees defo 30 people waiting.”
66.5
24
ソーシャルメディア
Social media
Social media
65.8
25
うｐ
Up
Short for upload, when typed in Japanese input mode
64.3
26
推しメン
Oshimen
Short for “ichioshi member”, one’s favourite member of a group like AKB48
63.9
27
オワタ
Owata
ASCII art of shouting “banzai!” on finishing something
59.8
28
誰得
Daretoku
An abbreviation of “Dare ga tokusurun dayo”, “Who’s the one who knows all about it?”, said for instance to the person starting a thread on comparing the eyelash lengths of AKB48 members
59.0
29
ソース
Source
Source code, nothing more complicated, I don’t think
55.3
30
あげぽよ
Agepoyo
“Age” is to raise, in this sense tension, which means to increase the excitement, and “poyo” is just a meaningless sound added to the utterance
54.1
31
ノーサイド
No side
I don’t think this means anything more than the end of a rugby match, but I’m probably wrong…
53.4
32
爆発しろ
Bakuhatsu shiro
The full phrase is “Rea-juu bakuhatsu shiro”, abuse from net dwellers to people talking about having too much of a real life, so they should go and blow themselves up
52.3
33
どや顔
Doyagao
Smug face, and part of the name of a television program where it gets translated as “face of pride”
51.9
34
ワロタ
Warota
Slang spelling of “laugh”, used like LOL in English
50.0
35
おつ
Otsu
Short for “Otsukaresamadeshita”, a stock phrase meaning “Thank you for your hard work”
47.7
goo ranking,slangAs much as I liked the familiar confines of The Bridge Studio conference room, I much prefer the season 3 writers’ room with its impressive view (see above).
The most important thing when spinning, next to the stories (well, some would argue AS important) is lunch options. Where’s good to eat? Being right downtown by the water, we have plenty of options: Miku, Meat & Bread, La Taqueria. At the end of these three weeks, even if we fail to break single story, the lunches we’ll enjoy will make it all worthwhile.
Hey, eagle-eyed Stargate fans, notice that yellow mass in the distant background? Look familiar? Maybe this will refresh your memories…
That giant pile of sulphur has been sitting there for some 20 years now (at least)! Yes, giant pile of sulphur. I imagine the cast and crew had a great time shooting in that particular location.
The Dark Matter season 3 writers’ room. Pictured from left to right: Executive Producer Paul Mullie on the phone with agent planning his exit strategy, Supervising Producer Ivon Bartok resisting the donuts, Story Editor Alison Hepburn tapping her archival knowledge of the show’s first two seasons. Not pictured: Supervising Producer Lawren Bancroft-Wilson (it was too early for him as this picture was taken at 11 am…in the morning!), and yours truly.
Today’s Dark Matter sneak peek screen shot – something a little…moody.
Oooh, check it out. TVInsider has some sexy first look photos from Dark Matter’s second season, shot by uber-awesome photographer Norman Wong.
First Look Dark Matter Season 2
You like?
A little something for the Stargate fans – early puddle jumper designs by Peter Bodnarus…
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Like this: Like Loading...Image copyright Reuters/Kyodo Image caption Shigeaki Hinohara was a well known and highly respected figure in Japan
Shigeaki Hinohara, one of Japan's most famous doctors, has died at the age of 105.
Dr Hinohara continued seeing patients until months before his death and frequently offered advice on how to live well.
Described by his colleagues as Japan's national treasure, he headed five foundations in addition to being the president of St Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo.
Here are some highlights from his remarkable life.
He began working during World War Two
Dr Hinohara began his working life as a doctor at St Luke's in the 1940s.
During the war he helped to treat victims of the firebombing that destroyed large parts of the Japanese capital.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Much of Tokyo was destroyed by bombing in World War Two
He once survived a plane hijacking
In 1970 Dr Hinohara was a passenger on a Japan Airlines plane hijacked by the communist militant group, the Japanese Red Army.
The hijackers, who were armed with swords and pipe bombs, took 129 hostages on the flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka, later releasing them at Fukuoka and the South Korea capital Seoul before flying on to North Korea where they were offered political asylum.
In a 2008 interview with the Japan Times, Dr Hinohara said the hijackers had explosives strapped to them "and we were terrorised, wondering whether the negotiations might break down".
He wrote the script for a musical
A great music lover, Dr Hinohara, at the age of 88, wrote a script for a Japanese musical entitled The Fall of Freddie the Leaf.
The show was first performed in 2000 and Dr Hinohara also acted in the production, dancing with children, the Japan Times reported.
TV appearances into old age
Dr Hinohara frequently appeared on Japanese television, urging audiences to have more fun in their lives and to ward off illness by always giving themselves something to look forward to.
On TV and through a best-selling anthology of essays called How to Live Well, he encouraged others to do away with strict rules on when to eat and sleep. One of his last pieces of advice was; always take the stairs and keep up your strength by carrying your own bags.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Dr Hinohara believed in keeping an active social life. He met Japanese Empress Michiko at this concert in 2016
"We all remember how as children, when we were having fun, we often forgot to eat or sleep," he once said.
"I believe we can keep that attitude as adults - it is best not to tire the body with too many rules such as lunchtime and bedtime."
Contributions to healthcare in Japan
In 1954 Dr Hinohara introduced Japan's system of comprehensive annual medical check-ups - called "human dry-dock" - which have been credited with greatly contributing to the country's longevity.
He was also a strong advocate of maintaining an active social life into old age.
Dr Hinohara became director of St Luke's in the early 1990s and, according to the Japan Times, had oxygen tubes installed throughout the building in 1994 to prepare for mass casualties if an earthquake struck the capital.
The next year, a sarin gas attack on Tokyo's metro by members of a cult killed at least 12 and injured thousands but the hospital was able to cope with the number of patients because of Dr Hinohara's preparations, the Times says.
'Most energetic person I have ever met'
Many tributes have been paid to Dr Hinohara, including by the Japan Times journalist Judit Kawaguchi, who knew him well.
She told the BBC World Service World Update programme that he had amazing energy and drive.
"I met him when he was already in his 90s and I would say he drastically changed my mind about ageing because even then he was working 18 hours, seven days a week, and he was the most energetic person I've ever met," she said.
"He believed that life is all about contribution, so he had this incredible drive to help people, to wake up early in the morning and do something wonderful for other people. This is what was driving him and what kept him living."
She added: "He always had today's goals, tomorrow's and the next five years. I feel very sad that he died because his dream was to attend the Olympics in Tokyo in 2020. That was his next big goal and he couldn't make it.
"But he was just an amazing, amazing person and everybody who met him was transformed because of him."FC Dallas Homegrown forward Bryan Reynolds is headed to the U-17 FIFA World Cup in India as a member of the U.S. U-17 National Team.
Reynolds is the youngest of 21 players selected by head coach John Hackworth as the Americans look for its first U-17 World Cup title in what will be their 12th appearance in the highest international competition for the age group.
The U.S. U-17s depart for a training stint in Dubai on September 24 before opening their group stage against the hosts, India, on Oct. 6. They will compete in Group A against India, Colombia and Ghana.
Dallas’ youngest professional signing spent all of the 2016-17 school year at the U-17 Residency Program in Bradenton, Fla. and has earned seven U-17 National Team call-ups in the 2017 calendar year alone, including winning the CONCACAF U-17 Championship with a goal and an assist starting in the final three matches.
U.S. U-17 World Cup Schedule
Date Time (CT) Opponent
Oct. 6 9:30 a.m. India
Oct. 9 6:30 a.m. Ghana
Oct. 12 9:30 a.m. Colombia
U.S. 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup Roster
GOALKEEPERS (3):Alex Budnik (Sockers FC; Arlington Heights, Ill.), Carlos Joaquim Dos Santos (S.L. Benfica; Philadelphia, Penn.), Justin Garces (Atlanta United FC; Miami, Fla.)
DEFENDERS (6):Sergiño Dest (Ajax; Almere-stad, Netherlands), Christopher Gloster (New York Red Bulls; Montclair, N.J.), Jaylin Lindsey (Sporting Kansas City; Charlotte, N.C.), James Sands (New York City FC; Rye, N.Y.), Tyler Shaver (New York City FC; Greenwich, Conn.),Akil Watts (Portland Timbers, Fort Wayne, Ind.)
MIDFIELDERS (6):George Acosta (North Carolina FC; Hollywood, Fla.), Taylor Booth (Real Salt Lake; Eden, Utah), Christopher Durkin (D.C. United; Glen Allen, Va.), Blaine Ferri (Solar Soccer Club; Southlake,Texas), Chris Goslin (Atlanta United FC; Locust Grove, Ga.), Indiana Vassilev (Unattached; Savannah, Ga.)
FORWARDS (6):Ayo Akinola (Toronto FC; Brampton Ont.), Andrew Carleton (Atlanta United FC; Powder Springs, Ga.), Jacobo Reyes (C.F. Monterrey; Houston, Texas), Bryan Reynolds (FC Dallas; Little Elm, Texas), Joshua Sargent (St. Louis Scott Gallagher Missouri; O'Fallon, Mo.), Tim Weah (Paris Saint-Germain F.C., Rosedale, N.Y.)Our fourth look at CBS Sports' Pat Kirwan's recent article addressing what it means to have depth in the NFL, we move away from the offensive line and instead, take a look at the running back position. Kirwan developed 13 questions, looking at key positions on the field and who would fill in if needed. In the end, Kirwan found that the defending Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks and the Cincinnati Bengals best fit the idea of "depth" on a roster.
In his "honorable mention" list, Kirwan placed the Washington Redskins, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Miami Dolphins, and a "tossup" between the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers. Explaining how the Dolphins, and the other teams, landed on that list, Kirwan wrote, "they don't satisfy all the categories but they did better than most teams hitting on at least nine of the 13."
Since the Dolphins met the entry criteria for the depth discussion by having a backup quarterback that "can go at least 2-2 in a four-game stretch" with Matt Moore, the next question on Kirwan's list is:
Is there a quality second running back that can deliver a 100-yard rushing day if he had to start?
This is a yes at this point. Miami has three running backs who are capable of gaining 100 yards, led by Lamar Miller and Knowshon Moreno. Miller has one 100-yard game in his career, while Moreno adds three with four games over 90-yards. Although many Dolphins fans will be reticent to admit it, Daniel Thomas is also capable of rushing for 100-yards if needed, with two career games hitting that mark, and another over 90-yards.
While none of these three seem to be dominant runners, who are going to tally huge chunks of yardage each week, the change in Miami offensive schemes may be exactly what the running back group needs. New offensive coordinator Bill Lazor should commit to the run, especially compared to Mike Sherman's offense last year that almost seemed afraid to try to run the ball. Add in a revamped offensive line, which should provide a huge upgrade in run blocking compared to last year, and any of the three could break out a 100-yard performance if needed.
The Miami running back group may not be the greatest trio of running backs assembled, but they should be considered to have decent depth where, if something were to happen to one of the three, the other two could provide prodcution in the starter's absence.
That would be the defintion of depth, and would answer Kirwan's question.Best Value Motorcycle of the Year: Yamaha FZ-07
Bang for the buck. That’s what it comes down to when you talk about value. Whether it’s refrigerators or motorcycles, getting a good value boils down to receiving more than expected for an item’s price tag. Of course, it doesn’t hurt when that price tag is a mere $6990, as is the case with the Yamaha FZ-07, Motorcycle.com’s returning champion in the Value category.
Best Value Bike Of 2014
What makes the FZ-07 a good value is its 689cc, 270-degree parallel-Twin. It’s a gem of an engine that doesn’t sound or behave like your typical inline-Twin. However, what makes the FZ a great value are the line items you won’t see on a spec chart. Simply put, the bike makes you smile. Twist that throttle and the bike comes to life, easily whooping up wheelies in the first two gears (and the third one, too, if you’re really good). That wonderful engine is supported by brakes that also perform better than expected for the price. Sure, the suspension could use an upgrade to suit heavy and/or aggressive riders, but it handles surprisingly well with the budget KYB suspension. If you consider the FZ a blank canvas just waiting for customization, its value increases even more.
2015 Yamaha FZ-07 First Ride Review
In addition to winning our Value category last year, the FZ-07 scooped up a few other awards, too. In our 2014 Middleweight Mash-Up Six-Way Shootout, the Yamaha proved that low price doesn’t have to mean boring performance, as it went on to win top honors in a test among its peers. It punched so high above its weight class, we even awarded it Honorable Mention for our coveted Motorcycle of the Year award in 2014. We love the bike no less this year, but the crop of new entries means the MOTY runner-up spot won’t be going to the FZ. Still, how can you beat a bike that’s as fun and affordable as the FZ-07? Yamaha calls it “the ultimate sportbike for under $7k,” and you know what? We agree.
Honorable Mention: CSC Cyclone RX3
When it comes to an Adventure-Touring motorcycle in size 250cc resembling a BMW R1200GS or Triumph Explorer, the CSC Cyclone RX3 is the only game in the U.S.A. Dimensionally, the RX3 isn’t too big nor too small. Its 31.3-inch seat height is shorter than full-size A-T bikes but minimally taller than the 250cc/300cc sportbikes from competing OEMs such as Honda’s CBR300R or Yamaha’s YZF-R3. At 386 pounds (claimed curb weight), the Cyclone isn’t the lightest 250 to be found, but it’s sub-400 heft is much easier to manage in off-road circumstances than traditional full-size A-T bikes.
2015 CSC Cyclone RX3 Review
Zongshen is the name you’ll see on the fuel tank badge, but CSC is the U.S. representative responsible for selling the bikes, spare parts, accessories and addressing warranty issues. CSC Motorcycles is probably best known for its line of modern Mustangs, while Zongshen is one of China’s largest motorcycle manufacturers, producing in the neighborhood of 4,000 engines per day. Cyclone RX3 sales are consumer direct from CSC Motorcycles, but don’t be nervous, CSC recently hired Gerry Edwards, former service department manager at Brown BMW and RideNow, as the company’s service manager, indicating CSC’s commitment to providing customer service and support.
For $3,495, plus shipping ($500 max) the Cyclone RX3 comes exactly as pictured (after being either self-assembled or assembled by a local mechanic), including luggage and crash guards. The lockable hard bags don’t hold much and don’t have a quick-release function, but they’re standard equipment on a $3,500 bike!. Missing are handlebar brush guards, included are passenger grab handles. CSC offers a two-year unlimited mileage warranty further increasing the RX3’s value. If we’ve piqued your interest, make sure to read our review of the RX3 or check out the company’s website.
Motorcycle.com Best of 2015 CategoriesAfter a whirlwind season that included a 39-4 stint as interim head coach, an NBA record setting 73 wins, two consecutive seven game playoff series, the latter of which ended in heartbreaking defeat, Luke Walton could have been excused if he wanted to rest a little bit before totally jumping in as Lakers head coach. According to Walton’s friend (and Time Warner Cable Sportsnet anchor) Chris McGee, that’s not exactly what happened.
“Luke has been in that office or the gym every single day. I think he's had one day off since game seven [of the NBA Finals]," said McGee in an appearance on “The Popcorn Machine” with Joey Ramirez of Lakers.com. McGee noted that the only day he was certain Walton had taken off was the day his daughter was born.
"He's had maybe two or three days off literally since game seven. The day after game seven, he... drove from Norcal to SoCal, the morning after game seven, because you don't sleep after you lose game seven like that,” McGee continued. “They're up the next morning, they're driving back to L.A., and the day after that he's being introduced at the press conference, and then he's off to work, man.”
Walton’s heavy workload does make sense to some degree. He was unable to do many of the traditional duties of a head coach while finishing out his time as an assistant with Golden State, so Walton was always going to have to play a bit of catch-up when he officially got started as Lakers head coach. The team had the draft to prepare for, and then free agency, followed by many of the young Lakers returning to the facility to work with Walton and his staff before and after Las Vegas Summer League.
It sounds like it’s been a busy summer for Walton, but his taking on such a heavy workload is an encouraging sign that he’s willing to put in the time necessary to help improve his young team.
You can follow this author on Twitter at @hmfaigen.We love The X-Files. Among other things, it's about a man who believes in aliens. Who works for the FBI. Who don't like him. So they keep him in the basement. Full of tension and opaque conspiracies that took years to unravel, fans of The X-Files learned they weren't paranoid: The government really was out to get us.
The series ended in 2002 after nine years, followed by an altogether disappointing movie and a better season 10 in comic book form. But fans have long clamored for more.
In the best news we've heard in a long time, we now know that The X-Files will be getting a six-episode miniseries, starring the characters we know and love, the all-too-open-minded Fox Mulder (David Duchovy) and his cynical, no-nonsense partner, Dr. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson).
We don't know what the miniseries will hold. But we know what we want to see. Here's hoping showrunner Chris Carter will dish out what X-Files fans have been craving after a "thirteen-year commercial break," as he put it. Points like:
Romance
Stand-out episode: "all things"
Scully and Mulder: Their romance was the'ship that launched a thousand fanfiction stories.
Even though we saw their relationship develop over the seasons, it was heavily implied that the two partners were romantically involved, but never outrightly shown — until suddenly they were together. A hat-tip to episode "all things," where we see Scully exit a bedroom with Mulder still asleep in bed (written by Scully herself, Gillian Anderson).
We know from the movie X-Files: I Want to Believe that Mulder and Scully still live together. But it doesn't mean we won't see romantic tension. Mulder is always a believer, and Scully is always a skeptic, and that can make for some serious push and pull. Duchovny and Anderson, if bring you the fireworks, we'll bring the popcorn.
Video of 4kNMLRxcE1k
Horror
Stand-out episode: "The Host"
Holy crap, there were some scary episodes of The X-Files. "Home," from season 4, was so disturbing that Fox no longer airs it (although it can be found in syndication on other channels).
Although "Home" is frightening, it's also stomach turning. When it comes to creepy goodness, your mileage may vary, but my odometer is set to "The Host." But villain of that particular week is a man turned into a fluke by Chernobyl's radiation. He creeps me out--and I'm not the only one. In the (fabulous) season 4 episode, "The Field Where I Died," Mulder and Scully remember him all too well:
Mulder: "Early in the four years we've been working together... somebody told you that... we'd been friends together in other lifetimes... wouldn't it have changed some of the ways we looked at one another?"
Scully: "Even if I knew for certain, I wouldn't change a day. Well, maybe that Flukeman thing. I could've lived without that just fine."
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Humor
Stand-out episode: "X-Cops"
The X-Files was a dark show, full of suspense, paranoia, and a heed (and a password) to trust no one. But no thriller could do comedy like The X-Files.
Episodes like "Bad Blood" were outright hilarious, and "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" and "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" poked fun at itself in a way that few dramas would dare. It's not every show that can change its tone, repeatedly, and manage to stay true to itself. The X-Files did and did it spectacularly.
Although it's hard to choose from one of several hilarious episodes, "X-Cops," where reality TV show Cops collides with Mulder and Scully on duty, stands out just a little farther than the others because it manages to play with the tropes of not one show but two.
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References to Mulder's porn collection
Stand-out episode: "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose"
If you paid close attention, there were many sly references to Mulder's porn collection throughout the seasons, from season 1's "Jersey Devil" (where Scully catches Mulder looking at a skin mag) to season 7's "Hollywood A.D." (where a sound expert describes ambient sound as "the hum of my hardware, Mulder's porn tapes on pause, the sound from the street").
But the funniest moment comes from one of the show's best — if not the best — episodes: "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose." In it, Clyde Bruckman is an average man with the ability to see the details of a person's death. Although we never learn if his prediction comes true, he tells Mulder, "There are worse ways to go, but I can't think of a more undignified way than autoerotic asphyxiation."
It would tickle me down to my fangirl toes to see a reference to this in the new show.
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Overarching plot
Stand-out episode: "Sein und Zeit/Closure"
Between monster-of-the-week episodes and the occasional character-developing ones, The X-Files tells a story about aliens, the government's knowledge of their existence, and their plan to take over the Earth in the near future. But there's another storyline that is as essential to the show: What happened to Samantha Mulder?
Fox Mulder became the man Who Wants to Believe after he witnessed his young sister Samantha's abduction. This story arc is what drives Mulder, and his need to know The Truth is what makes him--and the show--so compelling. The new X-Files would benefit from this kind of purpose.
On a personal note: When we learn about Samantha's fate in "Closure," the song "My Weakness" by Moby plays in the background. The scene was so devastating to me, I've never been able to hear that song again.
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Solid talent
Stand-out episode: "Duane Barry/Ascension"
As with another fabulous television show where a conspiracy may or may not be happening — The Twilight Zone — The X-Files turned out to be a proving ground for many actors; the video below has a sample of some of them. We might not have known their names then, but we certainly know them now.
But to me, the standout guest actor wasn't a new kid on the block: Steve Railsback had previously starred in The Stuntman and Lifeforce. You can see him in the two-parter "Duane Barry" and "Ascension."
We hope the new casting directors are as canny as the previous ones.
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Science vs. urban legend
Stand-out episode: "War of the Coprophages"
The book Film, Folklore, and Urban Legends by Mikel J. Koven refers to The X-Files as "folklore files." That's because many episodes deal with everyday myths and urban legends and brings them to life (where Mulder can believe it in and Scully can debunk it). The Jersey Devil. The chupacabra. The golem. The soul eater. Plus, several episodes have enough science to make science fiction fans proud: A tattoo that causes hallucinations is actually ergot poisoning; an alien spaceship is actually a swarm of cockroaches.
The X-Files was a very smart show. Please, Chris Carter, let it stay that way.
For more on this, read The Real Science Behind the X-Files: Microbes, Meteorites, and Mutants by Anne Simon.)
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Other stand-out episodes, in no particular order:First introduced to the U.S. in 2008 as a non-California compliant 49-state model, Kawasaki’s Versys 650 immediately earned praise from journalists, experienced riders, and commuters who could appreciate its practical blending of a nimble sporting motorcycle – and – a truly comfortable chassis. Motorcycle.com’s loudest complaint about the original Versys was merely that it wasn’t legal in California, and even that fact couldn’t stop it from earning 2008 Motorcycle of the Year honors from one of the largest U.S. print mags.
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Kawasaki made the Versys legal everywhere in 2009 when it achieved California compliance. The 2010 update saw numerous small tweaks aimed at taming vibrations and minor cosmetic changes with the styling of its headlight while also eliminating an area of the upper fairing that loudly resonated, causing its panels to vibrate against each other at certain revs. The 2013 model Versys 650 gained ABS brakes in North America, a feature the rest of the world got in 2012.
2008 Kawasaki Versys Debut
This brings us to the rugged Italian island of Sicily for the press launch of the upgraded and significantly re-styled 2015 Kawasaki Versys 650 ABS and 650 LT sport/adventure motorcycles alongside their bigger brother, the Versys 1000 LT.
The 2015 Versys 650 LT was a hugely entertaining motorcycle to hustle along the tight, twisty Sicilian roads that are so familiar to older race fans, being the actual surface and several segments of the original route used for the legendary Targa Florio. Unsurprisingly, the new LT also remained comfortable and unflustered over the cobblestone streets, rough country lanes – and everywhere else on the island – something a modern superbike could never hope to achieve.
I’ve always suspected that the Versys’ riding position, particularly the bend and positioning of its handlebars, was just about perfect for transitioning back and forth through tight curves, making it seem like the Versys has honest sporting prowess baked right into its soul. That is something Versys class competitors like the Honda NC700X or Suzuki V-Strom really can’t offer, as they simply lack the nimbleness, feedback, and outright pace when the going gets truly fast. Those performance traits seeped-through every pore as we flogged the 650 LTs over the serpentine volcanic roads along the slopes of Mt. Etna.
Kawasaki wisely decided to update the homely face of the Versys 650 with a new upper fairing and sleek side-by-side headlights inspired by Kawasaki’s Ninja models. The new “Kawasaki Face” effectively transforms both the 650 and the (previously hideous) Versys 1000 directly into, dare I say, pretty motorcycles. As an added bonus, the new fairing upper is larger than the outgoing version and mounts a taller and wider windscreen that can now be height-adjusted without any tools.
The added protection of the larger fairing and screen were much appreciated, as the press ride took our group through chilly temps and a fairly heavy rain shower. Weather management was fairly effective, diverting water into areas of the slipstream that channeled around instead of splashing-into me. Also appreciated, were the LT model’s standard hand guards which reduced the soaking around my hands and wrists, as well lessening the wind-chill factor. That’s a pretty good deal if you ask me: better looking and more effective.
Kawasaki switched to a new one-piece exhaust design that they claim boosts high-rpm power. I really didn’t notice much of a difference in thrust during our ride; what I did notice was that the 2015 model’s redline has actually been lowered by 500 rpm to 10,000, a fact Kawasaki didn’t mention in the technical briefing. Another one they didn’t mention: the 2015 engine’s compression ratio is now listed as two tenths higher, from 10.6:1 to 10.8:1. They did, however, mention that the bike’s ECU tuning has been tweaked to improve fuel efficiency, but they did not have details to share.
Definitely worth sharing is the fact the 2015 model received a half-gallon fuel capacity boost thanks to a new tank with a wider top section. Coupled with the ECU tweaks, Kawasaki claims the 2015 model’s 5.5-gallon tank will take it farther than ever. I average right around 140 miles between fill-ups on my own 2009 (5-gallon) Versys, but I’m a very aggressive rider. The average commuter or tourer should see close to 200 miles or more between fill-ups on a 2015 model.
The Versys received a rubber-isolated upper-rear engine mount for the 2010 model, but Kawasaki has now isolated the pair of front mounts in a continued attempt to quell the natural vibes of the 180-degree crank in its 649cc parallel-Twin powerplant. While they were at it, they swapped the handlebar mounts to rubber-equipped units as well. The 2010 modification was of only minor benefit, as it made marginal difference to overall vibration levels.
However, it took less than a mile of riding to discover that those two new rubber engine mounts and the isolated bars have taken the Versys 650 ABS and LT models into entirely new territory: parallel-Twins that actually feel smooth in the real world. The overwhelming impression compared to previous models is one of refinement – no rattling noises, no tingling body parts, just nice, usable thrust easily accessible for whatever a rider desires.
Speaking of rattles and rider annoyances, older Versys models seem to suffer from overly notchy shifting that could occasionally even be described as clunky. Kawasaki didn’t make any claims for gearbox refinements, but I |
when it comes to IoT and the smart home is like a power outage. Actually, it's probably worse.
When you buy into the Internet of Things (IoT) and cobble together a smart home, the results can be life-changing.
Amazon, the Echo and Alexa have brought voice commands to the home. It's amazing because it works so well and connects to so many different third-party smart home devices and internet services.
When utilities and appliances in your home — lights, thermostats, fans, etc. — are controlled with your voice and need the internet to work, it reminds you how much we take the "series of tubes" for granted.
A dead internet connection, when it comes to IoT and the smart home, is like a power outage. Actually, it's probably worse.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.article
Starting in January 2017, Google’s web browser, Chrome, will treat any website encoded in HTTP as a non-secure site if it transmits credit card information or passwords, the tech company has revealed. HTTPS - Hypertext Transport Protocol Secure - is the preferred method for transmitting personal information online. It includes encryption using either Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS). HTTP, the other form of the main programming language used in website development, does not use either of these encryption methods.
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Chrome currently does not flag HTTP connections as insecure, but it does not show that they are secure, either. Instead, they are treated as neutral. The issue with HTTP websites is that, as explained by the security team responsible for Chrome, anyone can view the website someone is viewing if they are on the same network. Often, the other party may be able to change the website while it is being viewed, creating a major security concern. HTTPS, on the other hand, cannot be viewed or manipulated in any way.
Google is concerned about users sending personal information across unsecured websites because this opens the door for identity theft. As the most popular web browser in use today, more than half of all internet users access websites via Google Chrome. By making users more aware of online security, Google hopes to decrease online identity theft.
If you would like to prevent identity theft, check out our credit monitoring service.
This article was provided by our partners at moneytips.com.
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Catch And Dispute Unwanted Credit Card ChargesThe most absurd issue of our time is the forced acceptance of transgenderism.
The self-proclaimed “party of science” is using the state and media propaganda to silence all opposition through fear.
According to trannies and their supporters, it’s now a hate crime of sorts to improperly refer to their preferred pronouns.
Even worse, however, is their insistence that it’s hateful and bigoted for straight men to not find fake women attractive. The world has truly gone mad.
As reported at the The Blaze, one radical tranny activist doesn’t just want access to your daughter’s locker room or bathroom, this individual wants straight men to “work through” their lack of desire for pretend women.
Zinnia Jones, a man pretending to be a woman, thinks straight men should be willing to be romantic with biological men who identify as women. And if they aren’t willing to do that, Jones thinks their opinions should be treated as problematic and taboo by society.
“Nobody has to be with anyone they don’t want,” Jones said in Twitter thread, but then adds, “AND it’s okay to have a baseline social norm of treating trans women as the women they are.”
I guess it’s unsurprising to expect someone suffering such delusions to recognize the contradictions inherent in the statement.
But Jones was only getting started with his rant.
“Being exclusionary of trans women partners should be an outlier and marginal position for straight men, not some commonplace expectation.
These angry declarations that they have some absolute right to not want to be with trans women are just misplaced and inappropriate,” he tweeted.
You hear that, straight guys? You don’t have a natural right to not be attracted to men playing at women.
“I also don’t believe the blanket claim of ‘straight men don’t want to be with someone who has a d***!'” Jones added.
This is what for thousands of years doctors, scholars, philosophers, and commoners alike would have called “mental illness.”
But somewhere along the recent way, the script was flipped. Now the folks with mental problems are those of us that think a child born with a penis is a boy.
Such illogical thought is endangering our nation and children. Seriously.
These people need help, not the proverbial rope with which to hang themselves. We help those suffering from depression, with over-eating issues, etc., but to suggest helping one of these people is considered heresy.
It’s time to draw a line in the sand and put an end to the Left’s destruction of the social order.
Source: The BlazeIf we were all honest with ourselves, I am sure that we could recall a momentary lapse into delinquency at some point in our childhood, whether it was throwing a temper tantrum over a puzzle piece or being a smart alec to a teacher. These very same delinquencies today can now land a child in jail.
As a former educator in an inner-city school populated almost entirely by black students, I know too intimately the disheartening effects of this course of action on students. Children of color, particularly those with special needs, are disproportionately being funneled into detention centers and alternative schools—a practice known as the “School-to-Prison Pipeline.” I have witnessed first-hand my own student, in desperate need of social services, carted off in handcuffs for an offense that could have been avoided by a little care and concern from the administration. I have encountered ordinary teenagers whose lives were so consumed by the criminal justice system that they barely ever attended school and now boast reading levels so low that they are technically classified as mentally retarded. Once students are propelled down the pipeline, the effects are virtually irreversible—their contact with the criminal justice system brands them with a scarlet letter that creates barriers to re-entry into traditional schools, puts them behind their peers, and haunts them later in life as they may dropout, or be denied student loans, public housing, or occupational licenses.
Judge Steve Teske of Clayton County, GA, has been a vocal critic about the criminalization of children for minor school infractions, asserting that “[z]ero tolerance is zero intelligence.” While educators often feel impotent in the face of such a daunting struggle, it is refreshing and encouraging to see that the legal world, from litigators to the bench, has adopted the cause and is making strides to reform school discipline around the country. The Washington Post recently published a story about how Judge Steve Teske has used his influence to raise awareness of the “School-to-Prison-Pipeline.” In his days as a juvenile judge in Clayton County, Georgia, Judge Teske witnessed school-based offenses soar from 46 in 1995 to over 1,200 in 2003—95% of which were misdemeanors. This prompted him to meet with educators, law enforcement officers, social service and mental health counselors, parents, and students to encourage them to devise a new protocol for handling minor offenses. Between 2003 and 2010, Clayton County experienced a 70% decrease in school referrals to juvenile court.
The ACLU has also been instrumental in the School-to-Prison Pipeline reform efforts. Together, the ACLU and NYCLU are suing the City of New York on behalf of middle and high school students in NYC public schools, challenging the unconstitutional policies and practices of NYPD’s School Safety Division. Officers have been known to routinely and unlawfully arrest children for minor violations of school rules that do not amount to criminal activity, and to frequently detain these students off school grounds. Officers are also known to use excessive force against children—pushing, shoving, grabbing and striking them to the point that medical care or hospitalization is required.
Our country’s growing reliance on zero-tolerance has created a trend in public education to remove and exclude “difficult” children for single occurrences of what is often minor misconduct. This trend, however, really only detracts from the real, underlying issue, which is that many of these children are vulnerable or troubled and need help. School discipline should be about behavior modification and coping mechanisms. Arrest should be a last resort.
Learn more about discrimination: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.20 hours of TV weekly may nearly halve sperm count; 15 or more hours of moderate to vigorous exercise weekly may boost sperm count
For immediate release: Monday, February 4, 2013
Boston, MA — Men’s sperm quality may be significantly affected by their levels of physical activity, according to a new study led by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). They found that healthy young men who were sedentary, as measured by hours of TV viewing, had lower sperm counts than those who were the most physically active.
“We know very little about how lifestyle may impact semen quality and male fertility in general so identifying two potentially modifiable factors that appear to have such a big impact on sperm counts is truly exciting,” said lead author Audrey Gaskins, a doctoral student at HSPH.
The study will be published online February 4, 2013 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Gaskins and her colleagues analyzed the semen quality of 189 men between the ages of 18 to 22 participating in the Rochester Young Men’s Study during 2009–2010 at the University of Rochester. The men were asked about their physical activity and TV-watching habits, in addition to health issues that may affect their sperm quality, such as diet, stress levels, and smoking.
Results showed that men who watched more than 20 hours of TV weekly had a 44% lower sperm count than those who watched almost no TV. Men who exercised for 15 or more hours weekly at a moderate to vigorous rate had a 73% higher sperm count than those who exercised less than 5 hours per week. Mild exercise did not affect sperm quality.
“The majority of the previous studies on physical activity and semen quality had focused on professional marathon runners and cyclists, who reach physical activity levels that most people in the world cannot match. We were able to examine a range of physical activity that is more relevant to men in the general population,” said [[Jorge Chavarro]], senior author of the study and assistant professor of nutrition and epidemiology at HSPH.
The authors caution that, while a reduced sperm count has been linked to lower fertility, it does not necessarily preclude men from fathering a child.
Support for the study was provided by National Institutes of Health grants T32DK007703-16 and P30DK46200 and European Union DEER Grant 212844.
For more information:
Todd Datz
[email protected]
617.432.8413
###
Harvard School of Public Health (https://www.hsph.harvard.edu) is dedicated to advancing the public’s health through learning, discovery, and communication. More than 400 faculty members are engaged in teaching and training the 1,000-plus student body in a broad spectrum of disciplines crucial to the health and well being of individuals and populations around the world. Programs and projects range from the molecular biology of AIDS vaccines to the epidemiology of cancer; from risk analysis to violence prevention; from maternal and children’s health to quality of care measurement; from health care management to international health and human rights. For more information on the school visit: https://www.hsph.harvard.eduA file photo of Gov. Brian Sandoval. (Photo: Kevin Clifford/AP)
Gov. Brian Sandoval said on Wednesday that he supports efforts to lure the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas and plans to call a special session of the Legislature "as soon as can be practicably accomplished."
"It is my intention to begin a special session no earlier than Friday, October 7 and no later than Thursday, October 13, pending conversations with legislative leadership," Sandoval said in a written statement issued Wednesday evening. "The formal proclamation detailing the agenda will not be made until a later date."
The governor said in the statement that this will give the Washoe and Clark County commissions time to fill vacancies beforehand.
"The appointments to fill legislative vacancies by the Washoe and Clark County Commissions will not occur until the last week of September and first week of October, respectively. I feel strongly that any newly appointed or current legislators should be given enough time to review the recommendations and conduct their own due diligence and to allow for ample time to prepare," Sandoval said in the statement.
With somewhat surprising uniformity, Washoe County Commissioners announced their finalists for each of the three vacancies in Northern Nevada.
For Senate District 13, left vacant by the late Sen. Debbie Smith, all five commissioners recommended Sparks Councilwoman Julia Ratti, who is already running for the seat. For Senate District 15, left vacant by Sen. Greg Brower, four commissioners recommended Reno developer Jesse Haw. Only Commissioner Jeanne Herman recommended Tom Taber for SD 15.
For Assembly District 25, the commissioners were more split. But Reno real estate agent Dominic Brunetti still earned three recommendations. Commissioner Martha Berkbigler recommended Jim Nadeau, a lobbyist and former sheriff's captain; while Herman recommended former Washoe County Undersheriff Todd Vinger.
Haw also is president of the Reno-Tahoe Open foundation. He replaced the father of one of the stadium's chief lobbyists in that position.
That lobbyist, John Sande, also has connections to Brunetti. The two played football together at Stanford University and remain friends.
A total of 28 candidates submitted their names for consideration. Ten were not eligible.
County commissions in the Reno and Las Vegas areas plan to meet next week to fill five vacancies in the Nevada Legislature. Raising hotel taxes would require two-thirds support among the 63 state lawmakers.
Sandoval also said that he recently met with Raiders owner Mark Davis, who "was committed and resolute in the team’s interest in relocating to our state."
The Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee last week recommended raising hotel taxes in the Las Vegas area to help put $750 million toward a 65,000-seat stadium. Las Vegas Sands casino magnate Sheldon Adelson plans to put $650 million toward the venue, which is projected to cost nearly $2 billion.
"I am convinced that, given the circumstances and timing with regard to public safety, the Convention Center, and the NFL, there is an opportunity to significantly improve the tourism infrastructure of Southern Nevada – already the best the in the world," Sandoval said.
Three-quarters of NFL owners would need to approve any team relocation, and they could do so when they meet in January. Officials in Oakland, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, said they're hopeful the team can stay in the Bay Area.
"You never want to see a community lose their franchise once, much less twice," Goodell said Sunday. "I think we can do it in Oakland. I think there's a solution there, but it takes the community to help identify it."
Opposition from lawmakers has been few and far between. However, several grassroots organizations like Battle Born Progress and the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada all oppose the plan, as does the powerful Culinary Union Local 226 in Las Vegas.
Northern lawmakers have expressed hesitancy regarding the massive public contribution. Several were also critical of how quickly the process is moving given the general election is less than 50 days away, feeling appropriate time isn’t being given to vet the plan.
Partisan votes won’t get the package passed since two-thirds of both chambers are needed for approval. Republicans control both the Assembly and the Senate, but do not have a supermajority and will need Democrats to reach the necessary total.
The session will also come at an awkward time for Democrats given billionaire Sheldon Adelson’s involvement in the project. Reports surfaced Monday that Adelson and his wife Miriam will spend at least $45 million helping Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and downballot Republicans. Democrats will have to decide whether or not to back public funding for a man actively working against them one month before the election.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
FULL STATEMENT BY GOV. BRIAN SANDOVAL ON SNTIC RECOMMENDATIONS AND SPECIAL SESSION TIMING:
“In July 2015, I convened the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee in order to address the challenges unique to Clark County’s tourism industry and provide recommendations on maintaining our rightful position as the top entertainment, convention, and tourism destination in the world. For more than a year, the committee has conducted 16 public meetings to examine ideas and proposals. Last week, I received the Committee’s recommendations, all related to the infrastructure and related public safety needs of Las Vegas.
“After receiving the recommendations on Friday, I have thoroughly reviewed the committee’s documents and I am comfortable with the recommendations related to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority expansion, additional support for law enforcement, and the development of a county-owned stadium that could host a National Football League franchise and be the home of University of Nevada, Las Vegas football. I am convinced that, given the circumstances and timing with regard to public safety, the Convention Center, and the NFL, there is an opportunity to significantly improve the tourism infrastructure of Southern Nevada – already the best the in the world.
“Based on the current environment, I believe a special session of the Legislature is warranted and should be called as soon as can be practicably accomplished. The appointments to fill legislative vacancies by the Washoe and Clark County Commissions will not occur until the last week of September and first week of October, respectively. I feel strongly that any newly appointed or current legislators should be given enough time to review the recommendations and conduct their own due diligence and to allow for ample time to prepare for a special session of the Nevada Legislature. That is why it is my intention to begin a special session no earlier than Friday, October 7 and no later than Thursday, October 13, pending conversations with legislative leadership. The formal proclamation detailing the agenda will not be made until a later date.
“I have twice called special sessions to diversify Nevada’s economy and create new jobs in emerging industries. Just as I have met with the top leaders prior to those announcements, this week I met with the owner of the Raiders, Mark Davis. He was committed and resolute in the team’s interest in relocating to our state. I have also spoken with Clark County Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Joe Lombardo, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority President and CEO Rossi Ralenkotter, and gaming and labor leaders.
“We have before us the opportunity to invest in Nevada’s most foundational industry, tourism, by providing for the infrastructure and public safety needs of the 21st century. We can and must usher in a new era for tourism in the Las Vegas market, while keeping our citizens and visitors safe, and ensuring our position as the global leader in entertainment and hospitality.”
Read or Share this story: http://on.rgj.com/2dkUjMgJust about a year old now, the PlayStation Vita has struggled to catch fire in the handheld gaming market. Back in January, Sony Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai admitted sales are "on the low end" of the company's expectations. On top of that, Sony, for a third time, has revised their estimated sales forecast for the Vita. In today's Q3 earnings report, Sony announced that they now expect to sell a combined 7 million PSP and Vita devices by March 31, 2013, down from the late November forecast of 10 million combined.
I firmly believe it's too early to call the system a flop, but sitting around and waiting for it to pick up steam isn't going to cut it anymore. Even the 3DS required a price cut before it began selling to the masses. The point is, something must be done and Sony recognizes this, admitting today that they need "to do a better job in promoting the PlayStation Vita."
"Gaming business software is the name of the game. So as a fundamental measure, we are putting all — a lot of resources, not just first party, but also asking third parties to put out more attractive software," Sony's Chief Financial Officer Masaru Kato acknowledged. To be fair, the Vita has had its fair share of quality titles, Gravity Rush and Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation to name a few. But it has also had a good amount of flops: Black Ops: Declassified and Resistance: Burning Skies come to mind.
The good thing is, looking ahead, the Vita has several promising looking titles coming up. In September of this year we have Killzone: Mercenary and sometime in 2013 we'll see the launch of Tearaway, a charming adventure game that sees you interact with a papercraft world. Of course, it can't just be up to Sony to support the Vita, third party developers have to join in as well. Sony is seeing the same thing with the Vita as Nintendo is with the Wii U. Until they get a substantial user base, it will be tough to attract third party developers.
Of course, it doesn't just come down to games for the Vita. As Kato said, "That's just the basics."
"The other thing, well, marketing, pricing of the product, et cetera, I cannot talk about pricing of this platform, but those are the things that we are looking into to improve our profitability in the mobile handheld gaming business."
Sony recently unveiled the PlayStation Plus Instance Game Collection PS Vita Bundle. This included a Vita 3G Wi-Fi system, 1-year PS Plus membership, a Unit 13 game voucher, and a 4 GB Memory Card for $299.99. But is that really enough to attract consumers in a down economy?
Despite being a year old and failing to generate the buzz the company had hoped it would, the Vita has not yet seen a price cut. Sure, Sony has had some great ideas, especially with the Cross Buy promotion. For those unfamiliar, this is a great offer that, when you purchase a PlayStation 3 game, gives you a free copy of the Vita version — provided there is one to give. Unfortunately, this promotion is limited by the Vita and PS3's technology differences.
Who knows though, with the PS4 presumably being announced this month, maybe it will have development environments similar to that of the Vita's. That would certainly allow for more games to take advantage of this promotion.
One thing is certain, though. Sony must act on the PlayStation Vita. At least they recognize something must be done.Characteristic of the high-profile and high-stakes discussions about the future of nuclear power in Japan are two adjacent articles on Wednesday, October 23 in one of the world’s largest daily newspapers, the Yomiuri Shinbun: in one article, “Zero Nuclear Energy Society Best for Japan”, popular former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi argues that Japan should remain non-nuclear. Koizumi wrote his article in reaction to a pro-nuclear editorial in the Yumiuri Shinbun on October 8. Koizumi uses two main points to argue for a non-nuclear future for Japan:
A zero nuclear policy for Japan can “unify the people” to transform Japan into a society using natural energy sources, and there is no solution now and for the foreseeable future for the long-term storage of spent-fuel, because there is too much opposition in Japan against constructing long-term storage facilities
Placed next to Prime Minister Koizumi’s article, Yomiuri Shinbun Editorial Writer Yuzuru Endo argued strongly for a resumption of nuclear power in Japan.
These articles represent the division of Japanese society in people against nuclear power, including Prime Minister Koizumi, industry leader Masayoshi Son, Nobel Prize Winner Kenzaburo Oe, against supporters of restarting and keeping nuclear power, which includes the current Japanese Goverment.
The fact is that on Sunday, September 15, 2013, Kansai Electric Power (KEPCO) started to shut-down Japan’s last remaining nuclear power reactor (Oi No. 4 reactor), and stopped its operation in the morning of September 16, 2013. Therefore Japan is non-nuclear since September 16, 2013.
To understand Japan’s current energy situation, it is important to understand why Japan is non-nuclear at this time, and for the foreseeable future.
Japan is not non-nuclear because of a clear Government decision to switch off nuclear power. There is no Japanese Government decision to go non-nuclear at this time. On the contrary, the current Japanese government is decidedly pro-nuclear and expresses the wish to restart nuclear power plants as soon as possible.
The reason why all Japanese nuclear power plants are switched off is that in Japan, all nuclear power plants must be switched off for maintenance and checks after each period of 13 months. After maintenance and checks are completed, nuclear reactors are switched on again with approval of the local authorities and the nuclear regulators. Before the Fukushima accident, these approvals were typically granted without any problems. However, after Fukushima, it has proven impossible to obtain these approvals to restart reactors after maintenance.
The fact that Japan is non-nuclear in Japan is not the result of a unified policy, but its the expression and the consequence of the deep division in Japanese society about the future of nuclear energy. The fact that Japan is nuclear-free today also demonstrates the power of local government leaders in Japan’s democratic processes.
Although the present Government of Japan is decidedly pro-nuclear, at this moment in time it is impossible to predict whether nuclear power will ever be switched back on in Japan. Japan is a very democratic country – whether nuclear power will ever be used again in Japan will be the result of Japan’s democratic processes.It’s taken almost forever but now both Miitomo and My Nintendo are live! Albeit they are only live in Japan at this current moment in time, the fact remains they are now both officially out and it is now just a manner of days before the rest of the globe gets to experience these new delights.
Nintendo’s first mobile game is ready for download and if you do fancy trying to get it early you can, you just need to configure your shop settings on your phone to being in Japan, so that you can download Miitomo, which is comes in English (one of eight langauges). But why settle for the mobile when instead we can go nuts over the fact that My Nintendo is now in action and already a list of rewards have been unveiled for those using the new account system from Nintendo? It is uncertain if they same rewards will be available to the rest of the world, or if each region will have a certain set, but for now, here is everything we now about the rewards:
Miitomo:
Mario Suit – 250 Platinum Points (Can be redeemed until the 1 st of May, 2016)
1 game ticket – 85 Platinum Points (Can be redeemed 5 times until the 1 st 0f April, 2016)
5 game tickets – 420 Platinum Points (Can only be redeemed 2 times until the 1 st of April)
10 game tickets – 250 Platinum Points (Can only be redeemed 1 time)
Discounts:
20% off Mario Kart 8 (Wii U) – 950 Platinum Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1 st of July)
20% off Dr. Luigi (Wii U) – 230 Platinum Points (Can only be redeemed once time until the 1 st of July)
20% off New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS) – 750 Platinum Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1 st of July)
20% off Brain Age: Concentration Training (3DS) – 600 Platinum Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1 st of July)
40% off Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D (3DS) – 130 Gold Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1 st of July)
40% off Ultimate NES Remix (3DS) – 105 Gold Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1 st of July)
50% off Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move (3DS) – 50 Gold Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1 st of July)
40% off New Super Mario Bros. U (Wii U) – 160 Gold Points – (Can only be redeemed once until the 1 st of July)
50% off Metroid: Other M (Wii U) – 90 Gold Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1st of July)
50% off Super Mario Galaxy (Wii U) – 90 Gold Points (Can only be redeemed once time until the 1st of July)
Games: (Old & New)
My Nintendo Picross – The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (3DS) – 1,000 Platinum Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1 st of October)
Super Mario 64 (Wii U) – 120 Gold Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1 st of August)
New Super Luigi U (Wii U) – 240 Gold Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1 st of August)
Pikmin 3 DLC: Battle Enemies! Stages 7-10 (Wii U) – 30 Gold Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1 st of August)
WarioWare: Touched! (3DS) – 1,000 Platinum Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1 st of July)
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (3DS) – 50 Gold Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1 st of July)
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (3DS) – 50 Gold Points Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii U) – 320 Gold Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1 st of July)
Metroid: Fusion (Wii U) – 85 Gold Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1st of August)
Super Punch-Out!! (Wii U) – 100 Gold Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1st of August)
3DS Themes:
My Nintendo Theme 1: Mario – 200 Platinum Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1 st of May)
My Nintendo Theme 2: Donkey Kong – 200 Platinum Points (Can only be redeemed once until the 1st of May)
Now if there is something in this list that you just have to get your hands on, be sure to check out the image below for information on how you can get yourself Platinum and Gold points:
Going by this list, buying software from the eShop seems the best way to go, but if like me, you prefer physical games to digital, you are more than welcome to stick to clearing the Miitomo missions such as listening to your friends answers 10 times a day, linking your Miitomo to Facebook, or even changing your Mii’s clothes once a day.
This is our first true glimpse into just what we can expect to see from Nintendo’s new account system and already they’re off to a good start, but we’d love to hear what you think of these rewards for My Nintendo and if you are interested in getting Miitomo for your phone. Or are you going to give it a miss altogether? Let us know!
Source: @NE_Brian of Nintendo Everything
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This post was written by Solid JackThis article is about the Tyrolean military hero. For other people, see Andreas Hofer (disambiguation)
Posthumous painting of Andreas Hofer
Andreas Hofer (November 22, 1767 – February 20, 1810) was a Tyrolean innkeeper and drover, who in 1809 became the leader of the Tyrolean Rebellion against the revolutionary Napoleonic invasion during the War of the Fifth Coalition. He was subsequently captured and executed.
Hofer is still today venerated as a folk hero, freedom fighter and Austrian patriot.
Life [ edit ]
Sandhof in St. Leonhard where Hofer was born and lived in St. Leonhard where Hofer was born and lived
Andreas Hofer was born 1767 in St. Leonhard in Passeier, in the Habsburg crown land of Tyrol. His father was an innkeeper of the Sandhof inn and Andreas followed in his footsteps when he inherited the establishment. He also traded wine and horses in adjacent Northern Italy and learned the Italian language. He married Anna Ladurner. In 1791 he was elected to the Tyrolean Landtag assembly. In German he was known as a Wirt (innkeeper) and thus ever after Sandwirt.
In the War of the Third Coalition against the French he became a sharpshooter and later a militia captain in the Austrian Imperial and Royal Army. After the Austrian defeat, Tyrol was transferred to the Kingdom of Bavaria (France's ally) according to the 1805 Treaty of Pressburg. During the stern measures of Minister Maximilian von Montgelas and the forced recruitment into the Bavarian Army, Hofer became a leader of the anti-Bavarian movement. In January 1809, he was part of a delegation to Vienna to ask Emperor Francis I of Austria for support for a possible uprising. The Emperor gave his assurances and the delegation returned home.
Hofer begun to secretly organize insurrection, visiting villagers and holding councils of war in local inns. Reputedly he was so much on the move that he signed his messages "Andreas Hofer, from where I am" and letters to him were addressed to "wherever he may be". At the same time other leaders organized their own forces elsewhere in the Alps. Hofer became a leader of a militia contingent in the Passeier Valley.
Armed rebellion begins [ edit ]
On the eve of the Battle of Bergisel, 1900 painting by Franz Defregger
The Tyrolean Rebellion began on 9 April 1809 in Innsbruck. The previous night, organizers dumped sacks of sawdust into the River Inn as a sign to start the rebellion; floating through the town and down the Inn Valley, it alerted the rebels. Church bells summoned men to fight with muskets and farmyard implements. They soon overran smaller Bavarian garrisons and surprised a column of French infantry that was passing through the area.
On April 11 Tyrolean militia defeated a Bavarian force in Sterzing which led to the occupation of Innsbruck before noon. Though French forces came across the Brenner Pass as a relief and a united French-Bavarian contingent counterattacked the next night, the Tyroleans fought them in the First Battle of Bergisel until Hofer and his allies won on the morning of the 13th. While Austrian forces under General Johann Gabriel Chasteler de Courcelles moved into the Tyrolean capital and installed a provisional government led by Joseph Hormayr, Hofer advanced south, taking Bozen and Trent.
Hopes of a successful rebellion waned when Napoleon defeated the Austrian forces of Archduke Charles of Austria in a series of battles of Teugen-Hausen, Abensberg, Eckmühl, and Ratisbon, whereafter the Austrian troops withdrew from Tyrol and Hofer had to pull back to the mountains. The French Marshal François Joseph Lefebvre took charge of the Tyrolean theatre, and Bavarian and Saxon forces under the command of Karl Philipp von Wrede on May 13 defeated the Austrians in a bloody skirmish at Wörgl. The Bavarians re-occupied Innsbruck on May 19. However, when their French allies left, the rebellion flared up again.
Hofer takes command [ edit ]
Painting depicting Hofer and his troops liberating his people from foreign occupation
Hofer became the effective commander-in-chief of the Tyrolean rebels, with the support of other leaders such as Josef Speckbacher and Father Joachim Haspinger. He commanded a force of Tyroleans approximately 20,000 strong, together with a couple of hundred Austrian soldiers who had joined them after the retreat of the Austrian army.
In the second Battle of Bergisel, from May 25 to May 29 1809, Hofer's troops again defeated the Bavarians, driving them out of the country and retaking Innsbruck on May 30. On May 29 Hofer received a letter from Emperor Francis in which he promised not to sign any peace treaty that would include giving up Tyrol. An Austrian intendant came to rule Tyrol and Hofer returned to his home. However, Napoleon again defeated Austrian troops in the Battle of Wagram on July 6. The Armistice of Znaim ceded Tyrol to Bavaria again. Napoleon sent 40,000 French and Bavarian troops to take over Tyrol and they re-occupied Innsbruck.
After little hesitation, Hofer joined battle again. The French offered a reward for his head. On August 13–14, in the third Battle of Bergisel, Hofer's Tyroleans defeated the French troops of Marshal François Joseph Lefebvre in a 12-hour battle after a downhill charge. The Tyroleans retook Innsbruck.
Tyroleans defeated the Bavarian troops at Battle of Sterzing
Hofer declared himself Imperial Commandant of the Tyrol in the absence of the ruler and for two months ruled the land from Hofburg in the name of the Emperor of Austria. He announced new laws and taxes and minted his own coins. He also sent two men to Britain to ask for assistance. On September 29 he received a medal from the emperor and another promise that Austria would not abandon Tyrol.
Hofer's hopes were dashed on October 14 when the Treaty of Schönbrunn again ceded Tyrol to Bavaria. French and Bavarian troops advanced and Hofer retreated to the mountains. Promised amnesty, Hofer and his followers laid down their weapons on November 8. Hofer retired to his home valley.
Final attempt and capture [ edit ]
Franz Raffl reveals the hideout of Andreas Hofer
On November 12, Hofer received false reports of Austrian victories and tried to summon his troops on November 15. This time he had little following and French troops defeated his forces. His subordinate commanders surrendered and urged him to escape over the mountains.
Hofer hid in a hut in the mountains in the Passeiertal and the French announced a reward of 1500 guilders for his head. His neighbor Franz Raffl betrayed him and revealed his hiding place to the authorities. Hofer was captured by Italian troops on January 28, 1810 and was sent to Mantua in chains to face a court-martial. (Raffl died impoverished in Bavaria twenty years later.)
Hofer's execution in Mantua
Court martial and execution [ edit ]
Officers holding the court martial disagreed on the exact sentence until they received a message from Milan. It was supposedly from the Viceroy, transmitting Napoleon's order to "give him a fair trial and then shoot him." Later Napoleon claimed to Prince Metternich that Hofer |
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Phoebe M. Short, then 46, arrived at San Francisco Airport on Jan. 18, 1947. She had flown to California from her home in Medford, Mass. that Sunday afternoon to see two of her five daughters. One, Virginia West, who lived in Berkeley, was there to greet her. But the other, Elizabeth Short, was dead in Los Angeles, unbeknownst to her family.
Elizabeth, known by friends as Betty, was found in a vacant lot at Norton Ave and 39th Street in Southwest Los Angeles on the morning of Jan. 15, 1947. She had been cut in half at the waist, and drained of blood at some other location. The two sections of her body appeared to be arranged in the weeds with artistic intent. Her bottom half was posed with legs spread wide open. Her top half was laid with her arms above her head forming a u-shape.
Her face had a massive bruise from where she had been pummeled to death with a blunt object, and her mouth had been cut at the ends to form a gruesome grimace. She also had rope marks on her legs and arms indicating that she had been tortured for several hours, and police found brush bristles on the body from where the killer had scrubbed her clean. She was just 22-years-old.
Elizabeth Short, with her blue-green eyes and raven hair, was maybe the prettiest girl in Medford. She had moved to California when she was still a teenager, and hopes of making it in the movies. She didn’t, but she achieved the notoriety in death that had eluded her in life.
The gruesome murder fueled several weeks of front-page headlines in LA’s four major news dailies at the time. Reporters started referring to Short as the Black Dahlia, a nickname bestowed upon her either by sensationalist headline writers or a Long Beach soda jerk, depending on which urban legend is actually true. Either way, the name came from “The Blue Dahlia,” a 1946 noir starring Veronica Lake that now seems inadequate when measured against what it inspired.
Phoebe Short learned about her daughter’s death from Wain Sutton, a rewrite man for the LA Examiner. Sutton first told the mother that her daughter had won a contest and they were checking with her for background info. After squeezing Elizabeth’s life story out of the mom for a while, Examiner city editor Jimmy Richardson told Sutton to give Phoebe the bad news.
The treatment of the Shorts by the press only got worse as news reports started blaming the victim. Elizabeth was labeled a prostitute and an actress in stag flicks, even though she wasn’t. She was a young girl who fell on hard times, and wasn’t above dating a guy to get a meal out of him. That was all, but reporters and their sources were still couldn’t help embellishing.
“We just can’t understand the things they say about her (Elizabeth) in the papers,” Phoebe told the Oakland Tribune on the day she flew into San Francisco. “She was never like that. We can’t believe it.”
Phoebe Short was flown down to Los Angeles for the inquest on the LA Examiner’s dime as an exclusive. She refused to ID her daughter’s body for two days, telling the coroner that she wanted to remember Elizabeth as she was. Phoebe appeared at the inquest on Jan. 22, 1947. The LA Times described her testimony as being “without a trace of emotion.”
Elizabeth’s body arrived in Oakland a day later, at the same time that police in Los Angeles were conducting house-to-house searches to find the Dahlia murder site. They never did.
Elizabeth was buried Jan. 25, 1947 in the slope of a hill in Oakland’s Mountain View Cemetery. Despite the hot media coverage, her funeral was a lonely one, attended by her mother, sister, brother-in-law, and a pair of men in trench coats — either cops, or reporters.
The murder remains unsolved.Austin Psych Fest, the brainchild of producers The Reverberation Appreciation Society, has developed from a 10 band bill of like-minded acts in a small venue, to a three-day celebration of the finest mind-expanding sounds currently being made. Now in its sixth year, the festival sprawls across the acreage of a ranch on the southeast side of Austin, and has commanded international attention, drawing together droves of fiercely devoted constituents of swirling reverb and coalescing sounds to bear witness and take part in ritualistic bouts of echo, fuzz, garage-rock hysteria, and just about anything else that can fit into the vague bubble of psychedelia.
The fields of the Carson Creek Ranch served as home for the weekend to lines of flowingly garbed Stevie Nicks impersonators and men that fell from the skies of 1967. Local vintage stores brought pop-up shops stocked with native jewelry and large brimmed hats for all, and the event appeared from the outside to be more a gathering of a forgotten occult sect to worship some celestial body on its ascent through the sky, rather than a music festival in 2013.
The vibes were laid back, the weather was ideal (save for a bit of rain and mud on Saturday night), and while you could certainly tell which fans were tasting the sounds rather than hearing them, most people appeared to keep things together quite well for a festival celebrating the best in psychedelic music, its history, and its associated trappings.
Friday, April 26th
Tamaryn – Elevation Amphitheatre – 8:00 p.m.
As a calm dusk settled over the buzz of Psych Fest’s opening day, a wash of tape delay-drenched guitar and lumbering drums drifted out from the makeshift amphitheater that had been set up overlooking Carson Creek. Fans in various states of intoxication — or expansion, as it were — lined the hills overlooking the picturesque creek as Tamaryn appeared, a pink-haired nymph of noir, and proceeded to coo through a set of soaking wet nu-gaze ballads. As the lighting from the stage danced upon the canopy of the trees guarding the creek, Tamaryn grasped her mic stand gently, occasionally rattled a tambourine in the air, and provided the crowd with a sonic sigh (and possible new infatuation) before the more bombastic sonic baptisms scheduled for the evening commenced.
Photo by Jake Clifford
The Soft Moon – Levitation Tent – 9:00 p.m.
The post-kraut, synthpunk juggernaut that is San Francisco’s The Soft Moon stomped a hole in the night and the collective heads of the crowd that filled the Levitation Tent to groove to the band’s intense rhythms. Singer/guitarist/synth-monger Luis Vasquez beat on his guitar mercilessly and moved about the stage as erratically as Jaz Coleman’s thoughts, grabbing brief opportunities to scream into an echo affected mic between bouts of hammering synth. While one might expect a band of this nature to be the odd man out here, even beneath the exceedingly large umbrella of psychedelia, the Soft Moon’s martial sound and bad-trip vibes were an exceptionally exciting way to crack into Friday night.
The Raveonettes – Reverberation Stage – 10:00 p.m.
Day 1’s heady buzz continued to electrify the field in front of the Reverberation Stage as Danish psych-pop duo The Raveonettes struck up the first jangling chords of its set. Sharon Foo was as lovely as ever in her mod-approved mini-dress, and the crowd swayed along gently as Foo and Sune Rose Wagner laced together saccharine sweet harmonies over the feedback and clang of their matching Fender Jazzmasters. And while Foo was wonderfully put-together visually, she made sure to continue the crunching fuzz madness that was the calling card of the festival with a beyond visceral fuzz-bass freakout at the end of “Bowels of the Beast”. The set was no doubt a reminder for many as to why this band had such unprecedented hype in the early aughts.
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Reverberation Stage – 11:30 p.m.
When I happened upon the stage set up for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, an odd cocktail of complete and unchecked fear mixed with an inexplicable desire to move even closer. From the unique arrangement of the guitar amps (Peter Hayes’ rig features a Fender Twin tilted towards the sky, as if to assault the ears of God himself), to the archaic looking ropes bracing Leah Shapiro’s drums, the air of destruction present prior to the band’s set was at once kinetic and palpable. Link Wray’s “Rumble” played through the sound system, and I realized at that moment that I was entirely alright with BRMC ending my life with whatever ignorant display of volume and rock ‘n’ roll it had in store. And if I lived, I was going to get a neck tattoo.
The trio of darkly clothed rabble rousers made stage break around 11:30 p.m.. A cigarette dangled from Hayes lips perpetually as his stood aloof and banged out a few jarring chords from his guitar. Robert Levon Been’s bass vibrated the veins of the crowd, and the band rattled into the night, dropping track after track of its dynamic and lumbering blues-pysch to the exuberant crowd. The ringing clamor of “Beat the Devil’s Tattoo” saw audience members reach out towards Been, desperate for some connection deeper than what was already taking place, and the set culminated with a ritualistic exchange of energy between band and audience that, as Hayes so simply put it, was “a really beautiful experience.”
Saturday, April 27th
Photo by Rock Cousteau.com
Boris – Reverberation Stage – 7:00 p.m.
Smoke machines breathed a preposterous cloud of fog onto the stage and beyond as the three Japanese mystics that make up the sonically-shape-shifting sludge titan that is Boris took the stage. The first volleys of Atsuo’s mammoth pink acrylic bass drum displaced enough air to literally shake the clothing of all in range of the sound system, and guitarist Wata’s pallet of myriad fuzzy sounds careened through the field to drown out the engines of planes descending directly overhead into the nearby Austin-Bergstrom airport.
The band spent the middle portion of its unfortunately short set lulling the audience into a trance with some gentle passages of effected guitar and droning bass, however, Boris ended things with Atsuo standing proudly upon his drum throne, dark locks blowing in the wind like an anime character in mid-attack, as he held a pair of mallets to the sky in an effort to solicit enough energy from the crowd to properly assault the gong looming behind him. The gong was given the mallets on the proper, another hefty blast of space-sludge was dealt, and just about everyone on the scene needed a drink or a nap.
Black Mountain – Reverberation Stage – 8:30 p.m.
Vancouver’s drug-rock heroes Black Mountain first appeared beneath a threateningly dark sky. The Reverberation stage was illuminated in glowing blue hues as the band wove a droning tapestry of sound to call all stragglers from around the grounds to take part in the aural transference of beefy riffs and analog synth ecstasy. As singer/guitarist Stephen McBean entered into vocal communion with Amber Webber, the skies opened and a gentle rain began to fall. The crowd raised their collective hands to the sky, and the band laid into the hypnotic “Wucan”. Following McBean’s lengthy vamp on a choice, Sabbath-inspired guitar riff, a nearby audience member let out a 40 second bear growl; our thoughts exactly, bro.
Deerhunter - Reverberation Stage – 11:30 p.m.
Towards the end of Saturday night, the light rain that had accentuated the dynamic qualities of Black Mountain’s set went torrential, delaying reunited Brazilian pysch legends Os Mutantes’ performance quite a bit and turning much of the Carson Creek Ranch into a mud pit. The night’s main headliner, Atlanta’s Deerhunter, was forced to set up deep behind the pool of water that had collected at the foot of the stage.
The band’s soundcheck took forever, continually derailed by frontman Bradford Cox’s snarly complaints to the soundman that he was “not ready.” Cox disappeared from the stage just long enough for us to grow curious as to whether or not the temperamental frontman would return, however, we were relieved when Cox’s alter ego, Connie Lungpin, arrived donning a long dress and signature wig to the jubilation of the soggy audience.
The band’s set was a swirling cloud of delayed guitar and off-kilter rhythms that found its way from the crescendo of an ambling intro, to a focused run through of tracks pulled mostly from their forthcoming, Monomania. “Sleepwalking” and the album’s pulsing title track swirled within the fog and lights that shrouded Cox (or Lungpin) from the audience.
Later on, Cox walked the line of sarcasm when referring to the audience as “troopers” for hanging out so late in the rain, and made a few awkward jokes by accusing the audience of being high and something or other about finding Jesus. It was weird, but weird was the advertised fare here.
Sunday, April 13th
Elephant Stone - Reverberation Stage – 4:00 p.m.
On Sunday, most of the mud created by Saturday night’s brief deluge had dried up, the sun shined brightly overhead, and the Reverberation stage housed what appeared to be a gaggle of George Harrison’s undocumented children. There was a young man line-checking a sitar whom we soon identified as Rishi Dhir, pointman for The Black Angels and multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire, and as soon as the sound check was complete, the visual of the Harrison-hatchlings was brought full circle by Elephant Stone’s decidedly British sounding take on psychedelic rock. An ideal modern-day representation of ’60s psych, to be sure.
Roky Erickson - Reverberation Stage – 7:30 p.m.
Roky Erickson has not led an easy life, as is well documented in the heartbreaking documentary, You’re Gonna Miss Me. However, despite the challenges of mental illness and many years of horrifyingly improper care, the legendary former leader of the 13th Floor Elevators, pioneering granddaddy of psychedelia, and all around national treasure is still with us — and occasionally still performing!
Without Erickson, there would be no Psych Fest — something we were repeatedly reminded of as guitarist after guitarist sound checked with the opening chord progression of “You’re Gonna Miss Me” throughout the weekend. The crowd watching Erickson perform on Sunday night was dotted with the members of bands that had already performed, all taking in the glow of a living legend.
While it was clear that Erickson’s hard times have worn on his performance abilities, the inimitable howl that changed the course of rock for many remained (moderately) intact, and the band of pros backing Erickson did an excellent job of keeping things on track and the excitement high, particularly through the string of Elevators classics Erickson used to close his set.
The Black Angels - Reverberation Stage – 9:00 p.m.
Blasts of deafening, sinus vibrating bass flooded the fields of the Ranch at 9:00 p.m., signaling the arrival of The Black Angels. Frontman and Psych Fest co-founder Alex Maas thanked the crowd for their attendance and shortly after decreed “this is your fest” with a disarming sincerity before settling in behind an effects-cluttered Farfisa organ.
Maas’ and his bandmates tipped things off with several tracks from the group’s recently released Indigo Meadow. Though the songs are painted in the same reverb and glistening organ that put The Black Angels on the map as one of the most important psych-rock groups since the Brian Jonestown Massacre, they punch in a different manner than fare from the group’s earlier albums.
The performance had an air of occasion, and as the band channeled the deep grooves of favorites from Phosphene Dream and Directions to See a Ghost, the audience appeared completely entranced in the ethereal cloud swirling sounds. The set wound to a gentle end via several songs featuring Rishi Dhir’s transcendental sitar playing.
The Moving Sidewalks - Reverberation Stage – 11:00 p.m.
Billy Gibbons has been, and will probably always be, the most vocal champion Roky Erickson has ever had. And while many wouldn’t immediately associate the iconic ZZ Top guitarist and singer with Austin’s psychedelic-rock history, his first bones were made via The Moving Sidewalks, a band he essentially modeled after the 13th Floor Elevators.
The Moving Sidewalks toured with the likes of Hendrix and The Doors before the Vietnam War called upon two of its members to hit the jungle for Uncle Sam, making way for ZZ Top to form in their absence and afterburn up the charts. The group reunited in early 2013 for a show in New York City, so, it was only natural that they would seek retribution as headliners of the sixth edition of Austin Psych Fest.
The performance served as a close encounter with Gibbons’ swampy blues guitar without the backing tracks we’ve come to expect from recent ZZ Top sets. The band pulled from its original catalogue that included a smattering of singles and a full length release, but the Reverend Billy G made sure to mention the time they spent in Hendrix’s keep prior to leading the band through hazy readings of “Foxy Lady” and “Red House”.
Altogether a proper comedown.
Photography by Marianne Spellman.Dick Cheney's In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir is a book as dull and unimaginative as its title. Readers wouldn't have expected the former vice president and his daughter Liz (his co-author) to be a pair of subtle prose stylists, and they won't be disappointed. Slog through the early chapters on Cheney's life growing up in Wyoming (he fished, he played football), and you'll eventually reach more momentous events, which Cheney is able to render equally lifeless.
That's in part because of the way Cheney confronts the controversies that have attended so much of his public life. His descriptions of events tend to run as follows: Some things happened. Our critics said we were wrong. But they don't know what they're talking about, because we were right.
Nevertheless, interesting tidbits pop up now and then, when scores are settled, enemies are skewered, and one can detect the occasional flash of something resembling human emotion. Herewith, some excerpts to relieve you of the need to put down $35 for In My Time.
You may have heard that Cheney finagled his way out of going to Vietnam. Not so:
Shortly after I began work on my Ph.D., I turned twenty-six and was no longer eligible for the draft. In the days when I had been, I had received deferments as a student and father. Earlier, when I was doing line work, I had been classified 1-A, but draft numbers were low and I wasn't called. If I had been, I would have been happy to serve.
Take that, hippies!
There are some people Cheney doesn't like: Democrats, terrorists, people who question him, for example. But no one comes in for more withering contempt than former Joint Chiefs Chair and Secretary of State Colin Powell. Discussing preparations for Operation Desert Storm, Cheney writes, "Powell seemed more comfortable talking about poll numbers than he was recommending military options." Cheney didn't want Powell to come on a trip to convince the Saudis to accept American troops during Desert Storm, because "I wasn't sure Powell would deliver the strong message they needed to hear." He later writes that in 2002, "I began hearing from a number of former and current high-ranking government officials that Secretary Powell and Deputy Secretary [Richard] Armitage were not only failing to support the president's policies, but were openly disdainful of them." He later writes, "I was particularly disappointed in the way [Powell] handled policy differences." Cheney also blames Powell for the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, though it was Cheney himself who told his aide Scooter Libby, who then passed the information to reporters (Libby was convicted on charges of lying to the FBI and obstructing justice; President George W. Bush commuted his sentence).
Cheney has a well-known penchant for secrecy (recall that he kept a "man-sized safe" in his office for sensitive materials). No one, it turns out, is completely trustworthy. When he was heading the committee to find a running mate for Bush, Cheney apparently didn't completely trust Bush himself with information pertaining to the search:
We had not written down the most sensitive material, so I briefed the governor on it orally. Before we began this first session, I told Governor Bush that what we were about to discuss was highly sensitive, and we had to ensure complete confidentiality. Of course, he agreed, and at the end of each of our meetings to discuss the candidates, he would hand his copy of the briefing book back to me.
Let it not be said, however, that Cheney can't cut loose:
As the celebrations died down, Lynne and I stepped to the side of the stage to listen to one of our favorite singers, Lee Greenwood, end the evening with his great song "God Bless the U.S.A."
Wait a minute -- Lee Greenwood did "God Bless the U.S.A."? You mean, that one song of his? Awesome!
Shooting a hunting buddy in the face in the mistaken belief that he was a bird, as Cheney did in 2006, is a bummer. But it also affords a good opportunity to irritate the press:
The following day we issued a statement to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, a local paper that routinely covered that part of Texas, knowing that once they had put out the story it would be reported everywhere. Our choice incensed the White House press pool and the rest of the mainstream media and probably increased the frenzy of their reaction. But, again, the last thing on my mind was whether I was irritating the New York Times.
Yes, that must have been why it became a press "frenzy" -- because White House reporters were mad at not getting the story first. It couldn't have been that there is some inherent news value in the vice president shooting a guy in the face.
The anemic job creation during the Bush years (3 million jobs created, compared to 23 million in Clinton's terms, culminating in the financial meltdown), has not dimmed Cheney's enthusiasm for trickle-down economics:
The Bush-era tax cuts helped grow the economy and create jobs, and I was glad to see them extended in December 2010 for two more years. If the Obama administration had reversed course and let tax rates rise across the board, the results would have been devastating.
Like any good Republican, Cheney is sure that America is unique in every way:
I have often heard people from other countries comment on American patriotism, not negatively, but in amazement and admiration that our love for our country is so deep and abiding.
Really? Is patriotism in short supply somewhere in the world? Anywhere in the world?
Now we get to the areas where carping fools have had the temerity to question the necessary steps the Bush-Cheney administration took to keep America safe. Each of these is dealt with in short order. The prison at Guantánamo, for example. You may have thought it was an affront to core American values, established there precisely because the administration thought it would be out of the reach of U.S. law (a belief the Supreme Court disabused them of). But no -- in fact, it's a veritable luxury resort:
It is a model facility -- safe, secure, and humane -- where detainees have access to television, books, newspapers, movies, their choice of a number of sports and exercise activities, the Koran, healthy food that is in keeping with their religious beliefs, and medical care. It likely provides a standard of care higher than many prisons in the European countries where the criticism of Guantánamo has been loudest.? [President Obama] has also suggested that Guantánamo should be closed because it is hurting America's image around the world. But it's not Guantánamo that does the harm, it is the critics of the facility who peddle falsehoods about it.
Cheney doesn't bother to argue, as he has many times elsewhere, that the torture techniques used under the Bush administration aren't actually torture. But he does defend it:
Amid the heated rhetoric some basic points tended to be ignored. The [torture] program was safe, legal and effective. It provided intelligence that enabled us to prevent attacks and save American lives. Above all else, it was part of a broad effort that enabled us, for seven and a half years, to prevent any further mass casualty attacks against the United States.
Every part of that statement has been definitively refuted over and over again.
On to the Iraq War. If you thought there might be some second thoughts about this enterprise, which has cost a couple of trillion dollars and more than 4,000 American lives, you'll be disappointed:
When we looked around the world in those first months after 9/11, there was no place more likely to be a nexus between terrorism and [weapons of mass destruction] capability than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. With the benefit of hindsight -- even taking into account that some of the intelligence we received was wrong -- that assessment still holds true. We could not ignore the threat or wish it away, hoping naively that the crumbling sanctions regime would contain Saddam. The security of our nation and of our friends and allies required that we act. And so we did.
It should be noted that Cheney wrote these words not in 2003 but in 2011. However, he does acknowledge that some intelligence failures occurred. Take Powell's 2003 presentation to the U.N. about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which was universally hailed at the time as having made the definitive case for war but was later revealed to have been little more than a string of falsehoods, fabrications, and fearmongering. Whose fault was that? Powell's, of course:
Later, when it turned out that much of what Powell said about weapons of mass destruction was wrong, I think embarrassment caused him and those around him to lash out at others. [Scooter] Libby seemed to be a particular target of their ire. They excoriated the material that he and the National Security Staff had provided, while at the same time boasting that they had thrown it in the garbage. As it happened much of what they discarded focused on Saddam's ties to terror and human rights violations, charges that would stand the test of time.
In his 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium [pause for dramatic effect] from Africa." The story was bogus, as former Ambassador Joseph Wilson would later reveal. Cheney, however, believes that Bush's attempt to fool Americans into believing Iraq had nuclear weapons was perfectly defensible because it was attributed to someone else:
Some on the president's senior staff believed that if we issued an apology, the story would go away. I strongly opposed the idea. An apology would only fan the flames, and why apologize when the British had, in fact, reported that Iraq had sought a significant amount of uranium in Africa? The sixteen words were true.
Technicalities aside, everyone understood that the claim was bogus and couldn't be defended. Everyone, that is, except Dick Cheney. This passage from the book has gotten some attention:
[Condoleezza] Rice realized sometime later that she had made a major mistake by issuing a public apology. She came into my office, sat down in the chair next to my desk, and tearfully admitted I had been right. Unfortunately, the damage had been done.
What hasn't been well explained is that the "public apology" Cheney refers to here wasn't actually an apology but Rice's admission to reporters, when asked about the false claim about Nigerian yellowcake, that "we wouldn't have put it in the speech if we had known what we know now." Cheney believes that had they just all continued to insist that it was true, there would have been little or no "damage."
Cheney does acknowledge that everything didn't go perfectly smoothly in Iraq after the initial military campaign. Where does responsibility for the lack of planning reside? You guessed it: Colin Powell. Cheney says that Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, were wary of too much reliance on Iraqi exiles, or "externals," and therein lay the problem:
The idea that we shouldn't work closely with opponents of Saddam who were living in exile slowed us down. I think we would have done a better job in the wake of Saddam's ouster if we had had a provisional government, made up of externals and internals, ready to take over as soon as Saddam fell. This would have put Iraqis in charge of Iraq and helped avoid the taint of occupation that we began to experience under the Coalition Provisional Authority.
If only Powell and Armitage hadn't been determining Iraq policy, and Cheney had been able to get his voice heard, things would have been different.
Nevertheless, one shouldn't forget that Dick Cheney was right about everything:
A few weeks before on Meet the Press, I had told Tim Russert that 'from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.' There were certainly difficult days ahead, but contrary to subsequent assertions by war critics, my assessment had been on target. We were greeted as liberators when we freed the Iraqi people from Saddam's grip.
Finally, you may think that Cheney is a humorless villain who derives pleasure only from the idea of torturing prisoners or crushing the dreams of small children. Absolutely false -- just listen to the time in 1970 that he and his boss, Donald Rumsfeld, got a look at a real live girl's naked lady parts:
As we [Cheney and Rumsfeld] got close to the long Reflecting Pool, we noticed a commotion, as though someone had fallen in. On closer inspection we could see that a few young women, naked from the waist up, were cavorting in the shallow water and being cheered on by a fast-growing audience. We soon realized that one of the cavorters worked for us at the OEO [Office of Economic Opportunity]. We had inherited her as a photographer in the press office, and she had made an impression as a free spirit.? Now here she was, topless in the Reflecting Pool. In those days, there were free spirits everywhere, it seemed, even in a bureaucracy like the OEO.
When the Bush administration left office, one poll showed Cheney's approval rating at a remarkable 13 percent, just slightly higher than the rating of foot fungus. Reading In My Time, it's not hard to see why.West African lion virtually extinct: Population numbers are dangerously low with just 34 left in Nigeria
LionAid say there are just 645 wild lions remaining in west and central Africa
There are no lions in 25 African countries and are only just surviving in ten
Conservationists calling for species to be included on most endangered list
A black-maned lion leads his pride over a hill in South Africa. The population of wild lions in Africa is estimated to be as low as 15,000
The west African lion is on the verge of extinction, according to experts after a marked decline in recent years.
It is estimated there are just 645 genetically distinct wild lions left in western and central Africa, with as few as 34 remaining in the whole of Nigeria.
Now experts from conservation group LionAid say they are ‘in real danger of extinction’.
According to the group, there are no lions left in 25 African countries and populations are barely surviving in ten.
Clusters of lions remain in Burkina Faso, Niger, the Central African Republic, Cameroon and Chad but are already extinct in countries such as Ghana, The Ivory Coast and Togo.
Thirty years ago there were 200,000 lions roaming wild across the continent – but now there are only between 15,000 and 32,000 left.
West African lions have been largely forgotten due to political apathy to conservation.
Dr Pieter Kat, trustee of LionAid, told The Guardian: ‘There has been a catastrophic decline in the populations of lions in Africa, and particularly west Africa.
‘These lions have been neglected for a very long time and do not have adequate protection programs.’
He said the west of the continent is often ignored in favour of eastern Africa, leading to a decline in species.
The lion is threatened by a range of factors, including loss of habitat, loss of natural prey due to poaching, 'unsustainable levels of trophy hunting' and human conflict.
A new threat is also on the rise as lion bones are being used to supply the demands of Asian traditional medicine as tiger bones become more scarce.
Conservationists want lions to be put on the list of most endangered species to give them greater protection from hunters
In Nigeria a government wildlife official told The Guardian that the number of lions in the country had dropped from 44 in 2009 to a meagre 34.
Yohanna Saidu from Nigeria’s interior ministry told the newspaper they are trying to protect the lions but admitted to being ‘very concerned’.
Dr Kat said it would now be impossible to build up a population of lions in Nigeria and therefore the species should be classed as extinct there as well.
The picture is similar in other countries. In Senegal, the LionAid said there are just 40 lions left.
The charity said there are only five 'viable' populations - those of 1,000 or more - lions left on the continent.
Three of those are found in Tanzania and Kenya, with the remaining populations surviving in South Africa and Botswana and Zimbabwe.
Lions are now extinct in 25 African nations
Recent studies on African lion populations show that about three-quarters of Africa’s savannah has disappeared over the past 50 years.
Conservationists say it is not possible to individually count every lion in the continent so estimates on remaining population numbers vary.
However experts do agree the plight of the African lion is ‘very serious’ and want the animal to be included on the convention on international trade in endangered species list.
Inclusion would mean tight protection on hunting and trade, especially important as more than 5,600 wild African lions were hunted and exported as trophies between 1999 and 2008.
However, conservationists say they face strong opposition from the pro-hunting lobby.
Dr Kat said:'We are currently paying lip service to the conservation needs of a species so greatly important to our cultures, history, and indeed the health of wildlife biodiversity in Africa.The PFA are expected to make the announcement of their vision for the W-League at a press conference on Tuesday.
The ambitious plan by the players' union is expected to outline how the sport can develop a professional pathway for female footballers in Australia and help push the Matildas to further international success.
W-League reform has been mooted for some time with Football Federation Australia's much-publicised W-League "working party" formed last year.
There has yet to be any movement on that front and with the FFA currently grappling with governance issues any W-League reforms will be put on the back burner.
In a statement last Thursday, FFA chief executive David Gallop said the governing body was committed to developing new A-League and W-League models with input from clubs, but warned the process would not be quick or simple.
"There are many forms that the model could take, but whatever is ultimately adopted must take into consideration the funding requirements of all levels of the game," Gallop said.
"The process to a new model for the A-League and W-League cannot be achieved in a single meeting. Months of detailed work will be necessary and we look forward to doing this with the clubs."Chavez's recent election as president of Venezuela further underlined that the people in Caracas see socialism as the answer to some of their woes and not all but over all is it a success?Socialism in South America could be considered to have started with Simon Bolivar, the revolutionary who drove the Spanish out of South America and established Gran Colombia in what is now modern day Colombia and Venezuela. Bolivar was influenced by the French Revolution and by the American Independence movement which he greatly admired and thought to have been one of the greatest political movements. From these admirations he established a number of ideas which formed the basis for modern Latin America and which would go on to influence Che Guevara and others rights up to Chavez. Bolivars legacy however while one of liberation was also one of a dictatorship. Bolivar himself feared being ruled by those of a mixed race which may have lead to him assuming a dictatorship. Aside from all this though, one of Bolivars most enduring ideas is that of a pan American federation of South American states to fight against imperialism and establish a system with good education, health system and legal system.Fast foward sixty odd years and Che Guevara enters the frame. The idea of a pan American united front appealed to Che so much so that he was considered the ultimate revolutonary. Through his activities in Bolivia and Venezuela and not withstanding Cuba, his visions are seen to have been crucial in socialism in Latin America. Che can be single handedly attributed with bolstering |
in Egypt, where the garb is viewed as cultural and not religious in nature. Egypt put in place a ban on nurses wearing full veil in 2008, but it has not been enforced.
The niqab, a face-veil with a thin opening for the eyes, has been controversial in Canada as well, with the federal Conservatives introducing a bill in 2007 that would have forced veiled women to show their faces when voting.
But earlier this year Steven Fletcher, minister of state for democratic reform, said the Canadian government had no plans to go forward with the legislation because of other priorities.I’m feeling so relaxed. My whole body is just so comfortable. And it’s all thanks to this new pillow I bought at Costco. It’s made out of space-age memory foam. I’m not even joking around, it feels as if sometime over the course of the past month or so, it’s like I’ve had a spine transplant or something, and while the positive effects weren’t necessarily noticeable right away, I’m looking back now and I can’t even imagine how I ever managed to fall asleep without my awesome new pillow.
It’s the best twenty-five dollars I’ve ever spent in my life. My success story should have begun sometime last September, and in an alternate reality somewhere, I can only hope that people might have already read this months ago. Because it was on a trip to Costco last fall where I first saw memory foam pillows available for sale.
“I’m totally getting that pillow!” I said out loud when I saw the display right past the entrance. That was my first mistake, saying it out loud. If I could go back in time and do it over, I wouldn’t have said anything. I would have just made a mental note, Rob, come back later and buy that pillow. But I didn’t. I announced my intentions to the world, to my wife.
“What?” she shot back right away. I don’t even think she was looking at the pillows, or had any idea what I was talking about. But it was the way that I said it. I came off too strong, right out of the gate, like I wanted it too badly. Her natural response was to add a measured dose of reality to what sounded like nothing more than a soon-to-be impulse purchase.
And I can’t even blame her. Being married is all about existing in a perpetual state of negotiation. If one party notices the other party getting a little over excited about an in-the-moment decision in which the first party wasn’t even considered, it’s unlikely that both parties are going to be able to come to an agreement, not without that second party offering some pretty steep concessions.
“We don’t need new pillows,” was my wife’s yin to my bulk-store yang, “And twenty-five dollars? Come on.” She didn’t know what she was talking about. I would have gladly paid thirty, forty dollars for a memory foam pillow. In fact, I thought that I was being reasonable in only going for the pillow. If I made all of my own life decisions, I’d be sleeping on a California king-sized memory foam mattress. I know they’re expensive, yes, but I’d gladly take on as much debt as it would cost to be able to stretch out my whole body, my limbs extending as far as they could reach in every direction, unable to feel anything but the gentle yet firm cradle of futuristic memory foam.
But I’ve yet to even begin to formulate a successful strategy on convincing my wife to upgrade to an awesome bed. Even though we spend so much of our lives sleeping. Even though I’m six foot four and I really could use something a little more accommodating than the used Queen size spring mattress that we inherited from my aunt.
Like I said though, marriage is all about haggling, and my enthusiasm at seeing that pillow signaled to my wife that it was worth more in personal relationship points than the twenty-five dollar advertised price. When she said no, I ignored her and put the pillow in the shopping cart anyway. And then every time I went to put something else in, the most routine of purchases turned into, “Really? You’re going to get that pillow and the yogurt? What are we made of money?”
And so finally, I found myself in the position of being allowed to buy just the pillow, or the yogurt, the socks, the underwear, the chocolate covered almonds, the double-A batteries, and the reggiano cheese. We could have stood there forever, I could have argued that it was ridiculous to equate all of those things that I would have purchased anyway to a twenty-five dollar pillow, but even at this point I could see that it was pointless, my wife had drawn a line in the sand that I for some reason couldn’t figure out how to cross.
And after half an hour or so of arguing why a pack of ballpoint pens wasn’t going to throw us into financial ruin, I started to see the potential upsides of giving in somewhat, allowing her to veto my pillow so that I could get all of this other stuff argument for free. Besides, if it wasn’t the pillow, it would have been something else. No trip to Costco can really be considered complete without denying your significant other from purchasing something, anything really. What’s important is that you said no, and the other person listened. In this particular shopping trip, this meant no pillow for me, and I guess no Swiffer wet-jet for my wife. Because two can play the veto game, and what good is having the power if you don’t exercise it every single time?
And so I continued to exist for another several months, if you want to call it existence, even though it really wasn’t much of anything besides rolling around listless every night, unable to fully reach the deep sleep I needed to recharge for my waking day. Winter came and went, and by the time we stopped in to Costco next, I had almost forgotten about the memory pillow. Luckily, the display was still there, in the same exact spot, and I knew that this time, I’d get my pillow.
Sure, I had to give up a lot for that pillow, all sorts of breakfast cereals and bulk coffee. But I remained steadfast in my goal, to go home with that pillow. I even tried to argue for two pillows, because I just knew that as soon as my wife saw how refreshed I was after each night’s sleep, she’d start to commandeer my futuristic neck support. Little by little, she’d start getting closer to my side of the bed every night until I had no choice but hand it over and wait for another Costco trip to buy a spare. And there’s no guarantee that it would be a simple purchase. I can just see it now, “What do we need two for? We’re fine sharing just one.”
But it’s seriously the best pillow I’ve ever laid my head on in my entire life. It’s got these blue bubbles on one side that provide a textured surface for when your head first hits the surface. And after you’ve laid your entire weight down, the edges shift up to provide total support from every angle. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in my life.
Someday I’ll have that memory foam bed. I have no idea what kind of bartering it’s going to cost me, but the day will come where my whole body gets to experience the comfort that’s now reserved exclusively for my neck and head. To anybody that goes to Costco, if you’ve been eyeing that pillow and thinking to yourself, “Nah, maybe next time,” I urge you. Buy it. Buy two or three. Go by yourself, don’t tell anybody. Don’t even announce the new pillows. Just slip them in your regular pillowcases and watch your loved ones transform overnight thanks to a dramatically improved sleeping experience. They might think it silly at first, but in no time they’ll all be thanking you.Honami Kim shops at P.A.T. Central, an incredible but oft-overlooked Korean grocer on Bloor Street West. (Jennifer Roberts for the Globe and Mail)
A friend and I were eating our way through Scarborough the other week when he pointed toward an enormous supermarket I’d never heard of. “Al Premium,” the sign read. The place was the size of your average airport hangar. The name made it sound like a duty-free. But walking its aisles was a mind-altering experience, because Al Premium flips the old-guard Canadian grocery formula entirely upside down. The token “ethnic aisle,” if they had one here, would be devoted to the Toll House cookies and frozen turkey dinners that fill out the bulk of your average downtown supermarkets. Al is devoted to all the other food traditions around Toronto: Croatian and Macedonian, Jamaican, Filipino, Fujianese, Tibetan, Thai, Syrian, Piedmontese and Bangladeshi, among scores of others – it’s a little like your local Loblaws superstore, but stocked by a corps of UN chefs.
Toronto and its suburbs are a region of incredible international grocers, among them Iqbal Halal and Sunny Foodmart in Don Mills, Super Arzon and Khorak Supermarket in North York, the Korean Galleria in Thornhill and York Mills, Adonis (which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago), Arz Fine Foods, T&T Supermarket, Paramount, Perola, a half-dozen other terrific spots in Kensington Market, as well as Sanko, Fiesta Farms, Lady York, Cheese Boutique and the South Indian Spiceland chain.
Various prepared foods are seen for sale at P.A.T. Central, a Korean grocer in Toronto. (Jennifer Roberts for The Globe and Mail)
This week, a cook’s (and grazer’s) tour of a few of them. A stroll through their aisles, basket in hand, is one of the best ways I know not just to feel a part of the city, but to forever liven up the way you eat and drink.
Lone Tai Supermarket
From early May through right about now, the first thing that hits as you approach this Southeast Asian-focused supermarket is the sweet, tropical orchard scent of ripening mangoes – a dozen different types at peak season are stacked chest-high in cases right outside the door. The produce here is some of the best and most varied I’ve seen, and if the crowds of shoppers are any indication, the turnover is set to hyperdrive.
Meat is cut and weighed at P.A.T. Central, a Korean grocer in Toronto. (Jennifer Roberts for The Globe and Mail)
Apart from those mangoes, there was breadfruit, quince, dragonfruit, guava, durian, jackfruit and mangosteen (among a few-score other fruits) last time I popped in, as well as porcelain-skinned Thai eggplants the size of gobstoppers, and water spinach, fresh water chestnut and bundles of deep green fenugreek leaves.
If you’ve ever stumbled on a fruit or herb or vegetable in a recipe but couldn’t source it, they probably have it here. The middle aisles are just as varied, jammed with the likes of tinned quail eggs, packaged Indian snack mixes and a whole lot in between.
It’s cheap and plentiful, and be warned, the frills – apart from the selection, of course – are few. But if you’re stuck in a cooking and eating rut – and who doesn’t get that way, sometimes? – a half hour here is just the cure.
2300 Lawrence Ave. East (at Kennedy Road), 416-285-6686
From fresh produce to prepared foods to an in-house butcher, P.A.T. Central will fulfill any craving for Asian cuisine. (Jennifer Roberts for The Globe and Mail)
P.A.T. Central
It never ceases to amaze me how many downtown dwellers have never heard of, much less entered, this extraordinary Korean market at Bloor near Christie.
The middle aisles are stocked with a superb (and if you aren’t Korean, fascinating) variety of spice, soups, pastries, instant foods, candies, noodles and pan-Asian pantry items, but it’s the outside aisles and refrigerator cases that make this shop so great.
The Korean and Japanese pickle selection is one of the best in town: You’ll find whole pickled daikons stained bright yellow (it’s from food colouring, but anyway), tubs of pickled ume plums, pickled radish, lotus root, burdock and cucumbers; add a platter of these to a summer barbecue menu and your work is almost done.
Fresh produce is seen for sale at P.A.T. Central, a Korean grocer in Toronto. (Jennifer Roberts for The Globe and Mail)
At the back, the coolers are full of freshly made Korean soups (pork bone, spicy beef), snacks (check out the addictive spiced soy beans) and starters (marinated spicy squid, seafood pancakes), as well as excellent cabbage kimchi, available with or without fish sauce.
The produce is terrific, and the meat selection about as good as at your typical hipster butcher shop: They had snowy blocks of short rib, fresh, glistening liver and beef tongue last time I went, as well as freezers stacked with the likes of sliced, skin-on pork belly and ready-to-grill bulgogi beef. On the way out, do not under any circumstances miss the little cash-only waffle counter. They’re made-to-order and cost $2 apiece; the crisp and beautifully yeasty custard-filled version is one of the best quick-service pastry snacks I know.
675 Bloor St. West (at Manning Avenue), 416-532-2961, patmart.net
Various kimchi is seen for sale at P.A.T. Central, a Korean grocer in Toronto. (Jennifer Roberts for The Globe and Mail)
Al Premium
You could skip the entire grocery section at this warehouse-size international grocery emporium if you wanted, and travel the world of food through Al’s prepared-food counters alone. About as long as a downtown block, it begins with Indian samosas before skipping onto shawarma (made with crunchy cucumber pickles), butter chicken, biryani, chana masala, and then a full sushi and sashimi fridge and a section devoted to Filipino and regional Chinese specialties such as fried hasa hasa (that’s mackerel), lemon chicken, lotus buns (the bun and dumpling selection is breathtaking) and eggplant in yu heung sauce.
From there, it’s on to the bakery, with its red bean cakes and egg tarts, its chicken pies and winter melon pastries, set next to beautifully flaky French palmiers.
Kimchi is stocked at P.A.T. Central, a Korean grocer in Toronto. (Jennifer Roberts for The Globe and Mail)
The fish section here, in a separate room, at the back, is one of the best in town (check out the fresh, gleamy-eyed milkfish, which is to Filipino expats what sockeye salmon is to West Coast Canadians), and the freezers, which seem to go on and on, contain everything from whole durians and packaged jackfruit meat to hard-to-find meats to lemongrass.
The middle aisles, organized by nationality, demand exploring also; you’ll know your way around by all the flags. (A sampling from a few of the aisle markers: “Balkans and Polish Jar Food,” “Jamaican Snacks,” “Baci Perugina.”)
If you need a little more focus, look up a halo halo recipe – that’s the Philippines’ brilliant shaved ice and evaporated milk dessert – and head to Aisle 6D (“Filipino Foods, Filipino Seasoning, Filipino Pantry, Filipino Sauces…”), where the range of jarred jellies, fruit mixes, jams, and fruits and nuts in syrup, all of them ideal halo halo toppers, is approximately 10 times better than you’d need to assemble the single-greatest summertime frozen dessert bar ever made.
1970 Eglinton Ave. East (at Warden Avenue), 416-751-3666, alpremium.caYou can squeeze and compress water all you want, and under normal conditions its volume won't budge.
But if you heat up water, its volume expands — and it's precisely this effect, which is playing out in Earth's oceans, that's helping flood coastal cities like New Orleans.
As water heats, its volume increases. (Except for one weird anomaly.) wa.edu.au Water is weird. It's one of the only liquids that expands as it freezes, at 0 degrees Celsius, yet contracts as you warm it up to 4 C. (This is why water ice floats while most other types of ice sink.)
But if you warm up water beyond 4 C, the molecules violently push on one another, expanding the total volume of liquid and making it take up more space.
Earth's surface has warmed by about 0.8 degrees C on average since 1880, soon after the industrial revolution kicked off.
This increase doesn't sound like much, explains NASA Earth Observatory, but it has major consequences:
A one-degree global change is significant because it takes a vast amount of heat to warm all the oceans, atmosphere, and land by that much. In the past, a one- to two-degree drop was all it took to plunge the Earth into the Little Ice Age. A five-degree drop was enough to bury a large part of North America under a towering mass of ice 20,000 years ago.
And our world is under going some extensive warming, especially in the northern pole:
The world is warming, and it's increasing the volume of ocean water. NASA Earth Observatory The Earth's oceans are especially at risk — they have responded to this increase by soaking up more and more heat as global temperatures climb:
The ocean is one of Earth's biggest heat sinks. NOAA
And since water expands when heated, this excess heat absorption has expanded the volume of Earth's oceans.
As of right now, this volume increase by only a mere fraction of a percent of the ocean's original volume.
Yet applied to even part of the planet's 335 million cubic miles of water, e.g. surface waters, this increase adds up to significant sea level rise — on top of increased water runoff from the world's melting ice reserves.
Global sea level rise since the Industrial Revolution. Union of Concerned Scientists
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, sea levels rose about 8 inches from 1880 to 2009, with thermal expansion as the predominant cause.
Again, this doesn't sound like much — but any increase gives storm surges that much of a leg up to overwhelm coastal marshes, topple levees, and cause damage deeper and deeper inland.
This is a simplistic illustration of what that looks like for coastal cities, but it's a dangerous scenario:
Union of Concerned Scientists
What's more, the rate of sea level rise is only accelerating as oceans soak up more heat, expand, and icebergs and glaciers continue to melt.
What's contributing to sea level rise. NASA Earth Observatory
Earth is maddeningly dynamic — especially the oceans. That's partly why it takes so long to reveal these trends in the first place; you have to take measurements over long periods of time to see the trends.
To that end, researchers are still uncertain about the interplay of surface water and deep-ocean warming. But it's a given that if the planet keeps warming, as it's on track to, and oceans continue to soak up heat, vulnerable coastal cities like New Orleans are in a heap of trouble.Sea Lion Die-Off Numbers Unusually High
by Nadia Drake / National Geographic
SAUSALITO, California—For the third winter in a row, starving sea lion pups are washing ashore on California’s beaches. Since January 1, nearly 500 of the tiny animals have been admitted to the state’s rehabilitation centers—a number many times higher than normal.
Why these animals are struggling to survive is a mystery, and early stranding numbers suggest that 2015 could be even worse than the previous two years.
“They’re extremely emaciated, basically starving to death,” says veterinarian Shawn Johnson of the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito. Here, the snorty symphony of rescued sea lions is accented by the continual ringing of rescue hotlines. So far, the facility has responded to 171 stranded sea lions.
The calls are coming at a much faster pace than usual. Last year, it took until April for the Sausalito facility to receive a hundred sea lions, but this year the center has seen that many sea lions in the past ten days alone.
Now, with peak stranding months still on the way, rescue centers along the California coast are bracing for more.
“We’re all kind of holding our breath,” says Justin Viezbicke, stranding network coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) are considered a sentinel species, meaning they’re seen as indicators of ocean health. Generally, if sea lions are suffering, something is wrong offshore. In this case, scientists still don’t really know what that something is.
Sea of Troubles
Starting in January 2013, waves of starving sea lion pups began washing ashore in southern California. Rescuers found them in flowerpots, beneath parked cars, resting on the porch of an ocean-side resort.
Rehab centers were overwhelmed. But it wasn’t just the sheer number of pups that was alarming: Sometimes weighing less than half of what they should, the tiny animals were showing up extremely early in the year, at a time when they should have been relaxing on their Channel Island nurseries and plumping up on mom’s milk.
Put simply, something mysterious was causing the young sea lions to leave home long before they were ready. The situation looked even worse on the islands, where surveys suggested that more than 50 percent of pups were dying.
In March, NOAA declared the situation an Unusual Mortality Event and organized an investigation. Scientists noted that the stranding pattern resembled that of severe El Niño years, when warm ocean waters supplant the cool, nutrient-rich waters that normally fuel the area’s ecosystems.
The trouble was, these weren’t El Niño years. And aside from the struggling pups, nothing else was obviously wrong. No other species were similarly affected, and even adult sea lions seemed fine. By summer, when the strandings finally subsided, more than 1,600 pups had come ashore.
Six months later, in January 2014, strandings started to swell again. Skinny pups arrived in droves, though in lesser numbers than the previous year.
A Second Chance
Now, 2015 is looking even worse. After just six weeks, more than 470 sea lions have been admitted to California rehab centers. And they aren’t just in the southern parts of the state, as before.
Early Monday, a team from the Marine Mammal Center plucked a pup, now called Murray, from the beach at the northern California center’s doorstep.
Murray and his friends stay in pens at the facility, where their chief goal is to gain weight. Many of the pups are too young to eat whole fish, so they get a stinky, smoothie-like puree of fish bits.
As the pups grow older and stronger, they will learn how to catch fish and must graduate from “fish school” before they can be released into the wild. The process can take months.
“These guys are all pretty darn emaciated,” says Caitlin Brown, a veterinary intern at the center. “It’s rough being a baby out there.”
Mystery Illness
Scientists still don’t know what triggered such a precipitous and ongoing struggle; they’ve ruled out known diseases and environmental toxins, which might be expected to affect more than just pups. Some researchers question whether the sea lion population has grown so large that the offshore environment simply can’t sustain their numbers.
The best guess now is that shifts in fish populations—primarily fatty sardines—are causing nursing sea lion mothers to swim farther in search of fish. Those extended forays keep sea lion moms away from their pups. For so long, perhaps, that the tiny animals wait on their beaches and starve until they eventually strike out on their own, long before they’re ready to tackle the Pacific Ocean.
But the picture isn’t complete yet. NOAA teams are out on the Channel Islands right now, studying the sea lion population and trying to fill in the gaps.
One thing they’ve seen emerge over the past year is a massive, persistent patch of warm ocean water that has settled offshore and may be knocking the ecosystems of western North America off-kilter.
“It’s been a really unusually warm year, and disruptive to the normal marine food web, from Baja all the way up to Alaska,” says Nate Mantua of NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center.
Starting in early 2014, Mantua says, wind and weather patterns spawned patches of warm water from Mexico to Alaska; in late 2014, those patches merged, and it’s tough to say how long the resulting mega-blob will hang around.
Among the oddities linked to the warm water are fish, turtles, crabs, and other animals showing up in weird places. There’s even a potential link to an unprecedented die-off of seabirds called Cassin’s auklets, which are dropping dead by the thousands in the Pacific Northwest.
For now, it’s too soon to say whether the warm-water blob is affecting the sea lions, or if the sea lion pups are heralding the demise of something else beneath the waves.
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Check out these related Newswire posts:Way back in February we (briefly) touched on the sterling community work being done to get Ubuntu up and running on the Fairphone 2.
That porting effort is being driven by awesomely productive Marius Gripsgård.
Marius is the man behind the UbPorts project, a community-supported Ubuntu Phone porting effort that also provides work-in-progress builds for the Nexus 5, OnePlus One and OnePlus X handsets.
Back in February the port was a little rough around the edges, with many key features not working (or working poorly). The port is now said to be roughly 70% complete, as Fairphone was happy to demo on its social media accounts this weekend (see image right).
Front and rear cameras and the GPS are two features still in need of fixing, so if you rely on accurate location detection or like to snap the odd selfie you’re best holding off for a little while longer.
Fairphone Won’t Be Selling Ubuntu Phones
The Fairphone 2 has a 5-inch FHD IPS display and runs on a quad-core Qualcomm Krait 400 processor @ 2.26GHz. It has 2GB RAM and 32GB eMMC storage. It retails from €525 in the European Union.
But before you (or anyone else reading this) gets too excited Fairphone thinking they’ll be able to buy one of these decently spec’d phones pre-loaded with Ubuntu, I should remind you that Fairphone has no plans to ship Ubuntu on their hardware.
They said as much back in February, and they said as much again this week, noting that while they’d “love” to ship Ubuntu on their hardware, efforts such as this one “will stay a community project for the foreseeable future.”
Not a big surprise. The company is a small, but dedicated one. It has to provide ongoing support for its two Android-based OSes on two ethically produced smartphones. Their sales figures are impressive with more than 100,000 Fairphones sold so far.
The company is heavily rumoured to be planning a commercial release of its Fairphone 2 handset running Jolla’s (largely forgotten, and soon to be far more open-source friendly) Sailfish OS.
Interestingly, the Fairphone Sailfish OS port also began life as a community project. So, Ubuntu + Fairphone fans needn’t say never…Immediately pre-show, his jaw set with concentration, Rick Owens was insinuating a long, down-filled two-panel tendril of silky pink synthetic within the bulbously twisted, rich saffron pillowing already being worn by the model in front of him. “You know, I wanted it to be voluptuous and flamboyant,” he said, “but then I look at it: It definitely is about strapping yourself in for a bumpy ride.”
Do we need to say what ride that is? Owens didn’t waste his breath. Instead he flitted away to tweak and pluck and refine the details of a collection that mixed extreme sculptural form, soft and fluffy like beaten egg white, with a harder undercurrent. Once out walking the models came and went hither and thither, irregularly—they had rehearsed three times so presumably this was on purpose—and thus it was difficult to be sure that there was a planned arc for the order of the looks. This view started with a suite of leather jackets, richly treated to look rough, with zippered lateral pouches for storage, and buffering, too big to count as pockets. Below these were Owens’s favored wide kick-y pants, the Madchester silhouette, with quadruple (maybe quintuple) welt round-toe shoes with a protruding shelf-let at the heel. Then suit jackets, one olive, one dusky lilac, with extended knit arms in different colors worn over wide pants with extreme folding protrusions running from left hem to right thigh. Coats in horizontal patchworks of glossed leather and wide-weave linen, slightly frayed, featured, too. Then the airbags were activated, bursting forth from the Owens dashboard first as constricted monochrome entwining at the shoulder and later saffron, orange, gray, and lilac flourishing all down the torso.Looking for news you can trust?
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However my liberal friends and I may have tsk’d the Bush administration for claiming that $600 checks would save America, we broke liberals sure were excited to get our hands on that money. Congress passed the Economic Stimulus Act in February, giving the IRS a couple months to get payments to some 130 million taxpayers when it was already in the middle of filing season, and giving some 130 millions taxpayers reason to start freaking out about when—when?!—they were going to get their supplement. Thus, I wasn’t shocked when I called to do just that and a recording told me that the IRS is currently experiencing heavy call volume and led me though an automated menu that ultimately told me to keep my pants on for three more weeks, and hung up. I had to wonder: How bad must the ESA suck for the IRS?
Pretty bad, according to testimony of national taxpayer advocate Nina E. Olson before the House last week. The IRS hauled ass to develop new programming code, create new pages and a stimulus calculator on its website, mail notices to more than 100 million taxpayers, mail information packages to 20 million more, develop outreach initiatives for seniors, and staff 700 walk-in sites in a “Super Saturday” assistance bonanza. By the first week of June, the IRS had received 27.7 million calls concerning economic stimulus payments. For that same week, call attempts were up 279 percent versus the same period last year. The level of service on the economic stimulus hotline was 30 percent. To deal, the IRS has shifted so many employees from account management and collections that collections will be reduced by $565 million.
Olson worried about the effects of delays and exceptions on taxpayers in her testimony, but admitted that, overall, the IRS is doing a pretty amazing job. Only 1,500 economic stimulus checks have been transmitted in the wrong bank account. About 350,000 people didn’t get the additional funds for their dependents. About 20 million taxpayers who purchased refund anticipation loans or checks will get their checks tardily. Even those errors, the IRS says, will be rectified by mid-July. According to the IRS Web schedule, my check would be “mailed no later than (and received a few days after)” May 16. The agency sent me a letter on June 9 saying that I could expect to receive it by June 13. I called fruitlessly a few days after that, and my check came shortly after. So where’s your check? It’s probably coming. Keep your pants on for three more weeks.How the idea was born to bring a Moa back from extinction
When I moved to New Zealand I was shocked to learn that 75% of the New Zealand bird species have already gone extinct.
About a year ago, just after TEDx Auckland 2013 I was on the phone to Roger Brady from the Otorohanga District Council in New Zealand speculating what a great tourist attraction it would be if we could bring the Moa's back as part of the local Kiwi House tourist attraction. What better place in New Zealand than Metropolis Otorohanga with the world famous Kiwi House! The Otorohanga District Development Board funded a prototype of the idea.
So here we are, - a year later and the next TEDx show is on in a few weeks time -, and we have our first Geo Augmented Reality proto-type of a Virtual Moa wildlife Park ready to be introduced to the world!
Jo and the Moa
It is the first of it's kind and uses cutting edge technology developed by Augview who I work with. We have developed a platform that will allow visitors to not only view Moa but also interact with them, walk up to them, follow them around or run away from them because they will at times stalk you for food!
I have started a blog to capture the journey along the way, in particular the feedback of our Moa experts Trevor Worthy and Lizzy Perrett during production.
http://nzkiwihouse.blogspot.co.nz
Our first Moa is a beautiful Northern Island Giant Moa.
We have proven that our concept will work by setting up a test park in Victoria Park Auckland which is filled with an eclectic collection of virtual dinosaurs, architecture, fireworks, etc
At the moment we are using our native Augview platform to demonstrate the proto-type, but for the Kiwi House it would be more effective to have their own branded Kiwi House App that allows them to bring in some additional funding to preserve the New Zealand wildlife.
What we now need is NZ$85,000 to split off the app for the KiwiHouse and an additional NZ$95,000 to add more content like the Haast Eagle and a Moa nesting side, chicks, eggs, etc to make a visit worthwhile! The current Augview app has been designed to be used in the utilities industry and that's why we need to redesign our current interface so it is simpler to use. We have only asked for $5,000 because that seemed to be a good start, but are hoping for your generosity and enthusiasm.
And then we got Media attention...
When we started telling people about our 1st proto-type we got Media attention very quickly
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11303343
http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/10321044/Virtual-park-bringing-moa-to-life
Who is behind the App development?
The Virtual Bird Park concept by software development company Augview, has been welcomed by the Otorohanga District Development Board (an Economic Development Agency funded by the Otorohanga District Council) and the Otorohanga Kiwi House and Native Bird Park, a not-for-profit wildlife centre established in 1971 and dedicated to the conservation and breeding of NZ’s rare and endangered wildlife. The Virtual Bird Park would be located opposite the Otorohanga Kiwi House in Rotary Park and surrounding areas. It will add to the Otorohanga Kiwi House income stream, attract further tourism and put Otorohanga on the map as the first town in Australasia to have a Virtual Augmented Reality Park.
The Otorohanga District Development Board is very supportive, because it creates educational opportunities for local students to learn IT skills required in building the Virtual Bird Park and growing the digital industry.
The overarching strategy is to: · Make Otorohanga the first Virtual Town with a variety of Augmented Reality Parks, games and local community content to experience and interact with · Create a digital industry sector in Otorohanga
How does the Technology work?
Augmented Reality has been a buzz word for the past few years but only few people really understand its potential. Augview (www.augview.net) is a Kiwi owned software developer with the technology to work in the Geo Augmented Reality space. Geo AR uses GPS coordinates to position complex 3D models or animations into real space. The combination of both reality and the virtual reality is called Augmented Reality. Unlike most Augmented Reality apps we don’t use markers, pictures or other forms of tracking the digital feed into the live camera feed. We use the mobile sensors to position a 3D world into the real space the user moves around in.
Geo AR is a very immersive way to play, explore and move around in a virtual parallel universe that co-exists within our own. It is a creative playing field with enormous potential and the 1st of it’s kind in the world. The closest in comparison is “Ingress” developed by Google which uses the combination of GPS data and Augmented Reality but not to its full potential.
Augview Ltd is a software developer specialising in the new cutting edge technology of GEO AR (Geographical Augmented Reality).
GEO AR uses the mobile sensors (now quite common) in smartphones and tablets to create an alternative universe within the real world. You can compare it with a giant Playstation, where a real park becomes the virtual playing field. The player explores this digital world by moving around and interacting with the virtual world content.
In order to see this virtual world the player needs a digital device such as a smartphone or a digital tablet. The camera function within the device is utilised as the window to the other world and is essentially a live camera feed overlaid with a digital feed from an intelligent 3D game engine (Unity) which calculates the viewer’s physical location. The virtual world content is linked to GPS coordinates, which respond to the GPS feed from the viewer’s digital device.
Our 1st Moa in the Rotary Park in Otorohanga, New Zealand
The virtual birds in the Otorohanga Virtual Bird Park will be 3D animated models, which are linked to each other using game flow mechanics. For instance, if a visitor walks up to a Moa the distance will trigger the Moa to react at some stage. It may look up at the visitor and react in a friendly way or it might be programmed to attack because the adult female Moa has a young bird and feels threatened. This will all depend on the scripting of the game flow.
The digital device used by the visitor feeds information to the game engine about the player’s location in the park, the direction in which he/she is looking and their proximity to the next virtual bird. Birds might stalk a visitor and beg for food (which could become a lesson in itself… more birds appear and want food and surround the visitor and become aggressive) or protect their young, flee, interact with each other, |
Fix to ensure consistent behavior for RLS policies
Fix ALTER TABLE... VALIDATE CONSTRAINT to not recurse to child tables when the constraint is marked NO INHERIT
Fix incorrect support for certain box operators in SP-GiST which could yield incorrect results
Fixes for handling query cancellation
Skip tablespace privilege checks when ALTER TABLE... ALTER COLUMN TYPE rebuilds an existing index
Fix possibly-invalid initial snapshot during logical decoding
Fix possible corruption of init forks of unlogged indexes
Several fixes to postmaster, including checks for when running as a Windows service
Several planner fixes, among others assorted minor fixes in planning of parallel queries
Avoid possible crashes in walsender and some index-only scans on GiST index
Fix cancelling of pg_stop_backup() when attempting to stop a non-exclusive backup
Updates to ecpg to support COMMIT PREPARED and ROLLBACK PREPARED
Several fixes for pg_dump/pg_restore, among others to handle privileges for procedural languages and when using --clean option
Several fixes for contrib modules, such as dblink, pg_trgm and postgres_fdw
Fixes to MSVC builds, such as using correct daylight-savings rules for POSIX-style time zone names and supporting Tcl 8.6
Several performance improvements
Fix cursor_to_xml() to produce valid output with tableforest = false
Fix roundoff problems in float8_timestamptz() and make_interval()
Fix pgbench to handle the combination of --connect and --rate options correctly
Fixes to commandline tools such as pg_upgrade and pg_basebackup
Several fixes to VACUUM and CLUSTER
Users of replication tools based on logical decoding, as well as users of unlogged indexes, should consult the release notes for potential extra steps during the upgrade.
This update also contains tzdata release 2017b with updates for DST law changes in Chile, Haiti, and Mongolia, plus historical corrections for Ecuador, Kazakhstan, Liberia, and Spain. Switch to numeric abbreviations for numerous time zones in South America, the Pacific and Indian oceans, and some Asian and Middle Eastern countries. The timezone library is synchronized with IANA release tzcode2017b.
EOL Warning for Version 9.2
PostgreSQL version 9.2 will be End-of-Life in September 2017. The project expects to only release one, or two, more updates for that version. We urge users to start planning an upgrade to a later version of PostgreSQL as soon as possible. See our Versioning Policy for more information.
Updating
All PostgreSQL update releases are cumulative. As with other minor releases, users are not required to dump and reload their database or use pg_upgrade in order to apply this update release; you may simply shut down PostgreSQL and update its binaries.
After update, users of replication tools based on logical decoding, as well as users of unlogged indexes, should consult the release notes for potential extra steps during the upgrade. See the Release Notes for more details.
Users who have skipped one or more update releases may need to run additional, post-update steps; please see the release notes for earlier versions for details.
Links:14-year-old Sean Le Van’ artificial intelligence bot that will make you a happier person
'Current methods of collecting "quantified-self" personal metrics do not prove to be accurate in many instances'
What were you doing when you were 14 years old? Riding your bicycle, playing football in the park or just generally causing a nuisance are likely answers for most people.
Sean Le Van, from Aneheim in California, will put you to shame. The teenager has created a contextually aware, artifically intelligent bot that you can converse with on the web.
The bot – which Le Van calls Acuman, an acronym for Artificial Chatting Utility Matching Algorithmic Nodes – acts as a personal assistant that responds to every-day language and learns information about a user’s life and personality.
>See also: How artificial intelligence will make humans smarter
Le Van used his own scripting language and natural language processing algorithms to create Acuman, which uses the data gathered from conversations to analyse and create categorised visual representations in the form of infographics.
Acuman is then able to interact with participants productively by reminding them of their goals of self-improvement, which are customised and based on the data the bot has accumulated.
Le Van says Acuman is the first bot that can analyse and gather data for the purpose of ‘personal and psychological betterment’.
‘Current methods of collecting "quantified-self" personal metrics – which rely on the participant's ability to objectively track or take tests for the purpose of psychoanalysis, self-improvement or pre-emptive mental care – do not prove to be accurate in many instances,’ he said. ‘Also, these methods do not autonomously track and catalog this data for the participant.’
Despite his young age, Le Van lists himself as a software engineer on his LinkedIn profile and as having two jobs: a community moderator at privacy search engine DuckDuckGo, and a developer at a small web development and design company.
His artificial intelligence project was awarded first place in the 'Best New Bot' category at the 2015 Chatterbox Challenge, a global chatbot challenge.
Acuman is the latest cognitive-computing attempt that makes recent science fiction seem a not-so-distant reality. Films like 2014's 'Her' depict a future where smart operating systems can have their own emotions and identities, and eventually become so intelligent that they supersede us.
The most well-known example of cognitive computing is IBM's Watson system. In 2011, the computer famously appeared on – and won – US gameshow 'Jeopardy!' by providing questions in response to clues posed in natural human language, which included nuances such as puns, slang and jargon.
Watson was able to quickly execute hundreds of algorithms simultaneously to find the right answer, ranking its confidence in their accuracy and responding within three seconds.
>See also: Don't worry, artificial intelligence is not a job stealer – it’s a job enabler
IBM announced in January it had established a new business unit dedicated entirely to Watson. Headquartered in New York City, the IBM Watson Group employees more than 600 employees and will receive more than $1 billion in investment, focusing on development and research and bringing cloud-delivered cognitive applications and services to market.
With a 14-year-old boy able to create Acuman on his own and with no money, who knows what 600 of IBM’s greatest minds and a $1 billion could create in the years to come. But it will probably be a bit more if they give Le Van a job.Then, last week, Trump flew to Mexico City to meet President Enrique Peña Nieto. Did he repeat the pledge that brings white crowds to their feet: that Mexico will pay for a wall along the two countries’ border? Nope. Beforehand, the two sides agreed not to discuss the subject. When Peña Nieto brought it up anyway, and announced that Mexico would never foot the bill, did Trump set him straight? Nope. Rudy Giuliani, who was attending the meeting on Trump’s behalf, reportedly declared the topic “off the table” and The Donald moved on to less controversial subjects.
When Trump appeared publicly with Peña Nieto after their meeting, he again “avoided direct confrontation,” in The Washington Post’s words. He called it a “great, great, honor” to be invited to the country he has repeatedly trashed during the campaign. And he declared that he had “tremendous feelings” for the “tremendous” Mexican American people, a group he famously derided as rapists and drug dealers in his announcement speech.
But once Trump left Mexico and addressed an overwhelmingly white, anti-immigrant crowd that evening in Arizona, the Post noted, he ditched his “subdued and cooperative tone” and “returned to the aggressive tenor that has defined much of his campaign. Repeatedly raising his voice to a yell, he said that ‘anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation.’”
The oscillation continued this weekend, when Trump addressed an African American congregation in Detroit. “Trump’s subdued rhetoric,” noted Politico, “was a jarring contrast to his typically boisterous rallies.” The Republican nominee said nothing about Black Lives Matter being responsible for the murder of police, as he had told Bill O’Reilly. He didn’t imply, as he has to white audiences, that African Americans are prone to voter fraud. He said nothing about Barack Obama not being born in the United States. He didn’t repeat his claims that blacks should vote for him because their lives are so miserable that they have nothing “to lose.” Instead, he flattered his audience, calling black churches “the conscience of our country,” which had inspired America “toward a better moral character, a deeper concern for mankind, and spirit of charity and unity that binds us all together.” Trump’s remarks, noted the Post, constituted a “jarring shift in tone and message.”
This isn’t surprising. Even more than most politicians, Trump lives for the approval of the crowd. His ego is so overdeveloped, and his ideological convictions so underdeveloped, that it’s hard to imagine him walking into a room and saying things he knows his audience doesn’t want to hear. But Trump isn’t alone. Put Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, or most of the other conservatives who have made a career of being anti-PC in a small room with Latinos, African Americans, or Muslims and I suspect their rhetoric would dramatically soften, too. It’s harder to speak bluntly and nastily about people when they’re staring you in the face. It’s also harder because when you actually listen to them, they often defy your stereotypes. Up close, their grievances become harder to dismiss.
I’m glad Trump is now speaking to more diverse crowds. I’m glad because, in so doing, he’s proving that when it comes to “political correctness,” conservative politicians and pundits aren’t more courageous than their liberal counterparts. They’re just more isolated from the ethnic and racial minorities about whom they speak. When the distance disappears, the “bravery” does too.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to [email protected] Belt Conference to air games on American Sports Network
NEW ORLEANS - The Sun Belt Conference will air football and basketball games throughout the 2016-17 season on the American Sports Network. The announcement was made Wednesday.
While games on ASN will be broadcasts on “over-the-air” and cable affiliates, they will also be available without blackout restrictions on ESPN3 and the WatchESPN app.
The partnership, made possible through a sublicense agreement with ESPN, allows for a minimum of eight football games and a minimum of 10 basketball games from the Sun Belt to be aired through ASN.
The sublicense agreement reached by ESPN and ASN allows the Sinclair Broadcast Group-owned network to produce and distribute Sun Belt Conference games via Sinclair affiliate television stations and other over the air and cable stations nationwide. Sinclair Broadcast Group is the largest owner of television stations in the United States, currently owning or operating 173 television stations in 81 markets nationwide and having affiliations with all the major networks.
The announcement Monday also comes with the announcement that the following Sun Belt football games will be part of the Sun Belt and ASN venture.
Friday, September 2
Ball State at Georgia State - 6 p.m.
Saturday, September 3
Boise State at UL Lafayette - 11 a.m.
Saturday, September 10
Old Dominion at Appalachian State - 2:30 p.m.
Georgia Southern at South Alabama - 6 p.m.
Saturday, September 17
South Alabama at UL Lafayette - TBA
All times are central and subject to change.
Additional games will be released at later dates by ASN and the Sun Belt.
About the American Sports Network
American Sports Network is a sports programming division of Sinclair Networks Group, LLC, a division of Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. ASN produces broadcasts of sporting events, including NCAA Division I multiple sports, NCAA Division II football, local high school sports under the “Thursday Night Lights” and “Friday Night Rivals” brands, Major League Soccer’s Real Salt Lake City and D.C. United franchises, and the college football Arizona Bowl. The company, which launched in 2014, produced more than 375 events last year and is now a dedicated 24/7 broadcast network in 22 markets. For more information, visit ASN’s website at www.americansportsnet.com.
About the Sun Belt Conference
The Sun Belt Conference’s “Together We Rise” motto isn’t just hyperbole. It’s proven fact on many different levels, not the least being its place in the hierarchy of collegiate athletics. The league’s embracing of innovations and advancements, its constant efforts to adapt in the ever-changing world of college athletics, and its continuing process of evolving to better serve its membership has been well documented since the day the conference was founded in 1976.
But one thing hasn’t changed: Since that founding, the Sun Belt Conference has always been a league of opportunity. Athletic and academic programs who have shown progressive thinking and the desire to improve have always found a home in the Sun Belt. For student-athletes, Sun Belt institutions are leaders in providing career services and the tools to assist in the pursuit of personal goals. Sun Belt members all employ full-time academic advisors and have on average more than 20 tutors for academic support. During the 2015-16 academic year, Sun Belt member institutions awarded over $50 million in scholarships to more than 3,100 student-athletes, while also providing life experiences such as team building, domestic and foreign travel, community service, mentoring, and recognition through honors and awards.
The Sun Belt Conference’s membership consists of 11 football members – Appalachian State, Arkansas State, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Idaho, UL Lafayette, UL Monroe, New Mexico State, South Alabama, Texas State and Troy. Little Rock and UT Arlington compete in all-sports as non-football members while Idaho and New Mexico State are football only members. Coastal Carolina joined the Sun Belt Conference in all sports but football in 2016. The CCU football program will begin Sun Belt play in 2017.
For more information on the Sun Belt Conference, visit www.sunbeltsports.orgIf you need more motivation for continuing to lace up your running shoes as the weather gets colder, consider this: According to a new meta-analysis of a million people, having low cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with a 75 percent higher risk of depression, while people with medium fitness levels have a 23 percent higher risk.
Published in Preventive Medicine next month, the research team, lead by Felipe B. Schuch of Centro Universitário La Salle combined two American studies and one Swedish one, with a total of 1,128,290 participants, almost 98 percent of whom were male. The fitness levels were assessed by how well people did while running on a treadmill, cycling on a stationary bike, or making it up the equivalent of several flights of stairs.
“The idea here was to evaluate whether an objective measure of physical fitness would be associated with depression in the future,” Schuch told PsyPost. “Clearly, fitness can be improved by physical activity practice, therefore increasing physical activity should be targeted as a strategy to prevent depression.”
The results further cement the ties between physical and mental health. Another study from earlier this year found that when young people take up a meditation-and-running program, symptoms of major depressive disorder lessened by 40 percent on average, and a 2006 study found that when college students went from not exercising at all to visiting the gym a couple times a week, they had a greater “capacity for self regulation” — meaning that they could depend more on themselves than on substances. As Science of Us contributor Brad Stulberg noted, those students reported less stress, smoking, and drinking and better eating, spending, and study habits.
So if you want to be more resilient to the slings and arrows of life, keep up those miles. Just be sure to be astonishingly chill while you’re doing so, too.WASHINGTON — The State Department on Monday officially announced a broad expansion of the Mexico City Policy, a regulation put in place by every Republican president since Ronald Reagan that prevents foreign nongovernmental organizations that perform or promote abortions from receiving American dollars.
Typically, the Mexico City Policy has only impacted funds specifically earmarked for family planning programs. Under the new policy, however, organizations that perform other health-related work and happen to support abortions — for example, a foreign NGO that does sexual health education to prevent the spread of HIV and also informs women that abortion is legal in the country — could see the whole of their US health funding disappear.
The policy the current White House will implement extends to all organizations that perform abortions, promote abortion, or even financially support other NGOs that do so. The restrictions also apply to a vast swath of foreign aid dollars — encompassing malaria prevention, HIV treatment, and maternal health — amounting to $8.8 billion, nearly 15 times more than the amount of restricted money under the policy as enacted under former President George W. Bush.
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Foreign nongovernmental organizations are already prohibited from receiving money for family planning programs if that organization “performs or actively promotes abortion as a method of family planning,” according to guidance issued by the State Department in March. An organization must “agree in writing” that it will follow this policy in order to receive funds. Federal funds have also long been prohibited from being used on abortions directly, both within the United States and abroad.
Of the $8.8 billion, approximately $6 billion is earmarked for the Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, some of which is used to fund the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Much of the money also goes to the US Agency for International Development family planning efforts, maternal health programs, and other public health initiatives.
Administration officials stressed that the amount of global health money distributed by the US would not change, and that the restriction was simply following through on a pledge that “US taxpayer money should not be used to support foreign organizations that perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.” The policy also does not apply to funds distributed directly to foreign governments.
A number of global health advocacy groups immediately decried the expanded restriction, saying it would jeopardize preventive health and treatment efforts that depend on American money to operate.
PAI, a global advocate for contraceptive and reproductive health, said the new restrictions would “broaden the reach of the policy’s already deadly effects, including increasing unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and maternal and child mortality.”
Earlier in the year, a coalition including Planned Parenthood, Marie Stopes International, a number of AIDS groups, and a variety of religious and labor organizations also released a joint statement opposing the reinstatement of the policy and citing “broad and severe” health consequences worldwide.
Some major international organizations have publicly declared that they will make no such agreement with the US government, even if it means forgoing tens of millions of dollars. The UK-based International Planned Parenthood Federation expects to lose $100 million.
Marie Stopes International, a UK-based organization that provides women with contraception and safe abortion, also pledged not to sign on with the policy. In 2015, it received about 23 million pounds, or about $30 million, from USAID, making up about 9 percent of its budget.
To fill such budgetary gaps, other governments have pledged to pitch in, committing at least $190 million at a conference in Brussels in March. Still, that amount is a fraction of the $8.8 billion at stake.
The Mexico City Policy or “global gag rule,” first implemented in 1984, is usually revoked by Democratic presidents and reinstated by Republicans — with the exception of one year during former President Bill Clinton’s second term when it remained in force by congressional action.
It’s up to the legions of civil servants who work for the State Department to enforce the policy, however, and they can have some leverage as to how aggressively it’s enforced, said Duff Gillespie, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, during a February panel discussion at his university. He worked for USAID when the policy was previously in place.
During his time at the agency, Gillespie said he did his best to implement the policy “to the letter,” trying “to minimize the damage.” That might be more difficult now, he said.For once, you can take the "@" symbol at the front of a Twitter account name literally.
The Twitter name "@arjanelfassed" is not only the Twitter account of one Arjan El Fassed; it's also the name of an actual location, "@ arjanelfassed tweetstreet," which is now a street in a Palestinian refuge camp.
The Dutch website Jouw Eigen Straatnam charges $146 for each of 200 street names in the Askar camp and gives the proceeds to the Palestinian Child Care Society (PCCS), according to Al Fassed, to fund "cultural and expressive after-school activities" for the up to 1,000 children in the camp at its youth center. Part of the program's allure, he says, is that the corresponding street signs are temporary.
"Since a refugee camp by definition should not remain permanent, selling street names of the camp is a creative way to connect people and support these children after school," said Arjan El Fassed. "Naming the street to my Twitter account is a symbolic way to connect both online and offline with the children of Askar."
There aren't many places in the world where you can buy a street name, which leads us to believe that his claim that his is the first street named after a Twitter account is accurate. Has anyone seen another?
See Also:
Photo courtesy of arjanfassedToday is music day at the Bill C-32 committee as there will be two panels focused on music copyright issues. The first panel is the Balanced Copyright For Canada panel, comprised of CRIA (which backs the site as part of its strategy to “radicalize and activate” its base through social media as Graham Henderson described it earlier this month) and four of the site’s board members. The second panel includes SOCAN, ADISQ, GMMQ, and the SAC.
The BCFC panel should raise some interesting questions about what CRIA says publicly at committee or does in the courts and what it says behind closed doors. I recently obtained a document under the Access to Information Act summarizing comments made by Henderson to Industry Canada officials in a September 2010 meeting, several months after Bill C-32 was introduced. The meeting was a Chamber of Commerce event, so CRIA did not report it in its lobbying disclosures. The summary includes two notable positions that seem to contradict public action or words and suggest a split between CRIA and other creator groups, including the Canadian Independent Music Association.
First, Henderson tells officials that Canada is a haven for pirate sites and that tough laws are needed to close them down. This is nothing new, yet these comments came months after dozens of record labels filed court documents asking the courts to close down isoHunt based on current Canadian copyright law. The documents include a statement of defence that argues that isoHunt is not operating lawfully in Canada and a statement of claim that seeks millions in damages and a shut down order.
Second, in discussing format shifting, Henderson is said to have noted “his disagreement with some creator groups who are advocating for an associated levy on digital media storage devices.” Not only does his opposition to the extension of the levy put him on the opposite side of many creator groups, it even places him on the opposite side of fellow witness Grant Dexter of Maple Music, who is the Chair of CIMA, which has argued for an extension of the levy.
The opposition to extending the levy also contradicts comments Henderson made before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage last April. When asked about CRIA’s apparent opposition to the levy, Henderson told Bloc MP Carole Lavallee:
We do support levies like this. We are also a member of the CPCC through our membership in the NRCC. It’s not just artists who benefit. It’s independent labels, major labels, songwriters. A lot of people benefit from the levy, so I don’t think there’s an issue about the existing levy. Do we have an issue with levies that are targeted and focused on private copies made from those legally acquired? No, we do not have a problem with that.
CRIA followed up with a public statement:
Canada’s record labels have no issue with such levies when they are applied uniquely to private copies of legally obtained music. However, we do not support levies that effectively launder illegally acquired music into a legal format, where artists and other rights holders are paid a pittance.
Note that the proposals put forward on the iPod levy do not focus on “laundering” music, but rather proposes compensation for format shifting. CRIA has publicly indicated support for such a levy in the past and now privately indicated its opposition to government officials. Which position will it take today?Doctors Without Borders staffers on April 1, 2014, carry the body of a person killed by Ebola in Guinea, the West African nation hardest hit by the worst outbreak of the viral disease. (Photo11: AFP/Getty Images)
The deadliest-ever outbreak of the Ebola virus has surged in West Africa after slowing briefly, and the pandemic is now "out of control," according to Doctors Without Borders.
Nearly 600 infections and 340 Ebola-related deaths have been recorded in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the most since the virus was discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan almost 40 years ago, the World Health Organization said this week. There's no cure or vaccine for the highly contagious disease, which has mortality rate of up to 90%.
"The reality is clear that the epidemic is now in a second wave," Bart Janssens, the medical charity's operations director, told the Associated Press on Friday. "And, for me, it is totally out of control."
He criticized the WHO and African governments for not doing more to contain the outbreak and to thoroughly trace everyone who has had contact with the sick or the dead.
"There needs to be a real political commitment that this is a very big emergency," he said. "Otherwise, it will continue to spread, and for sure it will spread to more countries."
STORY: All you need to know about Ebola
As of Friday, the WHO was not recommending any travel or trade restrictions to the three countries.
"We think that the situation can be controlled with the measures that are being vigorously implemented," Francis Kasolo, the director for disease prevention and control at the WHO's regional office in Republic of Congo, told the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
The virus, one of the world's most virulent, is transmitted by contact with the blood, fluids or tissues of infected animals or people. It causes high fever, vomiting, muscle pain and diarrhea, and can result in unstoppable internal bleeding and organ failure.
Transmission risk is especially high among doctors, nurses and other health care workers.
The latest outbreak began in January or December in the forests of southeastern Guinea and spread to urban areas. Guinea has been the hardest hit, with 264 deaths recorded by Wednesday. Sierra Leone has reported 49 deaths and Liberia 24.
"This is the highest outbreak on record and has the highest number of deaths, so this is unprecedented so far," Armand Sprecher, a public health specialist with Doctors Without Borders, told the AP.
Sierra Leone has stepped up measures to prevent and contain the disease, the country's health minister said Thursday.
In Liberia, nurses fearful over the Ebola death of a colleague abandoned a hospital in New Kru Town, forcing it to close. During a solidarity visit to the hospital Tuesday, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf declared the outbreak a national emergency.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/SYdvjSSo we come to the final article for this series. The final piece where we put it all together. Now we will put everything we’ve learned so far, and a few new things, into one coherent practice that can be done in 10 minutes or less.
You can do this anywhere, on the cushion or off. I began this practice a few years ago by standing in front of the skeleton by the meditation hall here at Bhavana, which I still do today. So let us begin:
We start out with a simple recollection. We remind ourselves “I may die today, I may die tomorrow, I may die at any time”. Bhante Seelananda here at Bhavana teaches at the mindfulness of death retreat to start from a future time period, 10 years for example, and to count down at intervals from “I may die in 10 years” to “I may die, in 1 second”. It may be helpful for some but I find compressing it to the statement above works better for me.
Once we have set the stage and reminded ourselves of our impending death, we continue to the next statement “because life is uncertain, but death is certain”, another phrase taught here at Bhavana. We can never be certain about anything in life, but the death of this body is always a certainty, even for awakened beings.
Now we come back to familiar territory, the 5 remembrances/subjects for contemplation from part 2. “I who may die at any time am subject to ageing and decay, I am not exempt from ageing and decay. I am subject to illness and disease, I am not exempt from illness and disease. I am subject to death, I am not exempt from death. All that is dear to me I will one day be separated from. I am the owner and heir of my actions.
Now you need to be careful when repeating this contemplation, for you may have a sneaky delusional mind like myself that wants to deny to the end that one day this being will die. In times of waning mindfulness I have actually heard my mind repeat “I am exempt from death” instead of “I am not exempt from death”, which brought my awareness back with a laugh at this poor deluded fellow.
Next we segue into 32 parts of the body contemplation(asubha). ”I am subject to these five remembrances because I have this body. This body which I find to be pleasant on the outside, but not so pleasant when viewed from inside. Other bodies are also pleasant to look upon from the outside, but not pleasant when viewed from the inside. When seen with equanimity, free of like and dislike, we see this body is a mere biological machine made up of various parts created with numerous (scientific) elements that were born in the heart of a dying star.
”This body is made up of head hair, body, hair, nails, teeth, skin( the five parts that can be seen on the outside). Fat, tissue, bones, bone marrow, muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints, various organs, various systems(circulatory, neurological etc), various liquids, and miscellaneous parts. It helps me also to visualize all of this as I go through, like making an examination of the body. Downloading an anatomy app on a phone/tablet may be helpful for this.
This is the point where it helps to be in front of a skeleton. I often times will feel the various parts of the skeleton with one hand and the same part on my own body with the other. The cheek bone of the skeleton, my cheek bone. The collar bone of the skeleton, my collar bone. The pelvis of the skeleton, my pelvis. This practice really punches home the fact that you have this skeleton inside of you, as well as all the parts you have gone though. It helps to break through the fog we keep ourselves in and show us the reality.
From there we segue into corpse contemplation. “all these parts of the body are subject to decay, to illness, to death. One day this body will lie devoid of life, useless as a dead tree stump, and will decay according to it’s nature.”
Now we go through the various stages of decay from part three, with an added visualization. I was told about this visualization some years ago by someone who claimed they learned this from Bhikkhu Thanissaro, but I can’t confirm that, regardless it has been very helpful. I visualize a copy of myself in front of me, but it IS myself, like looking in a mirror. This copy then begins to rapidly age until it falls back, dies, and then begins the 9 stages of corpse decay from corpse contemplation. I was surprised the first time I did this as the visualized me “smiled” as he died, a smile of acceptance and being “ok” with death.
I don’t really often use words during this part as I go through the various stages of corpse decay, but if you wish you can verbalize it to go along with the visualization of the stages ”a corpse 3 days dead… skeleton with flesh and blood.. scattered and bleached bones” etc
This is the end of the mindfulness of death practice, but there is one final segue after this. ”Because I am subject to decay, illness, and death, so too are all other beings. Knowing this I should develop metta(limitless good-will) and karuna(compassion) for myself and all beings….(segue into metta practice) may all of us find happiness, may all of us find peace, may all of us live in friendship with each other, may all of us find release”.
So we end our mindfulness of death practice with the realization that we are all in the same boat, subject to the same nature, and when death is rolling from all directions like four mountains as tall as the sky, all there is to do is to practice dhamma, hence why I feel it appropriate to do metta practice right after mindfulness of death, a tandem pair as it were.
I will close with one final recommendation. There is a wonderful video, a dhamma talk, on death spoken by a monk who was dealing with cancer at the time. I’m not sure if he is still alive or not but I still watch this regularly as it is poignant and profound: “The Ultimate Test” - https://youtu.be/oBIMRCRh_Xs
I wish you all peace, happiness, and that your practice blossoms. Until next time friends.
This is the Fifth in a five part series. Here are the links to all parts:British Army Planned Nuclear Chicken Landmines
London — A claim that Britain considered using live chickens in a nuclear weapon aroused skepticism Thursday, but Robert Smith (head of press & publicity at The National Archives) insisted that it was not an April Fool’s hoax.
The Archives released a secret 1957 Ministry of Defence report showing that scientists contemplated putting chickens in the casing of a plutonium landmine. The chickens’ body heat was considered a possible means of preventing the mine’s mechanism from freezing.
Listing ways of extending the armed life of the landmine, the declassified document proposed “incorporating some form of heating independent of power supplies under the weapon hull in the emplacement. Chickens, with a heat output of the order of 1,000 BTU (British Thermal Units) per bird per day are a possibility.”
Andy Oppenheimer, co-editor of Jane’s World Armies, said, “I have a feeling that it’s an April Fool’s joke - the idea of using chickens is hard to believe." He said wrapping the device in fibreglass to keep it warm would have been a better option.
The Times of London also expressed skepticism. Referring to the April 1st date, the Times front page headline read, “Is today the day to reveal the chicken-powered nuke?”
Tom O’Leary, head of education and interpretation at the National Archives, said he had no doubt that the document was authentic. Mr. O’Leary said the idea is mentioned briefly in a “Blue Peacock” document as, “purely a suggestion in an official document that that is a possibility that was proposed, and there was no indication that the feasibility was ever tested... It did not mention chickens but did deal with the problem of maintaining the right temperature. The nuclear warhead had to be kept within a specific temperature range, but environmental trials suggested it might not have survived the rigours of a mid-European winter.”
The Blue Peacock Project began in 1954 and was aimed at preventing enemy occupation of territory due to nuclear contamination. Designs were based on Britain’s Blue Danube free-fall bomb, which consisted of a plutonium core surrounded by a sphere of high explosive with detonators spread across the surface. The steel casing was so large that it had to be tested outdoors in a flooded gravel pit.
Officials decided in 1957 to acquire 10 Blue Peacock landmines, each weighing 7,250 kilograms. The mines were to be left buried or submerged by the British Army of the Rhine (Germany). They would then have been detonated by wire from up to 5 kilometres away or by an 8-day timer in the event of a retreat from invading Soviet troops - to prevent them from occupying the area. If disturbed or damaged, they were primed to explode within 10 seconds.
Nuclear historian David Hawkings revealed the plan for the nuclear mine, which was as abandoned in 1958 after 4 years of R&D - the Ministry of Defence Weapons Policy Committee decided that work on Blue Peacock should stop because of reservations about the fallout hazard.
A prototype survives in the historical collection of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, a government agency which has its headquarters at Aldermaston west of London. Details of the chicken proposal feature in an April 2 - Oct. 30 exhibition titled The Secret State at the National Archives in Kew, west London.Ok now this Spike V2......this was definitely one of the most annoyingly tricky DBZ pony pics to do over the last 2 years of doing these. I always dread working on Spike but actually this one turned out sooooo much better than I expected. Trust me....the paper sketch was horrendous.I did have to keep adjusting his lineart multiple times on the arms and the scales which made it so taxing on my computer.So yeah DBZ Spike V2.....definitely a much more improved version over the one I previously had with him that I did over a year and a half ago. See this was a new experience for me cause I actually had to draw legit muscles on him. Really got to go all out on this one and really beef him up without going insane. That was the most challenging part in this. Here's the thing, in the show he's so weak looking but in reality he's one of the strongest characters in the show. I think in reality he's much more fit that people give Spike credit for so on this pic I decided to really muscle him up but in a sense isn't that how it should be....and DBZ like?! Actually on a side note I noticed how dark I made this background and it was a good call cause Spike really pops out well on this one.So hop you all like this one cause it was definitely a challenge for the most part.I kind of shuttle beef the normal ponies up pending on physical attributes in the show but with Spike....Spike is a strong character in general. I was EXTREMELY tempted to add blood on this one but....I'll give this one a pass for now.Onward to next comic. Spike © HasbroArt © Me“The Walking Dead” has perhaps been the most popular television show around |
OK, but there isn’t that many proactive cards in the deck, and let’s face it, it’s an easy and boring choice. Because of the Ancient Tombs in the maindeck I knew I wanted a couple of Blood Moons, and I’d just got a set of Nahiris. Since she’s a powerful threat that’s immune to Pyroblast this seemed like the perfect time to give her a spin.
I ran the above list through our four round Tuesday night Legacy at Darkpshere. With very low expectations for the deck, I was just looking for a bit of fun. Here’s a quick run through of the matches
Match 1 – Tom Brown on Dark Bant
G1 – I lead with Shelldock Isle and Tom gave me a confused look. He wasted it, but I had the follow up Shelldock, gotcha! This game was more determined by Counterbalance and Terminus though, I took control of the game and won with Thought Lash and Laboratory Maniac at my leisure.
G2 – I mulliganed to four cards, he got some pressure going with a Deathrite Shaman and True-Name Nemesis, Dazed a Predict that might have got me into the game a bit and died with a needed Terminus one card too low in my library.
G3 – I sneak a Blood Moon onto the table while he’s tapped out, Terminus away a couple of Deathrites and Nahiri locks it up.
Match 2 – Alex Rea – 4C Control
G1 – Alex Thoughtseizes me and luckily sees a pretty stock Miracles hand, the shenanigans are hidden! I get a Top going and we play draw go for about 10 turns until I pick a fight with Predict at the end of his turn. This taps him low and I’m able to play Thought Lash and Lab Man with two tops on the table, which he missed their ability to draw a card on the spot. Apparently he had double Force of Will so was, I assume, planing to Force of Will any cantrips to stop me winning then untap and be able to Abrupt Decay the Maniac.
G2 – I have a Blood Moon and fetches in my hand, so Force of Will a leading Deathrite from Alex. We then play draw go for a few turns until at the end of his turn I fetch, he Kolaghan’s Commands me to destroy Top and make me discard. I spin the the Top away, discard Emrakul and untap to slam a Blood Moon. What follows is Alex not being able to play much magic until he’s been attacked by an Emrakul twice.
Match 3 – Charlie – Goblins
G1 – Charlie has a pretty slow hand, with no turn one play and an Warren Instigator on turn two. I have a Swords for it, and land a Counterbalance then Brainstorm a Thought Lash to the top in response to a Mantroned Goblin Ringleader. I then assemble the combo soon after.
G2 – Charlie has an unanswered Goblin Lackey on turn one, but no bombs to throw on the table. I don’t find a Terminus from some cantrips, but am able to assemble the combo on turn five. The icing on the cake was an Emrakul hidden under a Shelldock Isle, which I cast and won off the extra turns draw!
So, the deck was far exceeding my expectations! It actually felt quite powerful, and was a blast to play.
Match 4 – Tommasso – Moon Stompy…the end boss!
Tommasso has been destroying the London crowd with his Moon Stompy recently, and I knew exactly what he was on.
G1 – I’m on the play which is huge in the matchup. My hand has both combo pieces, I just need to be able to play them. He opens with a Chalice for one, OK. Followed by a Trinisphere, still fine. I slam a Lab Maniac on my turn three, just needing it to live to play the Thought Lash in my hand. But unfortunately he has the Chandra, Torch of Defiance. Lab Man dies and I soon succumb to a rabble of goblins.
G2 – I have an OK hand and am able to Swords a turn one Goblin Rabblemaster, Force of Will a Chalice of the Void[/c] and start taking control of the game with Nahiri. She exiles a few Magus of the Moon until finding an Emrakul, and alongside a Snapcaster, seals it up.
G3 – This was a really dicey one, and I don’t remember all the details. But Nahiri again did a huge amount of work removing some Blood Moons until I was finally able to unlock blue mana, and with an Ancient Tomb get the combo online.
So, 4-0! Definitely unexpected. The deck is a blast. I wouldn’t change anything yet since I’ve not played with it enough to know quite what the real weaknesses are (I expect there are a lot…), but the combo will take people by surprise, that’s for sure!
Hope you enjoyed this The Brewery article, if you have any questions please ask in the comments, I’ll be happy to answer.
See you next time!
Callum Smith
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Callum started playing in Tempest block with a break after Kamigawa (like so many others…) After returning to Magic around Innistrad he quickly moved into Legacy and enjoys the more ‘unique’ decks, such as Nic Fit and Tin Fins. Unfortunately for his opponents he has started playing fair blue decks recently whereupon he recorded his best result making the Top 8 of Eternal Weekend 2017.Jon Wellinghoff, former FERC chairman, explains his concerns about grid security and vulnerability to attack, in an interview with Chip Register of Sapient Global Markets.
In a previous article on Forbes, I had a conversation with former-CIA chief Jim Woolsey to discuss one of America’s greatest national security vulnerabilities, its power grid. The issues that Woolsey has been concerned with for over a decade has been the ease in which a terrorist group or other actor (think North Korea for example) could attack the grid and plunge the country into darkness for months, if not years. And if that seems far-fetched, just recall how a tree limb fell in Ohio in 2003 and blacked out the entire Northeast and part of Canada for several days.
Woolsey describes several scenarios of how the grid could be taken down for an extended period of time by anyone with the means and the will to do the nation, and the world, great harm. His focus was on EMP, or electromagnetic pulse. That’s part of the radiation blast emitting from a nuclear detonation, and it has the effect of rendering all forms of electrical devices useless. Radio, televisions, telephones, and, yes, power stations would all essentially fry from the inside out if exposed to such an event. Permanently.
Still seemed far-fetched? It really isn’t. A very small and unsophisticated nuclear device (which is or could be in the possession of many American foes) could be attached to a weather balloon launched from a boat in the Gulf of Mexico or off of California and floated to the county’s mid-continent where its detonation would have the greatest effect. America would literally go dark. No phones. No money. No heat. No running water. No medicine. No police. Just darkness.
Congressional studies quoted by Woolsey estimate that two-thirds of the population would die of starvation, disease, exposure or violence related to social breakdown in the first twelve months alone.
And to make matters worse, we would never even know what hit us, because we would have no means to investigate, to say nothing of respond. Just darkness.
Other methods of getting at the power grid include cyber-attack or a coordinated set of bombings (with conventional explosives similar to the Oklahoma City in 1995) aimed at the regional nodes, or major substations that interlock the nation’s grid.
And here is where we pick up the story with my next discussion with Jon Wellinghoff, the former Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Wellinghoff has also been sounding the alarm for years about this vulnerability. But he has a slightly different take on how to secure the grid. While many analysts point to the few billion or so it would take to protect the grid from attack, Wellinghoff equates that to building a wall, which will only lead to potential attacks designing higher ladders.
Commissioner Wellinghoff believes the true answer to grid security is to fundamentally realign the system from one that relies on a few nodes (probably less than a dozen), which are all critical for the grid to operate, to a national system of ‘distributed grids’; hundreds of smaller ones, which of course could be attacked individually through conventional or nuclear or cyber means, but none of which could topple the entire system if it went down.
What follows is our discussion that covered political leadership, new incentives and renewable energy sources that could advance the cause of distributed energy and lead to a safer (and cleaner) future for us all.
What is the state of grid security today? How safe are we from either a cyber or physical attack?
I think we are in a very tenuous security situation, mainly because of the way the grid is configured. It is currently set up in such a way that requires central station generation, which is then distributed through nodes of high voltage substations and then sent out to load centers. This centralized distribution system presents an array of vulnerabilities from a cyber and physical security standpoint.
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What are some of those vulnerabilities?
These specific high-voltage sub-station nodes. If they are attacked in some way, be it by cyber, electromagnetic pulse or conventional bombing for instance, it can have a destabilizing effect for the entire grid.
What exactly is a node and how can it be attacked?
A node is one of a number of high-voltage substations, which are contained within the three main interconnects making up the North American power grid; the Texas, Eastern and Western interconnects. The nodes are sort of a gathering point inside the interconnects where more than one power generation source feeds into, which is then distributed out to load centers. These particular nodes, if they are knocked out by either a physical or a cyber attack, could have a major destabilizing effect on the entire grid system. Repairing these nodes has a long lead time due to their highly customized designs. So if there are multiple node outages it could be many weeks or months till the system is back to normal. By then, the country could be in chaos
So how do we protect these nodes?
Well, there is only so much you can do. We could physically protect these nodes by beefing up security around them, but they’ll never be totally safe from a physical or cyber attack. It is sort of like building a firewall to keep out hackers. Eventually, the hackers will figure out how to get through, forcing you to build a higher firewall. It never ends. What we need to do is to move toward from this kind of thinking.
So what’s the solution here?
We need change the way the grid works, not just build higher and higher walls around these nodes. This can be done by shifting from a centralized to a distributed grid architecture in which power generation is dispersed along the grid.
By that you mean distributed generation?
That’s right. Distributed generation.
Can you explain what distributed generation is and how can it make the grid safer?
Distributed generation is about moving power generation to within the load centers as opposed to power sources being remotely located from the load centers. This breaks up the centralized node architecture currently in place and disperses the generation across the grid forming micro and sub-regional grids. So if there is an attack on a node it won’t take down that whole area of the grid because there would be those sub-regional and microgrids that could island themselves within those areas. So we need to look at a different grid architecture and recognize and value the sort of support and security that can be provided by distributed generation.
Can you give me an example of what a distributed grid might look like and how it would be powered?
A distributed grid can be powered by a variety of methods – from co-generators of natural gas to wind turbines to solar installations on your home. The key is that they are located within that particular sub-region and can run even if the there is some cascading failure throughout the main grid. Solar is a good example. If everyone had solar panels on their respective roofs then we could adequately disperse power generation in such a way that it makes nodes practically irrelevant. It is easy to hack into a node and cause it to malfunction but it is basically impossible to hack 10 million solar power systems.
This seems like a multi-decade effort, right? In the meantime, the grid remains pretty exposed to attack by either cyber or conventional means. So is there something that can be done now to protect the grid?
How quickly we get to a distributed grid depends on how quickly we recognize the value of moving there. But you’re right, it will take some time so the government and the utilities should work together in the interim to ensure the safety of the grid. Such safety measures can range from instead of putting up a chain-link fence, erecting a simple concrete block wall, to placing ballistic resistant material around sensitive facilities. Conventional threats are always evolving, which makes protecting the grid as it is today very difficult. Just think about it, a person can now buy ten self-flying drones off eBay EBAY +1.23%, load them up with explosives and have them dive bomb on to critical power nodes. Such a threat didn’t exist five years ago.
What can people do to protect themselves?
People are beginning to understand that they need their own onsite capabilities to island themselves from the grid. That’s because the grid’s external vulnerabilities will continue to be a problem until we do have substantial amounts of distributed generation. I have a solar photovoltaic system that provides 100% of my power needs. I am looking into how I can island myself off the grid. But it is not just me, the military is moving toward microgrids at all of their bases because they understand the vulnerability of those bases to outages.
So how come the government and the utility industry isn’t doing more to encourage distributed generation?
There were a number of pieces of legislation at one time proposed that would have granted FERC additional authority to mitigate known threats and vulnerabilities to the grid system but that legislation never got anywhere.
And why is that?
Politics. The utility industry isn’t incentivized to encourage distributed generation so they tend to oppose any changes to the status quo. FERC has been blocked from enacting stronger standards because they have to accept the standards as written by the North American Electricity Reliability Corporation (NERC), which is controlled by the utility industry. I testified many times that I didn’t care if the authority was given to FERC, to Homeland Security, the Department of Energy or some other agency. It didn’t matter to me; we just needed a national mandate for stronger standards. Regardless of that there was never an adequate compromise reached between the congressional sponsors of the legislation, the FERC and the utility industry.
Why are the utilities so hostile to change here?
The distributed model scares the utilities because it is new and places more control in the hands of the general population. That’s the response of a legacy industry that is very conservative and tends to look back instead of forward. The natural tendency of these utilities is to invest in security and improvements surrounding the plants they control as opposed to valuing the sort of investments consumers would make, like distributed generation. But, as I explained before, there is only so much that can be done to protect the grid based on its current architecture.
So where do we go from here?
The key is valuing distributed resources more appropriately. That way we could move more quickly to the distributed sub-regional and supportable system that won’t be vulnerable to attack. We have the ability to structure a market system for the grid that could make it more reliable and safer using distributed generation. We just need to get the government and the utilities on board as soon as possible.
***
In Wellinghoff’s view, protecting our centralized grid from all forms of attack – from bombings to EMP to cyber – is a never ending journey. We should of course do what we can for now, but the best use of resources is to reconfigure the grid, to change it from a centralized Goliath that can be downed with a single rock to hundreds of smaller grids. These could have thousands or even millions of generation sources attached to them, thanks to rooftop solar, micro-nuclear plants and other innovations in the field.
Ideally, the money we would spend building higher walls, according to Wellinghoff, should be spent incentivizing consumers and generators to invest in these technologies and grid companies to adapt the national infrastructure around them. Only this can ultimately lead us to a safer (and cleaner) place.
Chip Register is the managing director of Sapient Global Markets and serves on the Leadership Team of Sapient Corp. This article originally appeared on Forbes.com.The vast majority of e-Readers feature a closed software ecosystem that prevents users from installing their own apps. Many devices such as the Sony or Nook line of e-Ink readers all run Android, but provide zero flexibility in this regard. A new e-Reader unveiled at the Frankfurt Book Fair seeks to remedy this situation and provide a truly “open” Android experience.
The imcoV6L features a six inch e-Ink Pearl HD display screen with a resolution of 1024×758 pixels. It also has a front-lit display, to allow you to read in the dark. Underneath the hood, it is powered by a Rockchip 1 GHZ CPU processor and 256 MB of RAM. There is 4 GB of internal memory and has an SD Card slot to enhance it up to 32 GB.
One of the most interesting aspects of this device is external speakers and 3.5mm headphone jack. This will allow you to listen to audiobooks and music right on the device. Since it is running Android, you will be able to install apps such as Audible, to buy and listen to them right on your e-reader. Another great feature is the physical page turn buttons working in conjunction with the touchscreen. You can turn the pages by gestures or with the click of a button on the left/right hand side.
The most compelling aspect of this new reader is the fact that you can load in your own Android apps. This will allow users to install Kindle, Kobo, Nook, Sony, Aldiko, Moon+ Reader, Marvel Comics for e-reading. It does not just stop there, but you can install Gmail, Dropbox or any other app that you want. Obviously you won’t want to play games on an e-ink screen, but productivity and e-reading apps will be amazing.
It is set to retail for $99 euros and is poised to be a European exclusive. In the next few days we will try and get an exclusive first look at this new device and talk to the developers at their booth.Get the biggest Weekday Swansea City FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Paul Clement has been told he will be backed in the January transfer window – if he can keep Swansea City in with a fighting chance of avoiding relegation following the dramatic late win over West Brom.
Clement has been supported by the Swans board despite form that had seen them plunge to the bottom of the Premier League table going into the crunch clash with fellow strugglers Albion.
But there has been growing suggestions that defeat to Alan Pardew’s side could have placed the former Real Madrid No.2 in danger of losing his Liberty position.
Jason Levien, one of the Swans’ majority shareholding partners, had flown in from the United States only adding to the speculation that the game was make-or-break for the head coach.
But Wilfried Bony’s 81st minute goal – celebrated wildly by Clement – has eased that pressure, with Swansea back in touching distance of safety.
Clement said Levien had made the unplanned visit as a show of support, akin to that of the trip by owner Steve Kaplan at Burnley last month.
(Image: PA)
Sources maintain that there is no appetite to make a further managerial change having hired Clement 11 months ago following the short-lived reigns of Francesco Guidolin, the ex-Derby manager having successfully steered the side away from relegation with an impressive second-half of the campaign.
And there is a belief that significant money will be made available for the upcoming transfer window following an acceptance that the squad was left short by the summer business.
However, with three further games before Christmas and then two festive fixtures before the New Year transfer window opens, the transfer plans are likely to be altered should Swansea look cut adrift.
Clement referenced the need to stay in the mix as he spoke after the West Brom win, Swansea’s first in eight games and a result that lifted them back above Crystal Palace and just one point off Albion in 17th. Six points currently separate Everton in tenth and the Swans in 19th.
(Image: Getty Images Europe)
Asked whether he was fearful of his position as Swansea struggled to find a breakthrough before Bony’s goal – his first back at the Liberty as a Swans player in his second spell – Clement said: “I don’t think like that. I would have been worried to have come in and seen the other results and us still on nine points with three games to go until half way, that would have been my concern. But not about my position.
“I don’t think it takes pressure off, it’s more about building confidence at a time we really needed. Confidence can come and go, it’s never a set level. It’s been down recently but the players stood up today put a lot of effort in. Some of the football was good, some of it not so good, some was really positive, some was apprehensive, in the end th most important thing was to get the positive result.
"Hopefully we can build on it but we’ve said this before – Huddersfield and Bournemouth were both opportunities to build on and we haven’t taken them. Today we grafted for the victory, we got it and now we have to move forward.”This year is the start of BW20th Year! BW-related events and toys launch is also planned, but since you are waiting the usual TF us to be great deployment, thank you Nya ♪
We know already that Masterpiece Optimus Primal is on its way, due for release in 2016, and that's an excellent way to commemorate a major anniversary for Beast Wars. But a tweet this evening by Hisashi Yuki makes it sound like there will be even more to come. Hasbro's representatives, when asked, could offer no solid answer about domestic celebration of the anniversary of the fan-favorite series, likely due to a major focus on Titans Return this coming year. But it seems a decent bet TakaraTomy needn't be so constrained. You can check out Yuki-san's tweet, in Japanese, along with a machine translation, so keep reading!In February, Europe's first sex doll brothel opened in Barcelona, allowing keen visitors to pay to get intimate with animatronic models.
Now, the firm behind the brothel has announced that it is looking to set up a second shop in the UK.
Lumidolls, which describes its dolls as 'totally realistic', is actively looking for a UK investor to finance the brothel.
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In February, Europe's first sex doll brothel opened in Barcelona, allowing keen visitors to pay to get intimate with animatronic models. Now, the firm behind the brothel has announced that it is looking to set up a second shop in the UK
WILL SEXBOTS STOP CRIME? Many people can see a variety of benefits that sexbots have to offer. Behaviour therapist Nicolas Aujula sees them as a mechanism for helping fetishists explore extreme sexual fantasies, which could help fight sex crime. Mr Aujula said: 'Over the next few years, sex bots I believe could commonly provide a safe and discreet solution for exploring fantasies – offering the possibilities of simply having more creative sex, through to satisfying extreme fetish behaviour.
Lumidolls, which is based in Barcelona, told the Daily Star Online that it is 'looking for an investor in the UK' to set up its second European sex doll brothel.
A spokesperson said: 'We are currently in the process of expanding and looking for more franchisees in other countries.
'If anyone is interested in the brand, you can contact us.'
The search for a UK investor comes shortly after Lumidolls opened its first sex doll brothel in Barcelona.
But the brothel, which was initially opened near the famous La Rambla strip, got off to a shaky start with a backlash from prostitutes forcing the institution to close.
A spokesperson for Lumidolls said that the brothel was moved 'due to a problem of infrastructure.'
Now, the brothel has been relocated to a mystery location – the address of which is only given to paying customers.
For £67 (€80/$86), people can spend half an hour with one of four hyper-realistic dolls, or they can splash out £83 (€98/$106) for a full hour.
The dolls themselves are made from thermoplastic elastomer, and come with their own personality and attributes.
The dolls themselves are made from thermoplastic elastomer, and come with their own personality and attributes
THE FUTURE OF SEX A report last year claimed: By 2030, most people will have some form of virtual sex as casually as they browse porn today. By 2035 the majority of people will own sex toys that interact with virtual reality sex. 'Sexbots' will start to appear in high-income, very wealthy households as soon as 2025. Sex with robots will be more popular than human-human sex in 2050. Love and the act of sex is set to become increasingly separate, with relationships increasingly becoming based on more than just sex.
But they aren't cheap to produce – each doll costs £4,373 ($5,605) to make.
While you might think that using just four dolls in a sex brothel could be unhygienic, Lumidolls assures on its website that the dolls are 'properly disinfected with special antibacterial soaps' before and after use.
A spokesperson for Lumidolls said: 'Customers choose the Lumidoll with which they want to spend time with.
'They call us and make your reservation.
'If they want the LumiDoll to be dressed in a certain way, or they want them to wait in some specific position, they also ask us to.'
The firm hopes that its dolls will help to improve the sexual performance of customers.
The spokesperson added: 'With LumiDolls, customers can perform any of their sexual fantasies they do not dare to do with a woman.
'This allows them to fulfil their wildest fantasies that maybe with other people they cannot, maybe they have some physical complex that does not allow them to be comfortable with a person, and with a doll it makes them much easier this problem.'
Trudy Barber, a sex specialist from Portsmouth University told MailOnline: 'It is not surprising that sex doll brothels are developing, as it is an easy way of monetising sex without major overhead costs, and changes the role of the pimp or brothel madam to more of a "sex entertainment technologist"'.
'However it does bring certain ethical problems to light including the rights of the legitimate sex worker.
'Nonetheless this sort of venture does have entertainment value, as one could foresee novel stag parties at such venues, and could also transform stigmas attached to relationships with such dolls should they become popular as part of the party sextertainment industry.'The long promised panoramic stitches from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty are finally complete! This is my second foray into the Film Panorama world to share with you, the first was completed about 5 months ago. If this is your first time seeing this project, I dig into a little more detail on my first post on Wes Anderson’s Hotel Chevalier
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is one of my favorite contemporary films, which is why its one of the first I stitched. There are some really fun actions shots in here I know you’ll love as much as I do. It definitely a poster child for the Film Panoramas project because it shows off the visual style so well.
75 Total Panoramic Stitches for Walter Mitty
I got good feedback for the last series of stitches for the short and a couple suggestions for films you’d like to see stitched next. Diving into a feature turned out to be quite the beast, however. The time commitment was much more significant for this feature than for the first series from the short. As a comparison, because the short is only about 12 minutes long, I only stitched 7 images in the end.
Because The Secret Life of Walter Mitty comes in it at around 105 minutes, I actually had 75 stitches to work with this time around. This meant it took a rather long time to complete. (I would have had it done sooner were it not for a few other major things moving forward that I can’t wait to share with you!)
Film Panoramas Now on Patreon
I’ll continue to enjoy the entire process and I’ll be slowly working through the next piece. However, I started a Patreon account for these Film Panoramas. Supporting this Patreon account is for you if you want to help me expedite the process for new stitches.
There is a really basic landing site here and you can find my Patreon profile here. I’ve got a few fun rewards set up for patrons I think you’d enjoy. I’d also appreciate hearing if you would like a different sort of reward I don’t currently have listed.
Full Disclosure on Experimental Stitches
One last thing… There are a number of these stitches which are probably better termed experimental. Prime examples of some of the strangeness that can occur is if the shot isn’t a very clean pan. Pan shots with any kind of dolly involvement usually warp perspective significantly.
In the shot where Walter is in the airplane, you’ll notice the rows of seats don’t line up. In this particular case its because the shot zooms in as it dollys. This means there’s not enough physical information in the frames to represent each row of seats. I included any of these options in the series that still seemed to work, especially the series of shots quoting the life motto: “To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life.” Because you have to see the entire motto in succession!
Most of my favorite images are here, but you’ll have to go to the Film Panoramas website to see all 75 of the panoramas. (don’t forget, because these images are long panoramas, this post is best viewed on a desktop. If you’re checking it out on mobile, turn your screen horizontally!)I want to start off today’s blog entry by simply stating how bullshit home printers have become. Today, I was unable to print up a copy of my new script because my HP printer needed to have its magenta cartridge replaced. Magenta?!! Seriously. I only require one color for all of my printing needs. Black. That’s it! NOT magenta! NOT yellow! And certainly NOT cyan, whatever the hell THAT is. And the fact that they’ve designed printers NOT to print if the color cartridges run low due to evaporation brought on by year’s of disuse is absolutely galling! Let it be known that, in the Dark Matter universe, HP executives were exiled to a barren moon in the Adhara sector for their shady product practices, only to be forgotten by a disinterested populace. When someone finally remembered them (“Hey, remember those guys who used to make the printers that would stop printing every time one of their little-used color ink reserves would tap out?”), a rescue shuttle was promptly sent only to discover the remains of the HP brain trust, their remains as desiccated as the innards of my cyan printer cartridge. Consider it canon.
Hey, what’s up with some of my former Stargate co-workers? Well, glad you asked…
Former Stargate Showrunner (and SGA and SGU co-creator) Robert C. Cooper is an Executive Producer on the forthcoming Dirk Gently’s Holisitic Detective Agency for Netflix.
Former Stargate Executive Producer (and Dark Matter Consulting Producer) Martin Gero is show running NBC’s Blindspot and is directing its season 2 premiere (which he also wrote!).
Former Stargate stunt coordinator James “Bam Bam” Bamford has been busy on Arrow. In addition to fight coordinator duties, he’s also directing episodes as well – most recently the first two episodes of the show’s fifth season.
Meanwhile, on the Dark Matter front, some thoughts on “Episode 16: I’ve Seen the Other Side of You”…
Dark Matter Season 2: Is Five the Reason for the Raza’s Change of Heart by Justin Andress at Inverse
In every chapter of forming a family, there’s always the fear that who someone once was will creep back and destroy the ties that bind in the present…by Sashurai at Blade of the Sashurai
It has been said that we all have two sides of ourselves. The side we are in private and the side we show to those around us. On last night’s episode of Dark Matter, this took on a whole new meaning… by Rueben at TV Equals
Little Green-Haired Girl by Katie at Three If By Space
A big episode for the crew, though most importantly Five who continues to grow the most as the heart of this cast of characters…by Jodeobi Odunze at Geeked Out Nation
Something profound happened at the end of this episode, and I really don’t think it was given enough focus… by Kathleen Wiedel at TV Fanatic
It was great to have Five at the center of the narrative, though, with her unwavering belief that her friends should all want to be who they’ve become after the mind-wipe… by Michael Ahr at Den of Geek
Just because someone can’t remember the past doesn’t mean it didn’t leave an everlasting impact on them…by Aimee Hicks at Spoiler TV
One tiny mystery solved, but of course the bigger ones remain... by Veronica Scott at Happily Ever After
Clearly, we knew this in theory, but it is something to behold actually seeing them in action…by Cort Robinson at Pure Fandom
Now that most of the crew of the Raza are reunited aboard their ship, you’d assume things could slowly return to normal… not yet at least… by Elise Koszarek
Reboot by Michael Knox-Smith at Mike’s Film Talk
Anna and Josh of Geeksiders weigh in with their thoughts:
And my weekly post-episode discussion with The TV Junkies’ Kelly Townsend:
Dark Matter: Joseph Mallozzi Talks “I’ve Seen the Other Side of You”.
Jodelle and Anthony chat with TV Goodness:
Anthony Lemke and Jodelle Ferland Talk Dark Matter Season 2
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Like this: Like Loading...Jeff Sessions has been a U.S. Senator from Alabama since 1997, but he’s undergone renewed scrutiny after President-elect Donald Trump picked him for Attorney General. People wonder how he’ll behave in the position. So they dig, things pop up, and old stories become new again. For example, a KFILE report that he tried to stop a LGBT group from meeting on a college campus, according to a press account and legal ruling.
Back in 1996, Sessions was the Attorney General for Alabama, working under Republican Gov. Fob James. The Southeastern Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual College Conference was set to meet at the University off Alabama in February.
James told Sessions this violated a 1992 law that prohibited state schools from giving money to, or hosting any group “that fosters or promotes a life style or actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws.” The group in question aimed to show how people could avoid STDs, and to foster discussion on substance abuse, and the Internet.
As KFILE puts it, Sessions was initially hesitant, reportedly saying the law was “fuzzy” in this situation, but he eventually tried to stop the group from meeting. He wrote a letter to the university president, but campus officials didn’t budge, arguing that the conference was protected by the First Amendment.
Sessions announced that he might try to get a court order to stop the conference, but that didn’t matter. A judge struck down the law days later. In his opinion, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson called it “an open effort by the State Legislature to limit the sexuality discussion in institutions of higher learning to only one viewpoint: that of heterosexual people. This viewpoint limitation violates the first amendment.”
Attempts to get a stay on the ruling failed, and Cathy Lopez Wessel, a conference organizer, actually told CNN that attendance was bigger than expected because of Session’s actions.
“What really struck me was that this seemed clearly to be about free speech and peaceable assembly,” she said. “I feel like Jeff Sessions used the full power of his office position to deny a student group the right to have a conference.”
We’ve reached out to a Sessions spokesman for comment.
The senator’s relationship with civil rights is checkered. In 2000 and 2009, he voted against expanding hate crime legislation to include sexual orientation. He called the 2015 Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage an “effort to secularize, by force and intimidation.” And in fact, about a week before that, he co-sponsored a bill that ostensibly protected the free speech of people who oppose same-sex marriage. Critics argued it could enable discrimination, and was actually flat-out unnecessary. His record with race has also fallen under some intense scrutiny.
[image via Rob Crandall and Shutterstock]What do you do when you like different types of sweet breads and cannot decide which one to bake?
You combine them!
Fall is a |
at around 4pm, before stopping at the divider at Jalan Eunos to help the elderly man.
The police officer was on his way to Tampines when he saw the man. As no vehicles were parked on the road shoulder nearby, he decided to go to the man.
"He could either be lost, or worse, attempting suicide by crossing the road," he told ST.
"As I got closer to him, I saw a few grocery bags behind him and his demeanour told me he was lost."
He asked the man where he was going and offered him a ride.
"I will send you," he told the man. "It is very dangerous for you to walk here."
According to the post by Mr Elfie, the elderly man had missed his stop while travelling on a bus. He attempted to walk straight towards an overhead bridge to get to his daughter-in-law's home, but ended up on the highway instead.
After passing the elderly man a helmet, the two rode off.
The video was posted on Facebook at around noon on Tuesday, and at 7.40pm it had 162,000 views. It was also shared on road safety community page Beh Chia Lor.
The post also had more than 1,000 comments, with most applauding Mr Elfie for his good deed.
Mr Elfie said he did not expect the video to go viral as it was his instinct to help.
"I'm a police officer and it is my duty to protect a life, at any cost," he said, adding that he is overwhelmed by the responses. Strangers have even messaged him on Facebook to thank him.
In his Facebook post, he said he hoped that the video would encourage people to go out of their way to help others.
"Do good and good will come to you," he wrote.The number of active-duty Army service members who died by their own hands in 2012 potentially has surpassed the number killed in action, according to data from the Pentagon. And as the number of Americans killed in Afghanistan declined in 2012 from the previous year, the number of suspected suicides has risen.
Preliminary information released by the Army in December showed that, as of November, there have been 177 suspected active-duty suicides: 113 have been confirmed as suicides, while 64 remained under investigation. Among not-on-active-duty service members (Army National Guard and Army Reserve) there have been 126 suspected suicides: 97 have been confirmed as suicides and 29 were under investigation.
In contrast, the Department of Defense said 295 Americans were killed in Afghanistan in 2012, out of a total 394 ISAF forces killed while supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.
U.S. Army officials have been worried about the suicide rate despite the military's efforts to increase outreach and programs aimed at recognizing troubled service members.
Call center becomes lifeline for suffering troops
In late September, the Army ordered a service-wide "stand down" requiring soldiers to put aside their usual duties and spend time discussing suicide prevention, including how to identify signs of trouble with their comrades.
Military leaders have wrestled with ways to identify factors that trigger suicides.
The Associated Press reported that while suicide has been linked to combat stress, many of the victims are soldiers who have never deployed. Other pressures - health, marital or financial problems - are suspected causes.What did you want to become as a child, and what have you become today? But most importantly, what do you want to be today?
Public installation, urban planner and designer Candy Chang makes you reflect on your life journey through her project entitled simply Career Path, based in Turku, Finland, a program part of the city being the 2011 European Capital of Culture.
Surprisingly, the public art project is located in a residential area, on a path named “Career Path”, or Uraputki, because it is often chosen by students walking from home to the University of Turku.
Fill in the blank statements were stenciled on the street, saying “When I was little I wanted to be __. Today I want to be __“. Passers-by are invited to complete the sentences with their own personal choice, the space being transformed into an interactive one in this way.
The idea behind the project is on one hand, to make people reflect on their life choices, and on the other hand, to compare their present desires with the ones they had as a child. Also, participants are invited to understand others’ choices and desires, and realize if they changed or not.
The chalk is temporary, fading away very quickly because of the traffic and weather, but being constantly renewed by pedestrians. Maybe the fact that the question is stenciled in Finnish, Swedish or English helps a little bit.
My favorite statement, from the ones featured in the pictures:
When I was little I wanted to be grown-up. Today I want to be a kid.
How about you? What did you want back then, and what do you want today?
Enjoy the rest of the pictures below and a video of the artist saying more about what this project represents.
Photos by Candy Chang from her website.Over the past few years, all the major tech firms have been introducing smartphones capable of doing multiple tasks without even as much as touching the phone. Google too, has been introducing frequent updates to the Google Assistant. The latest such update allows the users to take a screenshot using just their voice!
Voice commands are increasingly getting common, especially with devices such as Google Home and Amazon Echo rising in popularity. Compared to it’s competitors, Google was quite late in entering this segment. Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana and Amazon’s Alexa have been around for much longer. However, with these frequent updates to the Google Assistant, Google is more than catching up for the lost time. Let us take a closer look at how to take a screenshot using voice –
How to Take a Screenshot Using Voice?
For users who want to take a screenshot, the only way (without using any skins or additional apps) is to press the power and the volume down keys together. However that method has its own flaws as the timing needs to be right. While most users successfully manage to get it done in the first attempt, sometimes even the most prolific smartphone users would end up mistiming. This would lead to either the phone getting locked due to the power button being pressed, or the volume bar showing up on top.
The process is much simpler now. In order to take a screenshot using voice, simply say ‘OK Google, Take a Screenshot’ and the Google Assistant would do the needful for you! One of the most interesting features of screenshots which have been taken by the Google Assistant is that these screenshots do not show the bottom navigation bar. Moreover, Google would automatically open the ‘share’ panel from where you could simply tap on the platform where you want to share your screenshot.
This is indeed an interesting update from Google and one which would certainly make it easier to take a screenshot! Try out this feature on your Android phone right now!DECKERVILLE, MI—In an effort to ensure employees stay focused during business hours, Paragon Media human resources director Patty Clemence sent a company-wide email Tuesday reiterating that any crying done at the office must be work-related, sources confirmed. “All personal crying, such as that stemming from household finances or fights with your spouse, should either be taken care of before you arrive at work in the morning or be put off until after 5 p.m.,” said Clemence, asking that workers limit openly weeping at their desk or in a bathroom stall to job-oriented topics such as benefits, their workload, or a lack of appreciation among colleagues. “Of course, there are some exceptions to these guidelines. For example, if you happen to be crying because work has prevented you from seeing your family this week, that’s a gray area, and you might want to clear it with a supervisor before breaking down completely.” Clemence added that anyone with additional concerns about this rule should feel free to come to her and quietly bawl in her office.
AdvertisementHarperCollins has confirmed "with huge sadness" the death of "much loved author and friend" Louise Rennison.
Ann-Janine Murtagh, executive publisher for the children’s division, said: “Publishing Louise was a joy. She was beautiful to know and saw the funny in everything. Bold, brave, irreverent and wise, she leaves us with a million happy memories and a legacy of laughter with her wonderful books.”
In a statement, HarperCollins said: "Nobody wrote for teenagers like she did, she understood them, their lives and their extraordinary and powerful friendships. In life, as in her writing, she brought joy and laughter. Our thoughts are with her family, friends and the readers whose lives she has touched for almost 20 years."
Born in 1951, Rennison was best known for her Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series for teenage girls, which was first published in the UK by Piccadilly Press, then HarperCollins Children’s Books.
The first and second books in the series, Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging and It’s Ok, I’m Wearing Really Big Knickers, were adapted into a film, directed and adapted by Gurinda Chadha.
Rennison was named Queen of Teen in 2008 and won the Roald Dahl Funny Prize in 2010 in the 7-14 category for Withering Tights (HCCB), part of the Misadventures of Tallulah Casey series. Her most recent book The Taming of the Tights, also in the same series, was published in 2013.
No further details have been released.
Melissa Cox, head of range at Waterstones, said Rennison was a “pioneering” writer of YA novels before the genre existed in its current form.
“Louise meant a lot to me personally as a reader, I came to her books via my local library as a teenager and they were a revelation; realistic and hysterically funny, she told The Bookseller. “Compared to the perfect American teenagers that peopled so much of contemporary teenage fiction back then, Georgia Nicolson, Dave the Laugh and the gang all seemed to me to be supremely real and just like my own friends.
“The books also taught me that girls were funny, because, pre-internet and social media, you didn’t get a lot of young women quipping, making puns or generally being silly. Years later, as a bookseller who was very new and unsure in the children’s department, I was relieved to see her books lined up on the shelves and to know that I would be able to endorse them with confidence.”
YA author Holly Borne said: "Louise Rennison was, without a doubt, my biggest influence as an author. I inhaled her books growing up. They were the first books that shone a mirror on what my life was like, and the sheer, hilarious giddiness of female friendships and the mad mishaps you get up to as a teenager. Her books were in a different realm of funny, and still, as adults, my friends and I will use all of Georgia's lingo. It's never cold, it's still nippy noodles. We never fancy someone, we still have the cosmic horn for them. I am absolutely devastated to hear that she's died, but I know her books and the hilarious legacy they leave, will keep people laughing like drains for many years to come."
Holly Smale, also a teen author, said Rennison "sparkled with energy and wit". She said: "Her sprite-like sense of humour was contagious, and it was clear in every line of her distinct, original and fearless writing. She was THE trail-blazer for teen comedy fiction, and - with the immortal, hilarious and beloved Georgia - she’ll remain unmatched. The book world will be a sadder place without her, but she’s given us an irrepressible piece of herself that will last forever.
Several authors expressed their dismay on social media. John Green said he was “very sad” at the news on Twitter, whilst Phil Earle tweeted: “When I was a bookseller we ran an event for Louise at Ottakar’s Putney. Her talk was so brilliantly rude that a librarian removed his whole class after about 10 minutes. He practically had to drag them out by their hair, as their eyes were wide with delight.”A new mom nearly died after her unborn baby kicked her so hard, her tiny legs tore through the wall of her mom’s womb, doctors have revealed.
They faced a race against time to deliver the baby girl via emergency C-section after the powerful lunge left the mom bleeding and her baby at risk of a life-threatening infection.
The mom, known only as Zhang, was 35 weeks pregnant when she suddenly started suffering stomach pain in the early hours of Oct. 2.
Initially, she put it down to an upset stomach, but it soon got worse and she began to break out in a cold sweat.
At 10 a.m., she went to the emergency department at Peking University Shenzhen Hospital in China, according to the hospital’s social media page.
She was complaining of extreme pain and doctors noted problems with her blood pressure, pulse and breathing.
Specialists initially suspected her womb had ruptured and performed an ultrasound.
It showed that the fetus’ leg had “kicked through” the uterus wall into the mom’s abdominal cavity and her thighs were stuck, according to doctors.
Within five minutes, doctors rushed the woman into the operating room, fearing she could suffer dangerous internal bleeding and go into shock.
And her unborn baby was at risk of a life-threatening infection because of the ruptured womb wall.
Surgeons Zhang Lei, Zhang Yanping and Zhong Shilin safely delivered the baby girl in just 10 minutes, fearing she could have been stillborn.
They discovered blood in the mom’s stomach and a 7-centimeter (2¾-inch) “break” in her womb wall.
Zhang’s medical history revealed she had undergone an operation to remove fibroids from her womb in 2016.
As a result, she had an old wound scar in her uterus wall, which had left a weak spot.
Doctors said mom and baby are both doing well after the little one’s traumatic arrival in the world.
A rupture of the uterus during pregnancy is a very rare complication but can prove life-threatening.
They typically happen at the site of an old C-section scar.
A complete rupture, where the tear goes through the entire womb wall, can be extremely dangerous.
Most uterine ruptures will happen when a mom is already in labor, but they can happen before that — as in Zhang’s case.
As well as C-sections, moms who have previously had surgery to remove fibroids or to correct a misshapen womb are also at greater risk of the complication.
These moms-to-be should speak to their specialists about giving birth and many will be scheduled for C-sections.Beijing fears a policy of encirclement as Barack Obama announces plans to station 250 troops in northern Australia from next year
Strains between China and the United States look set to overshadow a key Asian summit later this week after Barack Obama unveiled plans to station troops in Australia and step up Washington's commitment to the entire Asia-Pacific region.
Amid growing tensions over the oil-rich South China Sea, China's foreign ministry questioned the need for the US to strengthen military alliances, and the state media accused Washington of making a grab for assets.
Beijing's unease has also been heightened by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's insistence that the South China Sea issue be included as a topic for discussion at the east Asia summit in Manila, which will be attended by President Obama, President Hu Jintao of China and other regional leaders. China had requested that the sensitive issue be omitted.
Ahead of the summit Obama made a whirlwind 27-hour visit to Australia, where he and Julia Gillard, the prime minister, announced that from next year 250 marines will be stationed in the Northern Territory, rotating in and out of Darwin for around six months at a time. Over the next few years this will build to a force of 2,500 US personnel.
In the last year the Pentagon has also negotiated wider access to military facilities in Vietnam, Singapore and the Philippines, prompting fears in Beijing that it is engaged in a policy of encirclement, as well as becoming involved in the row over waters in the South China Sea, which are claimed by several nations.
"The United States is also trying to get involved in a number of regional maritime disputes, some of which concern China's sovereignty and territorial integrity," a commentary from China's official Xinhua news agency said.
The Global Times, a Communist party paper, said the Philippines, aided and abetted by the US, was intent on "grabbing resources from Chinese water".
Obama insisted, however, that the US was not attempting to isolate China. "We welcome a rising, peaceful China," he said. But he claimed that there will be times when Beijing does not play by the rules and the US will send a "clear message that they need to be on track in accepting the rules and responsibilities that come with being a world power".
The troop announcement comes on the 60th anniversary of the Australia-New-Zealand-United-States (Anzus) defence treaty, which binds the three countries to assist each other if attacked.
As well as new troops, the US air force will also have greater access to Australian air bases and there will be more frequent flights of US aircraft in and out of northern Australia.
"Our alliance is going to be indispensable to our shared future and the security we need and the prosperity we seek, not only here but around the world," Obama said.
But it was questioned by China's foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin. "Whether strengthening and expanding a military alliance is in the common interests of the region's countries and the international community is worthy of discussion," he said.
China, he said, stood for peaceful development and co-operation. "We also believe that the external policies of countries in the region should develop along these lines," Liu told a news briefing in Beijing.
Dr James Curran, senior lecturer in history at Sydney University, said this new deployment would help to assuage some of the US allies in the region about China's increasing power.
"This is a very strong statement that the US is in the region to stay," he said.German security officials were also operating under "an abstract and high" terror threat level.
"There is no place for any form of violence during Carnival,” Juergen Mathies, head of Cologne police, said at the press conference. Police would pursue any form of crime, “including people who sexually attack women and do not take no for an answer," he added.
Cologne also plans to boost video surveillance and set up a “security point" for women staffed by social workers and psychologists. Officials, who expect around 1 million costumed and masked revelers to descend on the city, said they planned to illuminate 30 "dark areas" of town with extra floodlights and close off a square that could not be lit properly.
Related: Germany to East Deportation Laws After Sex-Assault Spree
While Carnival season started in November, street celebrations kick off on Thursday with Women's Day Carnival and end on Feb. 9.
The hundreds of attacks in the early hours of Jan. 1 led to a huge spike of sales in defense sprays and non-lethal weapons. They also piled pressure on the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel who has pushed to allow more than 1 million asylum seekers to enter the country.
Authorities were conscious that the raucous and sometimes bawdy Carnival celebrations might confuse some recent arrivals to Germany.
To help foreigners — especially those who came as refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan — navigate the so-called crazy days, Carnival organizers in some cities distributed flyers with a code of conduct in German, English and Arabic.Ch'an, Taoism, and Wittgenstein
By Thomas T. Tominaga
Journal of Chinese Philosophy
V. 10 (1983)
pp. 127-145
Copyright 1983 by Dialogue Publishing Company
p.127
I. INTRODUCTION
To begin with I am quite aware that any attempt to deal with a topic such as "Ch'an (Zen), Taoism, and Wittgenstein" would have to face certain problems, risks, and criticisms, Some, for instance, would object on a priori grounds that the attempt made here is not scholarly nor fruitful, that it is a waste of time, and that it is philosophically unjustifiable to discourse on this type of topic. This is because involved in this type of topic are conceptual systems, philosophies, cultures, values, goals, and methodologies that are so different that they cannot be accurately understood in their own terms due to misinterpretation and distortion. Perhaps in cases in which careful and painstaking scholarly work is lacking or is not consistently carried out, this objection would be valid and it should be taken seriously as a healthy reminder.
However, it is fair and necessary to point out that my attempt to deal with this type of topic does constitute a philosophically legitimate, though not an entirely new venture. For, recent studies, discussions, and publications have shown that there are some significant parallels or resemblances not only between Western and Eastern philosophies in general as Archie J. Baum,[1] Frederick C. Copleston,[2] Kwee Swan Liat,[3] Paul Masson-Oursel,[4] Hajime Nakamura,[5] Troy Wilson Organ,[6] John C. Plott,[7] P. T. Raju,[8] and Ben-Ami Scharfstein,[9] to name a few, have admirably demonstrated. But there are also some interesting parallels between Chinese philosophy, particularly between the Ch'an School of Chinese Buddhism and the philosophy of Taoism espoused by Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, and the philosophy of the early and later Wittgenstein as Dennis Ahern,[10] Arthur Danto,[11] Russell Goodman,[12] Ben-Ami Scharfstein,[13] and Lik Kuen Tong,[14] to name a few, have ably shown.
I hope that I have conveyed the impression that what I want to say on this topic is an outgrowth of and elaboration upon the relevant contributions of these and other scholars. Accordingly, I would like to make it my aim to
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discuss how we can interrelate the Ch'an School, philosophic Taoism, and Wittgenstein in terms of their major tenets so that the question of their compatibility or incompatibility can be addressed and resolved.
In order to achieve this aim, I will attempt to first discuss some connecting links between the Ch'an School (recognized by some to have been originated by Bodhidharma and developed more significantly by Hui-neng, Shen-hsiu, and others) and philosophic Taoism (derived from Lao Tzu and developed by Chuang Tzu). Then I will present a similar discussion of some connecting links between Ch'an and Taoism combined, and Wittgenstein- especially the early and later Wittgenstein. I will conclude by using the discussion on connecting links to deal with the question as to whether or not Ch'an and Taoism can be philosophically compatible with Wittgenstein and to what extent.
II. CH'AN AND TAOISM
In trying to discuss some connecting links between Ch'an and Taoism, I wish to make clear that it is not my purpose to make into an issue the question as to whether the Ch'an School of Chinese Buddhism was originated by the Indian Buddhist Bodhidharma or by somebody else such as Tao-seng (as the distinguished scholar Hu Shih had argued in 1932 in his informative and thorough article entitled "Development of Zen Buddhism in China."[15]) Nor do I intend to make into an issue the question as to whether the Taoist philosophy that stems from Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu did have any decisive impact on the development of Ch'an, though there is some evidence that "the philosophy of Ch'an (or Zen) Buddhism is remarkably similar to philosophic Taoism, and that at least some of its founders were quite familiar with the Chuang Tzu."[16] Rather I want to acknowledge the various contributions made by numerous Taoist philosophers and Ch'an masters to the development of Ch'an. And, for the sake of discussion, I want to concentrate on some positive factors shared by philosophic Taoism and the Ch'an School. Among some of the most significant of these are the following: (1) recognition of a reality immanent in everybody and in everything including the world of Nature, (2) acceptance and practice of the wordless doctrine according to which enlightenment or liberation is not founded on words, letters, rituals, and traditions, (3) emphasis on naturalness and spontaneity, and (4) maintenance of the harmony of opposites.[17]
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Let us make these factors more explicit. From Lao Tzu's point of view, the immanent reality is no other than Tao, which can be understood in two important senses. In the absolute sense Tao is not a reality with describable features due to its simplicity, emptiness, and indeterminateness, which is somewhat analogous to an uncarved block. In the relative sense Tao is a describable reality by virtue of its creative and dynamic function considered as the source and sustainer of the universe.[18] In the absolute sense the intrinsic reality of Tao is necessarily beyond description, in which case we are compelled to exercise silence, or even better, to express our knowledge of Tao by refraining from using language to talk about Tao when we may happen to know Tao. As Lao Tzu paradoxically but tersely remarks, "He who knows [the Tao] does not [care to] speak [about it];he who is [ever ready to speak about it does not know it."[19]
From the Ch'an standpoint, what is called the immanent reality is part and parcel of everyone and everything[20] and is disclosed through personal awakening, which is referred to as the experience of enlightenment (wu). However, without limiting itself to Taoism, the Ch'an School recognizes that such an immanent reality is no other than the realization of Buddha nature or having no mind of one's own,[21] which is an undifferentiated continuum due to forgetting of all distinctions[22] but not an underlying substance with a Cartesian center of its own.
The enlightenment experience referred to can come about in one of two ways. According to the Northern School of Ch'an led by Shen-hsiu (600-706),[23] the personal realization is a matter of gradual enlightenment because one has to distinguish the unenlightened part from the enlightened part of the mind and it takes time for the mind to be enlightened. But according to the Southern School led by Hui-neng (638-713),[24] personal awakening is a type of transforming and revolutionary experience that can occur suddenly with unexpected intensity. For the Southern School of Hui-neng, it is misleading to speak of the unenlightened and enlightened parts of the mind as if they were separated out from moment to moment. Instead all of these belong to one mind and are indistinguishable when the moment of direct intuition and personal enlightenment comes.
With respect to the second factor, we can see that both the Ch'an School and Taoism do reject the descriptive and explanatory uses of language to deal with the truth of personal enlightenment.[25] In general this rejection
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represents a denial of the applicability and validity of what is called the theory of names, which calls for a one-to-one correspondence between names and referents. In the case of the Ch'an School, any effort to express or describe the content of the enlightenment experience of wu is rejected because the direct realization of wu is not readily distinguishable from the emptiness or suchness of things as they are. That the realization and attainment of wu is not amenable to semantic and syntactical manipulations is reflected in the Ch'an conviction that the truth of enlightenment is "not expressed in words or written in letters"[26] but is directly intuited and experienced.
From the Taoist perspective, any attempt to use written or spoken words to talk about Tao, especially in the absolute sense, is also rejected on the grounds of indescribability or unnameability and ignorance of the nature of Tao. As Lao Tzu observes,
The Tao that can be expressed (named)
Is not the Absolute Tao.
The names that can be spoken
Are not Absolute Names.[27]
Here the Taoist rejection or caution is predicated on two supporting arguments. The first argument proceeds from the premise that the absolute Tao is such that its simplicity, emptiness, and indeterminateness would logically preclude the possibility of assigning to the absolute Tao any describable attributes or nameable features. Accordingly, since Tao, absolutely considered, is simple and devoid, like a vacuum, of any determinate qualities, the absolute Tao is not a nameable or describable referent. This implies that the absolute Tao by its very nature can only be properly understood by overcoming or transcending the conventions of language and the tendency to resort to silence as a form of nonverbal communication. To this effect, Chuang Tzu cautions as follow:
Were language adequate, it would take but a day fully to set forth Tao.
Not being adequate, it takes that time to explain material existences.
Tao is something beyond material existences.
It cannot be conveyed either by words or by silence.[28]
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The other supporting argument is that "knowing" the absolute Tao is neither a matter of having knowledge in the conventional sense nor a matter of having no-knowledge.[29] This is because the state of knowledge in the conventional sense presupposes a subject-object distinction, which is extrinsic to the absolute Tao. And because the state of having no knowledge is indicative of blind ignorance or illusory consciousness, which hampers any attempt to know the absolute Tao and to capitalize on its creative efficacy (te). Rather knowing the absolute Tao involves the discarding of knowledge by forgetting all distinctions.[30] This move results in the non-epistemological state of having no-knowledge, which comes after the stage of having knowledge.
Implicit in this rejection of language and knowledge in the conventional sense are two outstanding pragmatic strategies characteristic of the practice of the Ch'an School and Taoism. One of these is the tactical application of the iconoclastic attitude to challenge and loosen the grip of. conventions in society. The other is the catalytic use of silence to break up the dichotomizing and restrictive tendency of conventional knowledge and language. The iconoclastic attitude stems from the conviction that written and spoken words, because they are an integral part of the rules and conventions of language, tend to reify and obscure the immediate quality of the enlightenment experience. The catalytic use of silence is not so much to communicate non-verbally as it is to overcome or transcend spontaneously and unconditionally the conceptual constraints[31] imposed by language, knowledge, and thinking in the conventional sense, whether or not we are made aware of the limitations and inadequacies of our language, knowledge, and thinking.
These two pragmatic strategies give rise to the third and fourth factors characteristic of the practice of Ch'an and Taoism. Both regard the quest for enlightenment as not requiring the performance of any special or super-mundane activities in addition to the daily activities or tasks that people perform naturally and spontaneously. This means that the Ch'an and Taoist aspirants do not opt for enlightenment as if it were a state external to, or separate from all other activities of everyday life or the mundane world including the world of Nature. Rather they try to attain enlightenment through a tactical, undistracted, and alert performance of diversified but harmonized activities of everyday life familiar to everybody, This also means that the Ch'an and Taoist aspirants are able to perform their usual tasks
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with strategic advantage because they are conceptually liberated from external constraints and the yoke of conventions. Consequently, as conceptually liberated individuals, they are able to effectively work their way through the conventions of society instead of being used by them.[32] From the Ch'an perspective such a manner of operating is indicative of an individual who is capable of going through moments of enlightened living while he is actively involved in activities such as eating, washing dishes, cutting grass, painting a house, chopping wood, etc. But from the Taoist perspective such a mode of living is characteristic of an individual who operates through the superior Way of non-action (wu-wei),[33] which must be regarded as the path of least interference, but not as the static state of' mere passiveness or inactivity. Moreover, such an individual, when he learns to let himself go or leave his mind alone, is capable of following the superior Way of non-interfering action because he acts through and with the creative and virtuous power of te[34] whose practical efficacy[35] is exemplified by his natural and spontaneous action. That superior and effective performance can be attributed to the practical efficacy or agency of te is attested to by Lao Tzu when he observes as follows:
Superior te is not te,
and thus has te.
Inferior te does not let go of te,
and thus is not te.
Superior te is non-active [wu wei] and aimless.
Inferior te is active and has an aim.[36]
III. CH'AN, TAOISM, AND WITTGENSTEIN
Given these factors considered as possible links that connect Ch'an and Taoism, let us determine and discuss whether and how any of these and other possible links can relate Ch'an and Taoism to Wittgenstein.
Before we do this, it is necessary to have a clear overview of the entire philosophy of Wittgenstein so that we can see clearly which aspects of Wittgenstein's philosophy can be connected with Ch'an and Taoism. As it is customarily done, the entire philosophy of Wittgenstein is divided into four main periods, which are referred to as (1) the early Wittgenstein, (2) the middle Wittgenstein, (3) the later Wittgenstein, and (4) the mature Wittgenstein.
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In the philosophy of the early Wittgenstein set forth in the Tractatus, the main concern is the development of a logic of description that governs the describable states of affairs. The fundamental underpinnings of the logic of description are the doctrine of logical atomism and the doctrine of logical independence of elementary propositions. According to the first doctrine, factual descriptions of particular states of affairs or atomic facts in the world are possible by means of elementary propositions in such a way that the latter are logical pictures of the former. According to the second doctrine, in order for these elementary propositions to be descriptive of corresponding unique factual states of affairs, these elementary propositions must have definite or determinate propositional sense. Otherwise, they would be so unavoidably ambiguous that they would be descriptive of no particular state of affairs-actual or possible. And in order for these elementary propositions to have determinate sense, their constituents must be simple names that stand for simple objects whose configurations can give rise to the structure of depictable states of affairs. On the basis of the logic of description, the Tractatus recommends that when we are dealing with states of affairs that are not describable or that are not susceptible to linguistic articulation, we are better off if we exercise silence. As Wittgenstein says in the concluding proposition of his Tractatus: "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence."[37]
In the philosophy of the middle Wittgenstein set forth in Philosophical Remarks and Philosophical Grammar, the main concern is to preserve the contextual setting for the proper understanding of propositions that are already accepted or held to be true. This is done by placing propositions within a particular conceptual system in which they first arise and make sense. Consequently we cannot indiscriminately confuse propositions that may be true within a particular conceptual system with those that may be true in another conceptual system. This implies that the truth or falsity of propositions is relative to the conceptual system to which they belong and is contingent on the categories and forms of life operative within such conceptual systems.
In the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein set forth in Philosophical Investigations and Blue and Brown Books, the main concern is to remind us of, and make us take seriously the many different but legitimate uses of language in its natural every day setting. Here language is no longer restricted
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to the way we describe the world. Rather the focus of attention is on the actual and possible uses in which people employ language in connection with their accepted and practiced forms of life. This means that uses of language do encompass people's values, lifestyles, natural histories, and traditions in which they live, work, study, worship, communicate, and perform many other activities. The upshot of all this is that whatever we mean or intend to say is disclosed by the particular context in which we use language analogous to the way we play games.
And in the philosophy of the mature Wittgenstein set forth in On Certainty, the main concern is to show that the non-epistemological certainty of common-sense propositions lies not in philosophical justification but in following with regularity an established practice. Unlike the British philosopher G. E. Moore who attempted to offer a justification or verification for our acceptance of common-sense propositions, the mature Wittgenstein argues that such propositions are not strictly {empirical} propositions that require justification or verification. For, the certainty of common-sense propositions is not based on the elimination of doubt by appealing to some solid epistemological foundation. Rather, common-sense propositions acquire their certainty from the everyday practice carried out regularly by people when they go through their daily routines.
Given our discussion on Ch'an and Taoism and given our presentation of the entire philosophy of Wittgenstein, we can relate Ch'an and Taoism to Wittgenstein by concentrating on the following connecting links: (1) forms of life and uses of language;(2) everyday life and practical activities; (3) particularity and complementarity; (4) problems and solutions; (5) the inexpressible and resort to silence;and (6) private language and private sense.
In the first link we find that the Ch'an quest for the enlightenment experience of wu and the Taoist search for the path of active non-interfering action presuppose what the later Wittgenstein calls forms of life. For the later Wittgenstein, these forms of life must be accepted as the givens.[38] Such givens not only project new ways of living and new ways of seeing and looking at the world, but they also give rise to a new language and new uses of language. Since forms of life can become an important part of understanding the different uses into which language is put, it is consistent with the approach of the later Wittgenstein to infer that the forms of life pursued or cultivated by Ch'an and Taoism can provide the proper contexts or stage
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settings for understanding the particular uses of language made by practitioners of Ch'an and Taoism. We can now see that the significance of this first link lies in the twofold flexibility of the later Wittgenstein. On the one hand, the later Wittgenstein (as well as the middle Wittgenstein) would accept as givens the Ch'an and Taoist forms of life with |
full-time next season.
DiGiacinto struggled to find offensive consistency and was not signed and will return to the draft this summer. Cameron Darcy was an overager that spent another year in juniors before turning pro with Syracuse. He has filled in as a bottom six forward in the AHL and has a long way to go to get to the NHL if he ever does.
MacLeod, still in college, and Cristiano DiGiacinto are the only prospects unsigned from this draft, with DiGiacinto being the only one no longer under team control.
2015 NHL Entry Draft
The 2015 draft saw a distinct shift in philosophy as the team targeted more two-way players that would present nice complementary pieces to the skill that was already in the system and that will form the core of the Lightning for years to come. Yzerman also traded out of the first round, picking up a second round pick five spots later and a third round pick.
Center Mitchell Stephens was the guy they were after. Immediately after being drafted, Murray described Stephens as being a near clone of Ryan Callahan. He’s a hard working, honest character player that will play in all situations. He dealt with injuries, including a broken foot, early in the season and still made it onto Canada’s World Junior Championship team as their 13th forward. In limited time, he contributed a goal and an assist in five games. For his juniors team, a rather bad Saginaw Spirit, he scored 10 fewer points than last season, but did so in 13 fewer games.
After being eliminated from the playoffs, Stephens made his pro debut with the Syracuse Crunch on an Amateur Try Out and played five games, scoring a goal. I was fortunate enough to attend the game in which he scored the goal. He played on a third line with some lesser prospects for Syracuse. He was fast, he created chances, and he worked his tail off every shift. His goal was a nice one where he sent a winger in deep, then went to the slot to receive a pass out of the corner and one-touch it up and over the goalie’s glove. Stephens will go back to juniors for another year, but he’s got all the look of being a third line guy with some ability to spot on a scoring line. He has signed an entry level contract.
Stephens was followed by Matthew Spencer, Dominik Masin’s teammate and often partner with Peterborough. He’s more of a stay at home, third pair guy that will continue to develop in juniors for one more year. He signed an entry level contract this spring.
Dennis Yan is a winger with Shawinigan of the QMJHL of Russian descent, but was born in the US and moved between the two countries growing up. Yan was the next pick in the third round. He’s a sniper that has the offensive ability to score in the NHL. The big question is if he’ll develop the consistency and all around game to make it and stick.
Anthony Cirelli followed Yan. Like Stephens, he impressed with his step up in offensive production this year as he became the main man with the Oshawa Generals as they had a lot of talent move on after winning the Memorial Cup the year before. Stephens became captain and was a solid center for them all year. He also debuted with Syracuse this year and signed an entry level contract. With luck, he should become a solid third line, two-way centerman that excels at faceoffs.
Continuing the trend, the Lightning selected Jonne Tammela in the fourth round. He’s a pesky, annoying Finn that elected to stay in Liiga after being drafted rather than play for Peterborough who owns his import rights in the CHL. If he develops, he looks to be a fourth line, energy pest that works hard on the forecheck with decent speed. He’ll need to show more offense in the AHL this season. He has signed an entry level contract and is likely to play in Syracuse.
Mathieu Joseph in the fourth round is another guy you can lump into the same category as Stephens and Cirelli. A hard working, two way forward that impressed with his offensive contributions this season that jumped from 42 points in 59 games to 73 points in 58 games. Yzerman has shown that the expectation is even fourth line NHL grinders should prove they have offensive capabilities in juniors and in the AHL. It’s just another sign that they have the skills and abilities to stick in the NHL. Joseph should be a good, third line complementary player that might occasionally spot on the second line. He has not signed an entry level contract, but there’s every expectation that he will over the next year.
The next two picks are long term projects as they both spent another year in the USHL and will go into NCAA hockey next season. Defenseman Ryan Zuhlsdorf in the fifth round is an offensive defenseman that puts up points and somehow managed to not score a single goal in 58 regular season and playoff games despite having 32 assists. He is a University of Minnesota commit.
Kris Oldham is a goaltender with some intriguing qualities. He had an up and down year, but will have plenty of time to develop with the University of Nebraska-Omaha. He may only ever be a third goalie for the organization, but that would represent good value for a sixth round goaltender. And you never know how he’ll develop over the next four years in a good NCAA program.
The last pick in this draft for the Lightning is Bokondji Imama. Boko, as he’s known, is a player that is best described as a goon. It’s actually rather surprising that the Lightning took him. He doesn’t seem to fit the usual view of prospects for this management group. He’s not a great skater. He’s gotten himself in trouble and suspended multiple times in his QMJHL career. But, he’s a fighter and a pretty good one at that. There has been speculation that he might go to the AHL next season as he’ll turned 20 in August. The Lightning likely will not retain David Broll, who is a restricted free agent, and Boko would step into his enforcer role.
Undrafted and NCAA Free Agents
You really can’t overlook this part of the process either. Rather than having the ability to pick a player and control their rights for multiple years in the draft without their input, signing undrafted and NCAA Free Agents takes selling the player on your team and their future with your team.
Since taking over, Yzerman has signed Tyler Johnson, Pat Nagle, Cory Conacher, J.T. Brown, Artem Sergeev, Andrej Sustr, and Cody Kunyk. Cory Conacher is the only one that isn’t quite like the others.
Tyler Johnson’s story is a popular talking point whenever the Lightning end up on national TV. He’s a small center that went undrafted in three straight drafts. He had been to development camps as an undrafted prospect, but no one had signed him. He went back to Spokane to play his last season and started looking at college offers. However his outstanding play brought general managers from across the league knocking.
In the end, Steve Yzerman convinced Johnson to play for the Lightning. He was a part of the historic Norfolk Admirals team that won a pro-hockey record of 28 games in a row, and also won a Calder Cup. He developed into a two-way force and is now a top center in the league. He struggled with injuries this past year, but he should be expected to bounce back. This may be Yzerman’s biggest coup of any move he’s made.
I’ll go ahead and lump the three disappointments here together; Pat Nagle, Artem Sergeev, and Cody Kunyk. Pat Nagle was a goaltender coming off a couple good years at Ferris State University. However, he spent most of his time in the ECHL and only played 1 AHL game for the organization before being released after two seasons. Artem Sergeev was an offensive defenseman from Russia. He had come over to play in the QMJHL, but never produced big numbers. He spent one year full time in the AHL, but only put up 10 points before spending his second year in the ECHL. With his future pretty clear, his contract was mutually terminated so he could return to Russia. Cody Kunyk was a very overage college player. The team signed him to a two-year entry level contract and immediately burned the first year at the end of the season by playing him in one NHL game. In his first full pro year, he played in Syracuse and did ok, but not as well as you would expect a 24 year old to play. After his contract he left to play in Denmark.
J.T. Brown and Andrej Sustr both came out of the NCAA ranks. They had their first year of their entry level contracts burned by playing in NHL games after signing late in the season. Both have turned into NHL contributors. J.T. Brown is one of the better bottom six wingers in the game. He has speed to burn, he’s tenacious, and if he could ever figure out how to aim the puck, he could be a consistent 10-15 goal scorer. As is, he’s still a quarter point per game player that is responsible, can take on top competition, and play on the penalty kill.
Sustr is a 6’8” giraffe that happens to play defense. He’s also a right hander, which is rare on the blue line. He drew a lot of comparisons to Zdeno Chara because of his height, but that’s simply not the kind of player he is, as he is not bulky or physical. He’s limited offensively, but makes a decent first pass most of the time. When he’s confident he’s a solid defenseman that plays positionally sound and can provide a solid 18 minutes a night.
Cory Conacher is last because he is a special case and turned pro before signing. Conacher is another small, scrappy forward with a ton of speed and offensive ability. But his small stature kept him from getting much interest out of college. He bounced around and eventually signed an AHL deal to play for the Norfolk Admirals. Part way through the season, he signed an entry level contract and continued on to having 80 points in 75 games plus 15 more in 18 playoff games on the way to the Calder Cup. He had a blazing start to his NHL career during the 2012-13 season after the lockout, putting up 24 points in 35 games.
Striking while the iron was hot, and so was the commodity, Yzerman made a deal that will go down as his second biggest coup after the signing of Johnson, though I suppose there is a good argument to be made between the two. Yzerman traded Conacher and a draft pick to the Ottawa Senators for… goaltender Ben Bishop. Unfortunately for Conacher, he did not find continued success in the NHL. Over the next 80 games with Ottawa, he only had 28 points. He made his way to the Buffalo Sabres for 19 games with 6 points and then the New York Islanders for 15 games with 3 points. He finished out the year in the AHL and then moved to SC Bern of the Swiss NLA where he has again found success as one of the leading scorers in that league. By the way, for you Leafs fans in the crowd, his little brother Shane is a Marlie.
You Made It To the End!
So, there you have it. Looking through these past drafts as well as the undrafted and NCAA free agent signings, it’s clear to see that Steve Yzerman and Al Murray have had a plan, they’ve stuck to it, they’ve scouted vigorously, and so far they’ve pretty well identified their guys. Out of 36 draft picks since 2011, ten have played at least one game in the NHL, 4 have hit 100 games, 2 have hit 200 games, 27 have signed entry level contracts, 3 are still in college, and only 1 player’s rights are no longer held.
That’s a pretty strong endorsement that their approach so far is working.
AdvertisementsImage copyright Getty Images Image caption Frankfurt is Germany's financial capital
A Swiss man has been arrested in Frankfurt on suspicion of spying.
German federal prosecutors said the man was suspected of having worked "for the intelligence service of a foreign power" since early 2012.
Reports suggest the man may have spied on German tax investigators.
Tax authorities in Germany have controversially bought CDs of information from whistleblowers in Swiss banks as they try to catch German residents with Swiss bank accounts.
The issue has caused friction between the Swiss and German governments. Authorities in Germany's federal states have justified the hefty payments by saying the information gained would lead to much larger sums in unpaid taxes being retrieved.
But Switzerland thinks paying people who steal information from Swiss banks is wrong.
German football star's own goal on tax
The 54-year-old, named only as Daniel M, was taken into custody on Friday, prosecutors said, but an arrest warrant had been issued for him in December.
Several residential and business premises in Frankfurt and the nearby Wetterau region were searched by officers from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA).These letters were posted by people on Breed specific Message boards and by some rescue groups.. If you can read these without crying you must be very cold hearted.
Yes, I Gas Dogs and Cats for a Living.I'm an Animal Control officer in a very small town in central North Carolina.I'm in my mid thirties, and have been working for the town in different positions since high school.There is not much work here, and working for the county provides good pay and benefits for a person like me without a higher education. I'm the person you all write about how horrible I am.I'm the one that gasses the dogs and cats and makes them suffer. I'm the one that pulls their dead corpses out smelling of Carbon Monoxide and throws them into green plastic bags. But I'm also the one that hates my job and hates what I have to do.First off, all you people out there that judge me, don't. God is judging me, and I know I'm going to Hell. Yes, I'm going to hell. I wont lie, it's despicable, cold, cruel and I feel like a serial killer. I'm not all to blame, if the law would mandate spay and neuter, lots of these dogs and cats wouldn't be here for me to gas. I'm the devil, I know it, but I want you people to see that there is another side to me the devil Gas Chamber man.The shelter usually gasses on Friday morning.Friday's are the day that most people look forward to, this is the day that I hate, and wish that time will stand still on Thursday night. Thursday night, late, after nobody's around, my friend and I go through a fast food line, and buy 50 dollars worth of cheeseburgers and fries, and chicken. I'm not allowed to feed the dogs on Thursday, for I'm told that they will make a mess in the gas chamber, and why waste the food.So, Thursday night, with the lights still closed, I go into the saddest room that anyone can every imagine, and let all the doomed dogs out out their cages.I have never been bit, and in all my years doing this, the dogs have never fought over the food. My buddy and I, open each wrapper of cheeseburger and chicken sandwich, and feed them to the skinny, starving dogs. They swallow the food so fast, that I don't believe they even taste it. There tails are wagging, and some don't even go for the food, they roll on their backs wanting a scratch on their bellys. They start running, jumping and kissing me and my buddy. They go back to their food, and come back to us. All their eyes are on us with such trust and hope, and their tails wag so fast, that I have come out with black and blues on my thighs.. They devour the food, then it's time for them to devour some love and peace. My buddy and I sit down on the dirty, pee stained concrete floor, and we let the dogs jump on us. They lick us, they put their butts in the air to play, and they play with each other. Some lick each other, but most are glued on me and my buddy.I look into the eyes of each dog. I give each dog a name.They will not die without a name.I give each dog 5 minutes of unconditional love and touch.I talk to them, and tell them that I'm so sorry that tomorrow they will die a gruesome, long, torturous death at the hands of me in the gas chamber.Some tilt their heads to try to understand.I tell them, that they will be in a better place, and I beg them not to hate me.I tell them that I know I'm going to hell, but they will all be playing with all the dogs and cats in heaven.After about 30 minutes, I take each dog individually, into their feces filled concrete jail cell, and pet them and scratch them under their chins.Some give me their paw, and I just want to die. I just want to die.I close the jail cell on each dog, and ask them to forgive me.As my buddy and I are walking out, we watch as every dogis smiling at us and them don't even move their heads.They will sleep, with a full belly, and a false sense of security.As we walk out of the doomed dog room, my buddy and I go to the cat room. We take our box, and put the very friendly kittens and pregnant cats in our box. The shelter doesn't keep tabs on the cats, like they do the dogs.As I hand pick which cats are going to make it out, I feel like I'm playing God, deciding whose going to live and die.We take the cats into my truck, and put them on blankets in the back.Usually, as soon as we start to drive away, there are purring cats sitting on our necks or rubbing against us.My buddy and I take our one way two hour trip to a county that is very wealthy and they use injection to kill animals.We go to exclusive neighborhoods, and let one or two cats out at a time.They don't want to run, they want to stay with us. We shoo them away, which makes me feel sad.I tell them that these rich people will adopt them, and if worse comes to worse and they do get put down, they will be put down with a painless needle being cradled by a loving veterinarian.After the last cat is free, we drive back to our town.It's about 5 in the morning now, about two hours until I have to gas my best friends.I go home, take a shower, take my 4 anti-anxiety pills and drive to work.. I don't eat, I can't eat.It's now time, to put these animals in the gas chamber. I put my ear plugs in, and when I go to the collect the dogs, the dogs are so excited to see me, that they jump up to kiss me and think they are going to play.I put them in the rolling cage and take them to the gas chamber. They know. They just know. They can smell the death.. They can smell the fear.They start whimpering, the second I put them in the box.The boss tells me to squeeze in as many as I can to save on gas.He watches. He knows I hate him, he knows I hate my job.I do as I'm told. He watches until all the dogs, and cats (thrown in together) are fighting and screaming. The sounds is very muffled to me because of my ear plugs.He walks out, I turn the gas on, and walk out.I walk out as fast as I can. I walk into the bathroom, and I take a pin and draw blood from my hand. Why? The pain and blood takes my brain off of what I just did.In 40 minutes, I have to go back and unload the dead animals. I pray that none survived, which happens when I overstuff the chamber. I pull them out with thick gloves, and the smell of carbon monoxide makes me sick. So does the vomit and blood, and all the bowel movements. I pull them out, put them in plastic bags.They are in heaven now, I tell myself. I then start cleaning up the mess, the mess, that YOU PEOPLE are creating by not spay or neutering your animals. The mess that YOU PEOPLE are creating by not demanding that a vet come in and do this humanely. You ARE THE TAXPAYERS, DEMAND that this practice STOP!So, don't call me the monster, the devil, the gasser, call the politicians, the shelter directors, and the county people the devil. Heck, call the governor, tell him to make it stop.As usual, I will take sleeping pills tonight to drown out the screams I heard in the past, before I discovered the ear plugs. I will jump and twitch in my sleep, and I believe I'm starting to hallucinate.This is my life. Don't judge me. Believe me, I judge myself enough.Interview at the Dog PoundPlease crosspost this far & wide with permission from the author....As a journalist, I decided to go to the dog pound, and interview some of the inmates. I wanted to know what it was like in there from their perspective. What follows is not for the faint of heart.I entered the building, and one of the workers accompanied me to the holding area. This is where dogs are kept before they are allowed up for adoption IF they are allowed up for adoption. If the dogs are found to be aggressive in any way, euthanasia is employed. Fortunately, if fortunately is the word to be used here this is a Canadian establishment, and they use lethal injection, not a gas chamber.The pound worker led me past a big steel door that says Employees Only. What is in there? I asked. From the look he gave me, I knew that this is where dogs go in, and never return.We moved on to a row of kennels. The dogs were barking loudly, there was the acrid smell of urine and feces, and a feeling of despair seemed to permeate the room.Go ahead, the worker said. Theyre all yours.PeteI looked into the first kennel, and saw only the back of a medium sized dog who was curled up in the corner of his kennel, shivering. He was mostly white, with some black spots. Hello? I said. May I come in? He lifted his head, as though it weighed more than he could bear. When he looked at me, I could see he was a Pitbull. His eyes were gentle, but filled with grief.Enter, was all he said.I stepped in, closing the gate behind me. He put his head back down, facing away from me. I crouched down a few feet away.My name is Pete. Petey my Master called me, he said, still not looking at me.Why are you here Pete? I asked.I am here because Master cannot afford to move to another province. I am here because someone with power said I am vicious, and a killer. Someone who never met me. Master took me for a walk one day, and some lady started to scream when she saw me. I got frightened, and barked at her. The dog police came, and they took me away. I have been with Master for 10 years. The last time I saw him, he just held me and cried. He kept telling me he was sorry. I worry for him. Whatever will he do without me? Pete shivered even more.A tear slid down my face. I am supposed to remain objective, but this was wrong so wrong.Thank you Pete. I said. He said nothing as I got up and left his kennel.PopperThe kennel next to Petes held a very young looking dog. Pure Border Collie by my guess. He stood on his hind legs, looking at me through the gate.Hello. My names Popper. He tilted his head. Are you here to take me home?No, Im sorry, I replied. But I would like to talk with you.Sure. What would you like to talk about?Popper, how did you come to be in this place? I asked.Popper dropped down from the gate, with a perplexed look on his face. He walked to the back of the kennel, then back to the front. I noticed he had one blue eye, and one brown. He was quite beautiful. His black and white coat was shiny and thick.I am not certain WHY I am here. I think maybe my family will come back for me. They bought me when I was only 6 weeks old. I remember they said how smart Border Collies are, and how it would be so easy to train me. They were very excited at first. The little ones played with me all the time. But the trouble with little Masters is, they refuse to stay in a group. I constantly had to nip their heels to keep them together. He looked confused. Why wont they stay in a group? he sighed. So I did what I thought I should do. I am not quite sure why the little ones screamed when I did my job, but they did, and the Masters got very angry at me. They also got angry when I had to relieve myself, and did so in the house. I am not sure where they expected me to go. All they said was that I was the smartest breed in the world, and I should just KNOW better. Then they left me in the yard for a month or so. I got bored a lot, and I dug holes in the grass. The next thing I knew, theMasters brought me here.Popper jumped back up on the gate, his white paws protruding through the links. He looked at me with his lovely eyes, and asked Will you please let them know I want to come home? Please tell them I promise I will be good?I will Popper, I said.SpartanMy heart was breaking. I was beginning to regret coming here, but their stories had to be told. I moved along. The next dog I saw looked to be easily 100 lbs., a Rottweiler. He was handsome indeed, except for the scars on his face and back. He tilted his head, and looked me right in the eyes.Hello. Who are you? he asked.I am a reporter, I replied. May I speak with you for a little while?Most certainly. My name is Spartan. You can come in, I wont bite, he said.Thank you Spartan. I will.I entered his kennel, reached out and stroked his giant head. He made a loud grumbling noise, and closed his eyes.Spartan, why are you here?Before he could answer my question, he was suddenly in the grip of a nasty coughing spasm. It sounded painful.Please excuse me, he said when it passed. Kennel cough. It seems all of us who come in here get it.Why am I here? Well, about two years ago, I was born in the backyard of some person I cant even recall. I had 11 brothers and sisters. I recall a day when a big man came and gave that person some money, and took me away from my mother. They had to chain her up, as she was very angry that he took me. They chained her and beat her. I came to know the man by the name of Jim. I overheard him telling his friends that I would grow up to be big and mean like my mother. But as I grew older, all I wanted to do was play and be friends with everyone. Jim said I needed to be taught how to be mean, so he chained me up in the yard. No more house for me, he said, I was too spoiled. When people came by to visit, I was so happy to see them. I wanted them to come and play. But that made Jim angry, so he beat me with sticks and chains. When he came near, I would roll onto my back so he would know I wasnt a bad dog. That made him beat me more. Spartans eyes clouded with grief. Then hebrought me here.I reached out and stroked Spartans massive gentle head once more. I am so sorry Spartan. Some people are just plain evil. I gave him a kiss and left his kennel.As I walked away, Spartan called out, What will happen to me, nice lady?I shook my head. I cant say Spartan. Maybe someone kind will come and get you. We can only hope.PatsyI walked a little further down. I could see a shape moving at the back of the next kennel. Hello? I called out. Suddenly the shape lunged at the gate in a fury, barking and gnashing its teeth. I stumbled backwards, and crashed into an adjacent kennel. The other dogs began barking loudly and jumping at their gates.Dont go near her, a small female voice came from behind me. Shes mad.I gathered myself back together, and saw a little Jack Russell Terrier behind me.Thanks for the warning, I was still trembling. Across the way, the other dog, apparently a Husky and German Shepherd cross, was glaring at me, lips curled back revealing brown stained teeth. Her ribs and hips showed through her dull, matted grey coat.The little dog invited me into her kennel, and I gladly went in.Who are you?My name is Patsy. The little brown and white dog held a paw up to the gate in greeting.My owner surrendered me. She said she wanted a cute little dog like the one on the TV show, Frasier. She didnt bother to look into the type of dog I am. Patsy heaved a sigh.I suppose she expected me to just lie about and only need a short walk each day, just like Eddie, but my energy was so high that I needed to run and play. She glanced at her surroundings. Now I am here. I suppose it could be worse. I could be like her. Patsy looked towards the still growling dog across the way.What happened to make her so vicious? I asked.From what we could gather, she replied. she was found tied in a back yard. She only had a three foot chain. Some days there was no water. Rarely was there any food. One day a nice neighbour came by and brought her some meat. By then it was too late. She was already mad. She broke off her chain, and bit the poor man badly. We know she will be going behind the steel door. I am sad to say, I think it will be best. Perhaps then she will know some peace.Just then, the door at the end of the building opened, and a woman stepped inside. All the dogs began to bark wildly, then one by one, they went quiet.I whispered to Patsy, Who is that? Why have all the dogs gone quiet?Patsy breathed deeply through her little nose, and closed her eyes. SHE is a Rescuer. Cant you smell it? she asked.Smell what? I was confused.Compassion. Love. Sorrow. It emanates from her pores. She is here for one of us, but nobody knows who just yet. Patsy looked hopeful.The Rescuer moved from kennel to kennel, looking at each dog. I sat quietly watching. I could see tears in her eyes as she made eye contact with each one. She stopped at Spartans cage and spoke quietly to him.No more beatings my man. No more. You are coming with me. From here on in, its all going to get better.The Rescuer produced a leash, opened the kennel door, and took Spartan away. As he walked beside her, his little stubby tail wagged with delight.Patsy sighed again. I could see the disappointment in her eyes, and it grieved me. They all had the same look, as they watched The Rescuer depart.I am so sorry Patsy, I said in a whisper. But you are a little dog, and everyone loves little dogs. I am convinced you will be rescued soon. Patsys brown eyes twinkled at me, a little bit of hope returning.I had heard and seen enough. I needed to tell people how it was for these unfortunate creatures. They were all here through no fault of their own. I stood to leave. I passed by many other dogs I did not interview, looking at each one, wishing I could take them all home with me and give them the love they deserved.I stood by the door taking one last glance back, when it opened, and one of the pound workers came in. His face was drawn and sad. He walked by without a word, and stopped at Petes kennel. I heard him take a deep breath, then he paused, and opened the kennel door.The words were muffled, but I am sure I heard him say Im sorry old boy.He came out, with Petey in tow. The old dogs head hung down in resignation, and they both disappeared behind the big steel door.If you have time... read a story from a dogs view : news.deviantart.com/article/27…Published: June 30, 2014 Updated: December 14, 2017
More often than not we hear of people being afraid of flying. Although some might say there is no reason to be, the fact is that traveling airborne is a fairly new thing compared to the other methods of transportation. To top it all off, the stories that we hear about it can make us want to stay rooted to the ground as much as possible. Even the most innocent problematic landings can be so traumatic, we might never want to fly in a plane again.
Did you know that there are approximately 5000 commercial airplanes in the sky at any given moment? Do you think that that’s impossible and that the sky couldn’t possibly fit that many at a time? Well, just think about the fact that beside the commercial planes carrying passengers and cargo, there are also military planes and other aircrafts crisscrossing the sky. It’s truly remarkable.
This footage shows us the rational and quick thinking of one member of the U.S. Military when he had to land a plane vertically on a padded stool. U.S. Marine Corps Capt. William Mahoney, Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 263 (Reinforced) 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), AV-8B Harrier aircraft pilot, talks about his experience during a controlled landing after his front landing gear malfunctioned on his aircraft aboard the USS Bataan at sea, on June 7, 2014.
Elements of the 22nd MEU, embarked aboard Bataan, are operating in the U.S. 6th fleet area of operations to augment U.S. Crisis Response forces in the region.
After the nose gear on this AV-8B Harrier malfunctioned shortly after takeoff, Capt. William Mahoney had to execute a Vertical Landing on the top deck of the USS Bataan using a modified padded stool.
In the video, Capt. Mahoney explains that he knew the aircraft is experiencing a problem shortly after taking off, so he radioed the ship and flew past the control tower at 300 feet, hoping they would be able to assess the issue from afar. Since this was not such a case, the Captain had to land the 46-foot-long, 31,000-pound jet with an improvised procedure, where he had to support the nose of the Harrier on a padded stool, built specifically for such an emergency. He says he couldn’t see the stool, but he knew it was there. The deck had been evacuated, in the event of the jet crashing.
Being in the military is hard for both the soldier and the family. It’s hard to leave the comfort and the love of your close ones and fly all the way to the other side of the planet, but it’s what’s necessary. It’s knowing that the sacrifices you’re making will guarantee the safety of your loved ones.
Credit to the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit.
What did you think about this video? Make sure you tell us more in the comments down below. If you like what you see, don’t forget to share it with others who might like it as well. It just might be the highlight of their day! Enjoy!MEXICO CITY — Seven years after the government launched a military campaign against Mexico’s criminal cartels there, the Pacific coast state of Michoacan remains among the biggest obstacles to pacifying Mexico.
President Enrique Pena Nieto this month dispatched federal police and troops to seize the port at Lazaro Cardenas. The port, Mexico’s third busiest, has been used to smuggle meth ingredients into Mexico and ship illicit iron ore shipments out.
Bolstered federal forces also swept into the state’s so-called Tierra Caliente, or Hot Country, the largely rural redoubt of the state’s vicious “Caballeros Templarios,” or Knights Templar gang.
“This was seen coming and absolutely nothing was done about it," Mexican Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio told a radio interviewer Tuesday about Michoacan’s precarious security. “This will be an issue for many years. As part of the strategy there will be other actions to recover the state and return it to the citizens.”
The pressure increased on officials in late October, as well-armed self-defense militias from towns that had risen up against the Templars attempted to “liberate” the city of Apatzingan, considered the gang’s bastion. Disarmed by the army outside town, the militiamen were fired on by gunmen when they held a rally in Azpatzingan’s central plaza.
Days later, Apatzingan’s Roman Catholic bishop, Miguel Patino, led a peace march through the city center and gave interviews redoubling his criticism of the Templars and allegedly corrupt state and federal officials.
Patino has called Michoacan “a failed state,” in some of the harshest language clergy or other leaders have used to described Michoacan.
More from GlobalPost: Meet Mexico's badass bishops
State officials struggled to refute Patino, who suggested in his missive that they've been either |
23 Oregon.
Miller knows Arizona can't keep living on the edge.
"We keep putting ourselves in the same position, which is a one-possession game down to the end," he said. "For our team, it's a matter of where we go from here.. We are happy with the win but we have to get better as we move forward if we want to accomplish something special in March."
Arizona led by as many as 12 points in the first half as the Wildcats hit five 3-pointers and limited Utah to 37 percent shooting.
Arizona went cold from 3-point range in the second half, making just 1 of 10.
Lyons was 1 for 9 from beyond the arc but 5 of 6 on free throws and added five assists and two steals.
Utah shot just 39.6 percent and finished 7 of 16 from 3-point range after going 2 of 8 in the first half.
"I thought in the first half our defense was as good as we have played this year," Miller said. "The second half was much different."
Hill opened 3 of 3, including a pair of 3-pointers, to give Arizona a 21-14 lead with 8:44 left in the half.
Former Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan took in the game from the lower bowl at the Huntsman Center.About 67% of the calls to (DRF) helpline have been made by women
LAHORE: Fake Facebook profiles, non-consensual use of information, blackmailing and unsolicited messages seemed to be the most common forms of online harassment over the last year across the country.
This was according to the Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) which released its Cyber Harassment Helpline: One-Year Report on Wednesday.
The report contains data collected by the helpline, which highlights the nature and extent of problem of online harassment. It also contains recommendations for public bodies to improve their institutional response to online harassment.
The Cyber Harassment Helpline was launched on December 1, 2016 and is Pakistan’s first dedicated helpline addressing issues of online abuse and violence. It aims to provide a free, safe, gender-sensitive and confidential service.
It provides legal advice, digital security support and psychological counselling to victims of online harassment. The toll-free number [0800-39393] is available from 9am to 5pm.
Founder and Executive Director of DRF Nighat Dad explained that the “The helpline aims to fill the gaps of service delivery to complainants and victims of online harassment. It hopes to do what law enforcement and other organisations cannot, while paying special heed to gender-sensitivity and mental health.”
This report marks the one-year anniversary of the helpline. During its first year, the helpline has received 1,551 complaints in the form of calls, emails and Facebook messages from December 1, 2016 until November 30, 2017.
The helpline has so far received a total 1,476 calls on its toll-free number. The helpline was originally only operational on weekdays, but in August, it was expanded to seven days a week to meet the needs of its callers. This has resulted in an increase in the average number of monthly calls from 82 in the first six months to 123 by November.
About 67% of the calls at the helpline were by women, whereas 33% of the callers were men. Facebook remains the most widely reported platform, with 45% of callers experiencing harassment on the platform.
Of the kinds of harassment reported, complaints of fake profiles, non-consensual use of information, blackmailing and unsolicited messages were most common.
The helpline was able to identify locations that most were from Punjab (50%). The helpline also received calls from Sindh (18%), K-PK (5%), Balochistan (2%), Azad Kashmir and FATA (1%) and Islamabad (5%).
Published in The Express Tribune, December 21st, 2017.
Read full storyThe issue of filtering out content that advocates or glorifies terrorism on widely-used media sites like Alphabet’s YouTube has come under renewed scrutiny since authorities learned that 23-year-old Salman Abedi was radicalized after watching videos of an American preacher posted on the site. So unsurprisingly, barely two weeks after UK Prime Minister Theresa May accused tech companies of providing a “safe space” for extremist content, Google’s General Counsel Kent Walker has revealed four new measures the company is taking to censor its users.
The biggest change? Questionable content that doesn’t explicitly meet the grounds for removal under the YouTube's terms of use will now be buried, as the New York Times noted, while the site also plans to enhance its abilities to automatically filter out content that does meet these standards.
These videos will now come with a warning, be banned from featuring adds or collecting advertising revenue, or be recommended, endorsed, or commented on. Users will still be able to find the content once the policy goes into effect, but it will eliminate one of the most prominent means of transmission – sharing over social media networks like Twitter and the messaging app Telegram.
"...we will be taking a tougher stance on videos that do not clearly violate our policies — for example, videos that contain inflammatory religious or supremacist content. In future these will appear behind an interstitial warning and they will not be monetised, recommended or eligible for comments or user endorsements. That means these videos will have less engagement and be harder to find. We think this strikes the right balance between free expression and access to information without promoting extremely offensive viewpoints."
As noted by NYT, figuring out how to censor extremist content while taking precautions not to trod too heavily on free speech has been a longstanding problem for YouTube.
“Google has created a thriving video platform that appeals to people with a wide range of interests. But it has also become a magnet for extremist groups that can reach a wide audience for their racist or intolerant views. Google has long wrestled with how to curb that type of content while not inhibiting the freedom that makes YouTube popular.”
The company also said it will launch a new social-intervention program that relies on the “power of targeted online advertising” to reach out to impressionable terrorist recruits, and redirect them toward anti-terrorist content.
In addition to devoting more engineering resources to technology that automatically filters out questionable content, the company said it would also add more manpower to its “trusted flagger” program, though it neglected to explain what qualifies someone as a “trusted flagger” (from what we can tell the program involves partnerships with select NGOs).
While we recognize the political pressure that the company is under to seem like it's doing something about terorrism, we hope YouTube doesn’t repeat its mistakes from September 2016, when it sparked a backlash after deeming posts by YouTube personality Philip DeFranco to be “inappropriate for advertising," offering only a vague explanation as to why.
Perhaps the company could offer to hire people from a truly diverse range of backgrounds and political persuasions to try and prevent a repeat of this incident. Though given the state of today’s discourse – where leftists accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being a hateful racist – we worry that relying at all on human judgment could be a mistake.
Especially if these flaggers are academics. Because the political climate on US college campuses, as students at Evergreen State in Olympia, Wash. recently demonstrated, is grossly intolerant of viewpoints that don’t jive with their ultraprogressive orthodoxies.Aviation Commissioner Ginger Evans, seen in this file photo, is the city's highest paid employee at $300,000 annually, the BGA reports. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Heather Cherone
DOWNTOWN — The number of city workers earning $100,000 or more has almost doubled since 2013, a new report finds.
Some 4,813 employees collected six-figure paychecks as of last March, the Better Government Association concluded after examining payroll data.
The finding was based on base salary rates and does not include overtime or other forms of pay, the association said.
"The number of city workers taking home at least $100,000 in total compensation is even higher," the association said in its report.
The Chicago Police Department and Chicago Fire Department have 1,722 and 1,570 people, respectively, making six-figure salaries, up 20 percent from last year for both departments.
About one third of the Fire Department make $100,000 or more, the association said. That reflects the danger of the job, a Fire Department spokesman said.
The average salary in 2016 for all city workers is about $80,223 while the median is $84,450.
A spokeswoman for the city’s Office of Budget and Management told the association that the majority of city workers making $100,000 or more are union members who have annual raises built into their contracts.
Nonunion public safety personnel received a 5 percent increase in 2015, and other nonunion employees got a 3 percent raise, according to the spokeswoman.
“They hadn’t gotten the adjustment [in prior years], and then they got that adjustment in 2015,” the spokeswoman, Molly Poppe, said. “So, in 2015 you sort of had this meeting of all these different cost of living adjustments.”
The city's highest paid employee is Aviation Commissioner Ginger Evans, at $300,000 a year.
Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson is next, at $260,000, with Mayor Rahm Emanuel following at $216,210.
Read the entire report here.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) team is making a new global climate temperature record. Hopefully this will give us a better handle on what’s going on with the temperature.
BEST has put out a list of the four goals for their mathematical methods (algorithms). I like three of those goals a lot. One I’m not so fond of. Here are their goals:
1) Make it possible to exploit relatively short (e.g. a few years) or discontinuous station records. Rather than simply excluding all short records, we prefer to design a system that allow short records to be used with a low – but non‐zero – weighting whenever it is practical to do so.
2) Avoid gridding. All three major research groups currently rely on spatial gridding in their averaging algorithms. As a result, the effective averages may dependant on the choice of grid pattern and may be sensitive to effects such as the change in grid cell area with latitude. Our algorithms seek to eliminate explicit gridding entirely.
3) Place empirical homogenization on an equal footing with other averaging. We distinguish empirical homogenization from evidence‐based homogenization. Evidence‐based adjustments to records occur when secondary data and/or metadata is used to identify problems with a record and propose adjustments. By contrast, empirical homogenization is the process of comparing a record to its neighbors to detect undocumented discontinuities and other changes. This empirical process performs a kind of averaging as local outliers are replaced with the basic behavior of the local group. Rather than regarding empirical homogenization as a separate preprocessing step, we plan to incorporate empirical homogenization as a process that occurs simultaneously with the other averaging steps.
4) Provide uncertainty estimates for the full time series through all steps in the process.
Using short series, avoiding gridding, and uncertainty estimates are all great goals. But the whole question of “empirical homogenization” is fraught with hidden problems and traps for the unwary.
The first of these is that nature is essentially not homogeneous. It is pied and dappled, patched and plotted. It generally doesn’t move smoothly from one state to another, it moves abruptly. It tends to favor Zipf distributions, which are about as non-normal (i.e. non-Gaussian) as a distribution can get.
So I object to the way that the problem is conceptualized. The problem is not that the data requires “homogenization”, that’s a procedure for milk. The problem is that there are undocumented discontinuities or incorrect data entries. But homogenizing the data is not the answer to that.
This is particularly true since (if I understand what they’re saying) they have already told us how they plan to deal with discontinuities. The plan, which I’ve been pushing for some time now, is to simply break the series apart at the discontinuities and treat it at two separate series. And that’s a good plan. They say:
Data split: Each unique record was broken up into fragments having no gaps longer than 1 year. Each fragment was then treated as a separate record for filtering and merging. Note however that the number of stations is based on the number of unique locations, and not the number of record fragments.
So why would they deal with “empirical discontinuities” by adjusting them, and deal with other discontinuities in a totally different manner?
Next, I object to the plan that they will “incorporate empirical homogenization as a process that occurs simultaneously with the other averaging steps.” This will make it very difficult to back it out of the calculations to see what effect it has had. It will also hugely complicate the question of the estimation of error. For any step-wise process, it is crucial to separate the steps so the effect of each single step can be understood and evaluated.
Finally, let’s consider the nature of the “homogenization” process they propose. They describe it as a process whereby:
… local outliers are replaced with the basic behavior of the local group
There’s a number of problems with that.
First, temperatures generally follow a Zipf distribution (a distribution with a large excess of extreme values). As a result, what would definitely be “extreme outliers” in a Gaussian distribution are just another day in the life in a Zipf distribution. A very unusual and uncommon temperature in a Gaussian distribution may be a fairly common and mundane temperature in a Zipf distribution. If you pull those so-called outliers out of the dataset, or replace them with a local average, and you no longer have temperature data – you have Gaussian data. So you have to be real, real careful before you declare an outlier. I would certainly look at the distributions before and after “homogenization”, to see if the Zipf nature of the distribution has disappeared … and if so, I’d reconsider my algorithm.
Second, while there is a generally high correlation between temperature datasets out to 1200 km or so, that’s all that it is. A correlation. It is not a law. For any given station, there will often be nearby datasets that have very little correlation. In addition, for each of the highly correlated pairs, there will be a number of individual years where the variation in the two datasets is quite large. So despite high correlation, we cannot just assume that any record that disagrees with the “local group” is incorrect, as the BEST folks seem to be proposing.
Third, since nature itself is almost “anti-homogeneous”, full of abrupt changes and frequent odd occurrences and outliers, why would we want to “homogenize” a dataset at all? If we find data we know to be bad, throw it out. Don’t just replace it with some imaginary number that you think is somehow more homogeneous.
Fourth, although the temperature data is highly correlated out for a long distance, the same is not true of the trend. See my post on Alaskan trends regarding this question. Since the trends are not correlated, adjustment based on neighbors may well introduce a spurious trend. If the “basic behavior of the local group” is trending upwards, and the data being homogenized is trending horizontally, both may indeed be correct, and homogenization will destroy that …
Those are some of the problems with “homogenization” that I see. I’d start by naming it something else. It does not describe what we wish to do to the data. Nature is not homogenous, and neither should our dataset be homogeneous.
Then I’d use the local group, solely to locate unusual “outliers” or shifts in variance or average temperature.
But there’s no way I’d replace the putative “outliers” or shifts with the behavior of the “local group”. Why should I? If all you are doing is bringing the data in line with the average of the local group, why not just throw it out entirely and use the local average? What’s the advantage?
Instead, if I found such an actual anomaly or incorrect data point, I’d just throw out the bad data point, and break the original temperature record in two at that point, and consider it as two different records. Why average it with anything at all? That’s introducing extraneous information into a pristine dataset, what’s the point of that?
Lastly, a couple of issues with their quality control procedures. They say:
Local outlier filter: We tested for and flagged values that exceeded a locally determined empirical 99.9% threshold for normal climate variation in each record.
and
Regional filter: For each record, the 21 nearest neighbors having at least 5 years of record were located. These were used to estimate a normal pattern of seasonal climate variation. After adjusting for changes in latitude and altitude, each record was compared to its local normal pattern and 99.9% outliers were flagged.
Again, I’d be real, real cautious about these procedures. Since the value in both cases is “locally determined”, there will certainly not be a whole lot of data for analysis. Determination of the 99.9% exceedance level, based solely on a small dataset of Zipf-distributed data, will have huge error margins. Overall, what they propose seems like a procedure guaranteed to convert a Zipf dataset into a Gaussian dataset, and at that point all bets are off …
In addition, once the “normal pattern of seasonal climate variation” is established, how is one to determine what is a 99.9% outlier? The exact details of how this is done make a big difference. I’m not sure I see a clear and clean way to do it, particularly when the seasonal data has been “adjusted for changes in latitude and altitude”. That implies that they are not using anomalies but absolute values, and that always makes things stickier. But they don’t say how they plan to do it …
In closing, I bring all of this up, not to oppose the BEST crew or make them wrong or pick on errors, but to assist them in making their work bulletproof. I am overjoyed that they are doing what they are doing. I bring this up to make their product better by crowd-sourcing ideas and objections to how they plan to analyze the data.
Accordingly, I will ask the assistance of the moderators in politely removing any posts talking about whether BEST will or won’t come up with anything good, or of their motives, or whether the eventual product will be useful, or the preliminary results, or anything extraneous. Just paste in “Snipped – OT” to mark them, if you’d be so kind.
This thread is about how to do the temperature analysis properly, not whether to do it, or the doer’s motives, or whether it is worth doing. Those are all good questions, but not for this thread. Please take all of that to a general thread regarding BEST. This thread is about the mathematical analysis and transformation of the data, and nothing else.
w.
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RedditA former Georgia nursing home administrator is going to federal prison for stealing more than $300,000 in disability benefits from a Vietnam veteran who was a resident of the facility.
Denise M. Bailey, 49, of Danielsville spent the money on personal expenses, including paying off family credit card bills, U.S. Attorney John Horn said Monday.
The veteran, who was not identified, “…was not capable of managing his financial affairs,” said Special Agent in Charge Monty Stokes with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Horn said Bailey was the administrator at Azalea Gardens in Conyers, where one of the residents was a Vietnam veteran who needed long-term care after suffering a heart attack in 2006. The VA appointed Bailey the fiduciary for the veteran in December 2010, and she was to use any of the veterans benefits he was awarded only for his needs.
On July 7, 2011, the VA awarded the veteran retroactive disability benefits in the amount of $313,452.37, which was deposited in an account held in the name of the veteran with Bailey as administrator, Horn said. Bailey drained the account within four days, he said. She transferred the money from that account to the Azalea Gardens account, then herself or accounts she controlled.
During the VA investigation, Bailey submitted fraudulent bills to try and justify the payments, Horn said, falsely claiming that the veteran owed money to Azalea Gardens for extraordinary services. Bailey had not informed the veteran or his family about the VA payment or the alleged bills for these services, Horn said.
On July 7, 2015, Bailey pleaded guilty to misappropriating veterans funds while acting as a fiduciary.
Bailey, 49, was sentenced to one year in prison and two years of supervised release. A decision on restitution owed to the veteran’s family is to be made later.The stage is set for the 2016 playoffs and the Detroit Red Wings are going to meet a familiar foe, the Tampa Bay Lightning. Unlike last season's team, this year's version of the Lightning is bruised, battered, and ripe for the taking. Will the Red Wings be able to take advantage of a team missing Steven Stamkos and Anton Stralman along with an injured Tyler Johnson, Nikita Kucherov, and Victor Hedman? I took a look at how the Red Wings systems matchup against the Lightning's systems. This is part one of a four-part series preview that will go as follows:
Detroit's Offense vs. Tampa's Defense: Today
Tampa's Offense vs. Detroit's Defense: April 11th
Detroit's Powerplay vs. Tampa's Penalty Kill: April 12th
Tampa's Powerplay vs. Red Wings Penalty Kill: April 13th
Detroit's Breakout vs. Tampa Bay's Defense
Detroit's Offense
When examining Detroit's breakout, we have to think about their controlled breakouts and their regroups. With controlled breakouts, the Red Wings preferred play is known as the "strong-side slant". Below is an animation showing how the strong-side slant sets up.
When the Wings have the time to set up the play, it looks a lot like this particular sequence from the 04/09 game against the New York Rangers.
The wrinkle that the Red Wings have added to this breakout is that they have the left winger cut across the ice instead of just starting at center ice on the left boards. This wrinkle allows for the defenseman to hit this winger as he cuts across the ice, a play that Justin Abdelkader took full advantage of last season en route to his many breakaway goals. What the Wings most frequently do with this play is use the stretch pass to hit the left winger at center ice. In the early part of the season, the Wings were just having the left winger chip the puck in while the right winger and center went into puck retrieval mode.
As the season has progressed, the Wings have moved away from continually trying to chip the puck in and have added another element to the breakout play to maintain possession. Instead of having the left winger deflect the puck in, he actually executes a drop pass to the right winger coming down the middle of the ice with speed.
This particular play helps the Red Wings counter when a team has their defensemen aggressively press the left winger in the neutral zone. This can lead to 2-on-1's for the Red Wings. However, the Wings have not utilized this play as much as I think they should, given how aggressively teams have been pressing the Wings in the neutral zone.
Controlled breakouts represent only a small part of the game as they really only happen when the defensive team is going for a line change and the forechecking pressure is lessened. A majority of the game is spent performing regroup breakouts. There are two major categories of regroup breakouts - lane regroups and motion regroups. For more information on the difference between the two, I will direct you to the wonderful work by Jen Lute Costella.
As for the Red Wings, they most commonly execute a motion regroup, where the center and left winger swap positions at the defensive blue line to try and create confusion for the defense. An animation of this is shown below:
As you can see here, the center and left winger switch lanes while the right winger actually swings all the way around the ice to create confusion for the defense. This type of regroup can be executed with many different wrinkles, but the Red Wings primarily execute it as shown above. A live game example is shown below from the March 24th game against the Canadiens.
As you can see, this regroup creates a lot of confusion, especially for a 1-2-2 forecheck as the 2nd high forechecker has to initially take the RW but then has to recover to pick up the center in the middle of the ice. This makes for a very challenging defensive assignment if executed correctly and often leads to a controlled zone entry.
Speaking of zone entries, shown below is the Red Wings zone entry data, meticulously tracked by J.D. Burke of Canucks Army and visualized by Sean Tierney of Hockey Graphs and Today's Slapshot.
From this we can see that Dylan Larkin, Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Teemu Pulkkinen, and Tomas Tatar led the way for this team in terms of gaining entry to the zone and having controlled zone entries. Andreas Athanasiou's ice time is limited in this sample, but I expect him to also be very high in controlled zone entries. Given this information, the Wings should be designing their breakouts to make sure that the puck ends up on these players' sticks in the neutral zone to maximize zone entries.
Tampa's Defense
On the forecheck, Tampa likes to employ a wide 1-2-2 that can be very aggressive at times. In fact, I think Tampa's 1-2-2 is close to a mirror image of Detroit's 1-2-2 forecheck.
TB's "1" is aggressive and pursues the puck in hopes of forcing a turnover while the "2" other forwards sit back in the neutral zone to take away space from Detroit's forwards. The video above is an example of Detroit trying to execute a motion regroup against the Tampa forecheck but ultimately they ran out of space as Tampa held the blue line. One thing to notice is that Tampa does afford the defensemen a lot of room to skate with the puck as Brendan Smith does here. I think this will be a huge key as the Wings may have to rely on dumping the puck in more if Tampa continues to clog the neutral zone. A skating defenseman can, at the very least, gain the red line before dumping the puck in.
The other big key to the Tampa forecheck is very aggressive defensemen, especially off of faceoffs and disjointed breakout plays. Watch how Matt Carle stands up at the blue line here to try and force a turnover.
By standing up at the blue line, there is absolutely nowhere for the Red Wings to go and the only option is to chip the puck up the boards. This will be a crucial key for the Detroit forwards. Knowing that Tampa's D is going to aggressively step up, the Wings should look to be making a quick chip up the boards or looking back to the middle of the ice to find a player with speed. Either way, the Wings have to know that they will need to move the puck quickly as they exit the zone, especially off of a wheel breakout play like the one above.
Ultimately, Detroit offense will be facing almost a carbon copy of it's defensive forechecking scheme. The only difference is that Tampa is able to execute it significantly better due to the mobility of their defensemen. The Wings will have to be smart about exiting the zone, exercise patience with the puck when they have the time, and recognize when and where pressure is coming from. Communication between all five guys on the ice will be the key to successfully and repeatedly moving the puck up the ice. Even though Tampa is wounded, their structure is still present and I don't expect them to cut Detroit any breaks.
Series Key:
Exploit Tampa's aggressive defense in the neutral zone by increasing the utilization of the LW center ice drop pass to an onrushing forward. This type of play can create 2-on-1's early in the series, getting the Wings the quick start they desire. If the Wings can continually exploit this, Tampa may be forced to back off their neutral zone pressure, allowing the Wings to enter the offensive zone in a cleaner fashion.Pope Francis stressed that his brief meeting with presidential candidate Bernie Sanders Bernard (Bernie) SandersSenate Dems seek to turn tables on GOP in climate change fight Bernie Sanders Town Hall finishes third in cable news race, draws 1.4 million viewers Woman to undecided Biden: 'Just say yes' to 2020 bid MORE Saturday was not an endorsement.
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The pope told reporters he was on his way to Greece and Sanders was wrapping up his trip to Rome when they met in the lobby of the Pope’s residence at the Domus Santa Marta hotel in the Vatican gardens.
“When I came down, I greeted them, shook their hands and nothing more,” Francis told reporters, according to Time. “This is good manners. It’s called good manners and not getting mixed up in politics. If anyone thinks that greeting someone means getting involved in politics, they should see a psychiatrist."
Francis added: “This morning when I left, Sen. Sanders was there. … He knew I was leaving at that time and I had the kindness to greet them and his wife and another couple who were with them."
The Vermont senator had attended a Vatican conference Friday on economic inequality and climate change before flying back to New York Saturday.
“He is a beautiful man,” Sanders told ABC News. “I am not a Catholic, but there is a radiance that comes from him. It was very wonderful to meet him.”
"It was a real honor for me, for my wife and I to spend some time with him,” Sanders told The Associated Press. "I think he is one of the extraordinary figures not only in the world today but in modern world history."Mumbai: Banks received ₹ 5,44,571 crore in deposits and old notes submitted for exchange from the time banks reopened after currency demonetisation till 18 November, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said.
This includes deposits of ₹ 5,11,565 crore and exchanged currency notes of ₹ 33,006 crore, the central bank said in a statement on its website. The figures were reported by RBI counters, regional rural banks and urban cooperative banks.
“They (banks) have also reported that the public have withdrawn, during this period, ₹ 1,03,316 crore from their accounts either over the counter or through ATMs (automated teller machines)," the statement said.
Customers are allowed to withdraw up to ₹ 2,500 per day through ATMs and ₹ 24,000 a week from their savings accounts at bank branches by issuing cheques and other such instruments. In a separate notification on Monday, the RBI said that customers will be allowed to withdraw ₹ 50,000 per week, through their current accounts, overdraft facilities and cash credit accounts.
India’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) on Friday said it had received ₹ 1.27 trillion worth of cash deposits and saw exchanges worth ₹ 6,477 crore. The bank also reported withdrawals worth ₹ 23,340 crore.Secret police force of the Russian Empire
For Slavophone militias in Greek Macedonia during World War II, see Ohrana
Okhrana
Отделение по Охранению Общественной Безопасности и Порядка Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order
Okhrana group photograph in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire in 1905 Agency overview Formed 1881[1] Dissolved 1917 Jurisdiction Russian Empire Headquarters Petrograd
The Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order (Russian: Отделение по Охранению Общественной Безопасности и Порядка), usually called "guard department" (Russian: Охранное отделение) and commonly abbreviated in modern sources as Okhrana (Russian: Охрана, IPA: [ɐˈxranə] (), lit. the guard) was a secret police force of the Russian Empire and part of the police department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) in the late 19th century, aided by the Special Corps of Gendarmes.
Overview [ edit ]
Formed to combat political terrorism and left-wing revolutionary activity,[2] the Okhrana operated offices throughout the Russian Empire and satellite agencies in a number of foreign nations. It was concerned primarily with monitoring the activities of Russian revolutionaries abroad, including in Paris, where Pyotr Rachkovsky was based (1884–1902).
The task was performed by multiple methods, including covert operations, undercover agents, and "perlustration"—reading of private correspondence. Even the Foreign Agency served this purpose. The Okhrana was notorious for its agents provocateurs, including Dr. Jacob Zhitomirsky (a leading Bolshevik and close associate of Vladimir Lenin), Yevno Azef, Roman Malinovsky and Dmitry Bogrov.
The Okhrana tried to compromise the labour movement by creating police-run trade unions, a practice known as zubatovshchina. The agency was blamed by the Communists in part for the Bloody Sunday event, when imperial guards killed hundreds of unarmed protesters who were marching during a demonstration organized by Father Gapon, who was alleged by the Bolsheviks to have collaborated with the Okhrana (though in fact this was unproven), and Pyotr Rutenberg.
Other controversial activities included alleged fabrication of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (many historians such as the German historian Konrad Heiden[3] and Russian historian Mikhail Lepekhine[4] maintain that Matvei Golovinski, a writer and Okhrana agent, compiled the first edition) and fabrication of the antisemitic Beilis trial.
Suspects captured by the Okhrana were passed to the Russian judicial system.
The Okhrana never received more than 10% of the police budget, the most it ever received being five million rubles in 1914.[5]
History [ edit ]
The first special security department was the Department on Protecting the Order and Public Peace under the Head of St. Petersburg, created in 1866 after a failed assassination attempt on Alexander II, with a staff of 12 investigators. Its street address, Fontanka, 16, was publicly known in the Russian Empire. After another failed attempt, on August 6, 1880, the Emperor, acting on proposals made by Count Loris-Melikov, created the Department of State Police under Ministry of the Interior (MVD) and transferred part of the Special Corps of Gendarmes and the Third Section of the Imperial Chancellery to the new body. The position of Chief of Gendarmes was merged with the Minister, and Commander of the Corps was assigned Deputy of the Minister. Still, these measures did not prevent the assassination of Alexander II in March 1881.
In an attempt to implement preventive security measures, Emperor Alexander III immediately created two more Security and Investigation (охранно-розыскные) secret police stations, supervised by Gendarme officers, in Moscow and Warsaw; they became the basis of the later Okhrana. The Imperial Gendarmerie still operated as security police in the rest of the country through their Gubernial and Uyezd Directorates. The Tsar also created Special Conference under the MVD (1881), which had the right to declare a State of Emergency Security in various parts of the Empire (which was actively used in the time of 1905's Revolution), and subordinated all of the imperial police forces to the Commander of the Gendarmes (1882).
The rise of the socialist movements called for the integration of security forces. Since 1898, the Special Section (Особый отдел) of the Department of Police succeeded the Gendarmes in gaining information from domestic and foreign agents and "perlustration". Following the Socialist-Revolutionary Party's assassination of MVD Minister Dmitry Sipyagin on April 2, 1902, the new Minister Vyacheslav von Plehve gradually relieved Directorates of Gendarmes of investigation power in favor of Security and Investigation Stations (Охранно-розыскное отделение) under respective Mayors and Governors (who as a matter of fact were subordinate to the MVD Minister).
The Okhrana used many seemingly unorthodox methods in the pursuit of its mission to defend the monarchy; indeed, some of the Okhrana’s activities even contributed to the wave of domestic unrest and revolutionary terror that they were intended to quell. Perhaps most paradoxical of all was the Okhrana’s collaboration with revolutionary organizations.[6] Among the early Okhrana agents to work alongside revolutionaries was Lieutenant-Colonel Gregory Sudeykin of the St. Petersburg Special Section, who, in 1882, set up an illegal printing operation to publish the revolutionary People’s Will with Okhrana funds. Sudeykin and his colleague, a revolutionary-turned-police-informant named Sergey Degayev, passed drafts of the publication through Okhrana censors before printing. This episode marked the beginning of the Okhrana’s efforts to surreptitiously observe, but also influence and undermine, revolutionary movements.[7] This focus on infiltrating and influencing revolutionary groups, rather than merely identifying and arresting their members, was intensified by the innovations of one Okhrana bureau chief, Sergey Zubatov. While P.I. Rachkovsky, as head of the Okhrana’s Foreign Agency, had long ordered Okhrana agents to infiltrate and influence revolutionary movements abroad, Zubatov brought these tactics to a new level by creating Okhrana-controlled trade unions, the foundation of police socialism.[8] Perhaps recognizing the same discontent among factory workers that the Bolsheviks sought to exploit to start a revolution, Zubatov hoped the unions would mollify factory workers with improvements in working conditions and thus prevent workers from joining revolutionary movements that threatened the monarchy. To this end, Zubatov created the Moscow Mechanical Production Workers’ Mutual Aid Society in May 1901. After Zubatov was made head of the Special Section in 1902, he expanded his trade unions from Moscow to St. Petersburg and Southern Russia.[9]
Zubatovite trade unions achieved moderate success at channeling workers’ political agitations away from revolutionary movements and toward labor improvements, especially in the cities of Minsk and Odessa, with one high-ranking official noting that many revolutionaries and workers were joining the unions.[10] However, Zubatov, if not police socialism, was discredited in the summer of 1903 after the Okhrana officer in charge of the Odessa union allowed a strike to get out of hand, causing a mass movement which paralyzed the region.[ |
a centerpiece in his economic strategy.
“Ten years ago, we imported almost half of the food from abroad, and were dependent on imports. Now Russia is among the exporters. Last year, Russian exports of agricultural products amounted to almost $20 billion – a quarter more than the revenue from the sale of arms, or one-third the revenue coming from gas exports,” he added.
Regardless of what you think about Putin’s politics, the fact that non-GMO farming and organic food production is now such a key part of the international discussion is beyond exciting (and long overdue).
This post originally appeared at Natural SocietyTurkey, Russia to ‘continue cooperation against terror’ despite assassination of Karlov
ISTANBUL
AP photo
Russia and Turkey vowed to deepen cooperation in the fight against terror following the assassination of Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov in a gun attack on Dec. 19.Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan both condemned the attack, saying relations between the two countries would remain firm and vowing to fight jointly against terror in the face of “provocations.”In a televised speech on Dec. 19, Erdoğan said the assassination of Karlov was an “open provocation” against Turkey-Russia relations.“We know that this is a provocation especially to hamper the normalization process between Turkey and Russia, but both the Russian government and the Turkish government have the will to not submit to this provocation,” said Erdoğan.He added that upon his talk with Putin both of them “agreed that especially in the fight against international terror, our solidarity will be much stronger.”“As we have agreed with Putin, we will launch a joint investigation commission,” Erdoğan also said, conveying Ankara’s keen interest in enlightening the assassination that was carried out by a 22-year-old Turkish riot police officer.Erdoğan added that Turkey would increase security measures around Russian diplomatic buildings and people.Putin also described the assassination of Karlov as “a provocation” and vowed that it would only “fortify Russia’s fight against terrorism.”“The best response to the attack against the Russian ambassador is strengthening the fight against terror,” he said, adding that a state medal will be granted on behalf of Karlov.“A crime has been committed and it was without doubt a provocation aimed at spoiling the normalization of Russo-Turkish relations and spoiling the Syrian peace process, which is being actively pushed by Russia, Turkey, Iran and others,” said Putin.Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev also said the murder of Karlov was aimed “not only at the Russian ambassador, but also at those who are for peace and human life,” vowing that Moscow will “not allow the incident to go unpunished.”Medvedev noted via his official social media account that Karlov was shot while he was expressing Russia’s efforts for cooperation, friendship, the preservation of peace, and the fight against terror.“Andrey Karlov’s weapon was his speech. But the killer spoke in another language, which was not acceptable for normal people whose values were protected during the lifetime of Andrey Karlov. He lost his life like a hero,” he said.Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım also condemned the attack and stressed that Ankara would not “fall into the trap of terror” and would not allow ties between the two countries to be damaged.Speaking ahead of a meeting in Russia over Syria, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu also said the attack aimed to disrupt the relationship between Turkey and Russia, adding that “both sides are aware of the plot.”Çavuşoğlu vowed that those responsible would pay the price.For his part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said “this tragedy forces all of us to fight more decisively against terrorism,” adding that Moscow will take “measures that will make it impossible for those who helped the people organizing this crime and ordering the crime to carry out their plans.”Russian-Turkish relations went through an intense crisis in the aftermath of the November 2015 Turkish downing of a Russian jet on Turkish-Syrian border that led to the death of a Russian pilot. Russia imposed a series of tough economic sanctions on Turkey after the downing, and ties between the two countries were also badly damaged due to their choice of alliances in the Syrian war.A rapprochement process began in June 2016, when Erdoğan officially expressed his sorrow of the jet downing, and recently Ankara and Moscow worked together to secure the evacuation of civilians from Aleppo, as rebel-held areas of the Syrian city were besieged by forces of the Bashar al-Assad regime.The news is sometimes filled with stories of moving scams and scam movers. We’ve prepared this page to help consumers understand what to look for.
YOU KNOW YOU ARE A ROGUE MOVER IF…
You find yourself quoting customers in terms of cubic feet! You won’t guarantee anything in writing! Your price is 1/3 of REAL movers’ prices! You can’t name the tariff you use to quote with! You find yourself talking to your customer with your cigarette still in your mouth! You find three times more stuff than your customer “told you over the phone!” You won’t let your customer witness the weighing of his goods! You demand cash at pick up! Your credit card machine is “broken” or “down”! You don’t seem to know where your customers’ goods are!
DETECTING ROGUE / SCAM MOVERS
Did the “mover” “quote” you by cubic feet?
If so, it is a virtual certainty that they are not operating from any known tariff. By law movers must have and subscribe to a published tariff. The tariff has all charges laid out and accounted for. You should find another mover.
Definition: TARIFF: List of charges for moving services published and filed with the Surface Transportation Board (DOT). This definition is gleaned from existing data and experience in the moving industry. The American Heritage Dictionary defines tariff as: “n. 1. A list or system of duties imposed by a government on imported or exported goods. 3. Any schedule of prices or fees.“ In order for a mover to get authority to move, he must first file a tariff and it must be approved. Most U.S. movers are using the existing tariff called the 400N. This is because it is a monumental task to formulate all the possible charges for all the possible moving services in all the possible cities of the U.S. This tariff must be published and available to the public for inspection.
It is almost unheard of for standard movers to quote customers by cubic feet. Movers who have been around a long time sometimes quote customers by the pound. This practice is dying out and you will usually get a quote that is based on a rate. The rate is based on mileage to your destination and the estimated number of pounds in your shipment. The mover will give you a discount off of the rate. No one will charge you 100% of the rate. The discount is driven up by competition. The older movers were used to giving a price per pound — this is done by simple division and is still based on the rate in the tariff.
Can the mover tell you what tariff he is quoting from?
If not, you should run screaming into the night!
Does the mover demand a deposit or ask for half the money up front?
Standard movers do not demand half of the money up front. Their service speaks for itself. Unless you require a very specific day or time it is highly unusual for a standard mover to need a deposit.
Did the “mover” give you a guaranteed price?
If the mover guaranteed a price for cubic feet *, now you must know how to determine cubic feet, very few people know this or take the time to do it. You are thus under the complete mercy of the “mover” and you could be taken advantage of. This should not be debated after the “mover” picks up your things. If they are criminal, it is too late. The best rule if you are quoted in this fashion is to find another mover. If you really want to keep working with that mover there are a couple of ways to solve this:
If you have a decent size move, say, more than 2 bedrooms, have the mover come out and give you an estimate. If they won’t, have another mover who may be closer to you come out and see your things and give you an estimate. You want to know how many cubic feet and how many pounds the mover saw. That mover should be able to fix a price for you and the “mover” who would not come out may be able to fix a price now. The point is, now you have data that you can share with other movers to get a quote. If you have a smaller move, will the “mover” allow you to list your items and guarantee the price to move those items, in writing?
*Definition: CUBIC FEET: Length X width X height. Example: 2′ X 3′ X 4′ = 24 cubic feet. In inches the equation is: 24″ X 36″ X 48″ = 41,472 cubic inches. To convert to feet: 41,472 ÷ 1728 = 24 cubic feet.
All movers want to know your cubic feet so they can convert them into pounds. The equation is generally 7 pounds per cubic foot so in the above example 24 cubic feet would convert to 24 X 7 = 168 pounds.
Why are pounds important? The known tariffs are based on mileage and pounds. You always have the right to have your things weighed at a certified weigh station. You can witness the light weight (before pick up) and the heavy weight (after pick up). You meet the driver at the closest scale to your home, and follow him back to your home, and then to the scale after pick up. You will have a certified weight ticket, and will know the exact poundage. Standard movers will be perfectly willing to accommodate you.
Is your “estimated” cost significantly lower than other estimates from major moving companies?
Your costs between movers should not vary that much; if you have an “estimated” cost that is too good to be true — it is too good to be true. The normal method of operation of these “movers” is to quote very low, sound very nice and professional, and then on the day of pick up you will be informed that you have a significant amount more than you reported and the cost will go up — usually about 2-3 times the original estimate.
By following the above guidelines you should be able to avoid “rogue movers”.
REMEMBER, YOU HAVE RIGHTS!
Unfortunately, only ethical movers follow the rules and allow you your rights. There are many, many good movers out there. Most movers are good people and want to help. They do not need laws to enforce ethical business practices. The only effective way to avoid trouble with your move is to detect a criminal mover before they are allowed to touch your items.
© 2002 SVL, INC., All rights reserved
If you would like more help or advice, call us at (800) 264-6313 or send email.James Comey was a little surprised at first when he received Donald Trump’s invitation to join the President for a one-on-one dinner at the Mar-a-Lago. After all, since the whole bit where the two of them had traded barbs like kindergartners going at it on the playground tensions between the President and former FBI director had been a little heated. Nevertheless, Comey accepted and soon found himself stepping into the elaborate Mar-a-Lago dining room.
“Come in, come in,” Trump said, ushering him inside and closing the door behind him, “You didn’t bring anyone with you did you?”
“No I…” Comey started.
“Good. It’s very, very, important that it’s just me and you at this dinner. That’s why I’m making Attorney General Sessions wait outside. Even Vladimir Putin doesn’t get to know what’s about to happen here, and I tell him everything. Trust me. Everything.”
“Mr. Trump,” Comey said, “Let’s not go down this road again.”
“No, no,” Trump said, “It’s different this time, Jim. I’ve got something to show you. It’s ‘uuuuge. The best really. The best.”
Before Comey could protest, Trump had ushered him into a seat. Sitting on the table in front of him was a piece of chocolate colored cake with the words “Top Secret” spelled out across it in red icing.
“What’s this about?” Comey asked.
“The cake!” Trump said, “It’s my best creation yet, and trust me, I’ve had a lot of great creations. Trumps steaks and Trump University were ‘uuge and all, but they’re small potatoes compared to this, Jim. I call it ‘covfefe cake’.”
Comey looked from the cake to Trump’s wide, excited eyes, and back to the cake.
“No one else knew what I meant by covfefe,” Trump continued, “Reince Priebus even told me I wasn’t allowed on Twitter anymore past 1:00 AM, but I knew that if anyone would figure it out it would be you.”
“I didn’t figure anything out, though,” Comey said, “I just came down here because you invited me. I didn’t even…”
“Forget the details. Just try the cake!”
Comey looked back at the cake, focusing on the red icing that spelled “Top Secret”. Reluctantly, he picked up the fork and took a bite of the cake.
“Well?” Trump said.
“It..it tastes like chocolate cake, Mr. President.”
Trump’s face dropped into a scowl, and he turned away from Comey, heading towards the door.
“I knew I made the right choice firing you, Jim,” Trump said as he left, “Any FBI director who can’t tell the difference between chocolate and covfefe isn’t even worth a measly million dollars. You can see yourself out, Jim. I’ve got to go change all the nuclear launch codes to ‘covfefe’.”
Donald Trump and James Comey made the odd pair. As Comey looked back down at the piece of chocolate cake, sighed, and rose from his seat he walked out the door he knowing things would never be the same in the United States.sazquatch:
Tbh if you’re stuck on the “Telling women that their choices are made due to patriarchal socialisation is infantilising!! Don’t tell us we aren’t in complete control of our choices, we’re grown women!!” line of thought, maybe stop, check your ego at the door, and realise that every human, by virtue of being human, is profoundly influenced by the cultural norms of their society.
It’s not a personal condemnation of you or a suggestion that you’re too unintelligent to think for yourself, it’s a statement of fact that humans’ ways of thinking and conceptualising themselves cannot be untethered from their society. If we can acknowledge that we live in a patriarchal society, we also have to acknowledge that that society influences us.
You can be offended that these influences exist exist, but don’t deny that they affect everyone because you’re personally upset about being told that we don’t all make choices freely.Well, it’s all over — and the Teabaggers didn’t disappoint.
Racism!
“We do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country…People who could not spell the word vote or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House — name is Barack Hussein Obama.“
Birtherism!
“The media, the politicians … all say, no, it’s all been settled. I say, if it’s been settled show us the birth certificate. Simple,” Farah’s said, as his remarks were cheered by the roughly 600 activists gathered in Nashville for the event.
Theocracy!
As fallible men and women, it would be wise of us to start seeking some divine intervention again in this country, so that we can be safe and secure and prosperous again.” The country, she said, needs politicians unafraid “to go that route, not so afraid of the political correctness... to proclaim their alliance to our Creator.”
Faux populism!
There was another who dressed in a leather veteran’s vest with medals festooned on it. He also wore a Vietnam Veteran hat. “I just dressed this way to get attention,” the man said, halfway through a scotch at an “Irish pub” 200 feet from the ballroom where Palin will be speaking, down a casino-style carpeted hotel hallway. “I’m really a retired millionaire.” […] He talked in detail of the Mercedes he drove here; the Rolls Royce he bought in Florida that he won’t drive on rainy days like today, and that he’s a major donor to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “Just sold my last business for $3.3 million,” he said, laughing, seemingly taking great delight in his get up and the gag he was pulling.
Ethnocentrism!
Cultures are not the same. Some are better. Ours is best.
Wagnerian melodrama!
I will live, I will die for the people of America.
And here’s the kicker. Wait for it…
Organizers said anyone who had shown up “looking too crazy” would have been tossed out.
Clearly, they were grading “crazy” on a curve.In The Now
For social media users looking for "news served with a side of smile," there's a new outlet doing the rounds. In The Now, which has been gaining traction in the last year, is the latest online video channel that mixes entertainment, internet ephemera, and serious news to create shareable content that lives on social media. Its ethos is most obvious on its Facebook page, where the banner image is a collage of world leaders, cute animals, and meme-able celebrities like Shia LaBeouf.
In The Now / Facebook
In recent days, it's had two big viral hits, both concerning what it says is the Western media's disinformation campaign surrounding the Syrian civil war.
What's not immediately clear to viewers of In The Now is that it's the latest venture from RT, the Russian state-funded news channel formerly known as Russia Today. It's news served hot with a side of smile and a big dollop of propaganda.
In The Now began its life as a regular show on the RT channel, and transitioned to a standalone project in the spring of 2016. But other than a page buried on the RT website, there are few signs that In The Now is connected to the Russian government at all. Its videos live on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, and nowhere on each platform is there branding or descriptions that connect them to RT. The In The Now website — inthenow.media — also has no obvious clues about its ownership. On Thursday, its lead story asked if the Dalai Lama was a CIA agent.
In The Now
While there are no disclaimers to tip readers off, the content of the new service does seem to have a particular worldview — one that is skeptical of Western foreign policy and largely tracks with Russian interests.
One recent hit was a viral video, "Independent Canadian journo totally crushes MSM reporter on what’s actually going on in Syria," where the Russian military is backing the Assad regime's scorched-earth campaign against its opponents. The clip shows Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett answering questions from a reporter at the United Nations. She makes a number of remarkable claims, including that Syria's 2014 elections, which were widely denounced as a sham vote, showed Syrians "overwhelmingly support" President Bashar al-Assad. (Assad won 88% of the vote, down from the 97% he won in 2007.)
Bartlett also said the Syrian Civil Defense, better known as the White Helmets, is a Western-backed propaganda effort that routinely "recycles" children it pulls from the rubble of bombed-out buildings. "No one in eastern Aleppo has heard of them," she said. A second viral hit for In The Now also focused on the Syrian civil war, this time claiming that a series of "farewell" videos posted by civilians in the besieged portion of Aleppo "looks like a coordinated PR campaign" by people who want viewers to believe "that Assad is randomly going from city to city and killing his own people for some crazy reason, with the help of Russia." Do you believe that? the host asks. That video was turned into a news article by RT. "In the Now found there's little to indicate that the people appearing in the mobile videos were actual civilians experiencing the hyped 'Russian and Syrian shelling,'" RT's article said. Completing the circle, the Russian embassy in Canada then tweeted the RT story.
Civilians making social media pleas from #Aleppo actually activists with MSM primetime access (VIDEO) https://t.co/kKvqV1vXEV
In an emailed statement in response to questions from BuzzFeed News, an RT spokesperson said In The Now is editorially independent from the main news channel.
"The project, though originated as part of RT’s television platform... eventually spun off as a separate brand because its creator Anissa Naouai wanted to explore a less formal, digital format," read the statement. "Although RT doesn’t support all of the views expressed by the platform we always appreciate Anissa’s contribution to the discussion at large." The video of Bartlett's comments has been viewed millions of times on Facebook and other platforms, with a receptive audience across the political divide, from committed anti-imperialists on the left to prominent supporters of President-elect Donald Trump on the right. The clips got love from senior Trump adviser A.J. Delgado, and alt-right star Mike Cernovich.
Top Trump surrogates now applauding guests at Assad-sponsored press conferences at the UN.
The press conference where Bartlett made her remarks about Syria took place on Dec. 9 at the United Nations building in New York. Kristoffer Rønneberg, the US correspondent for the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, was the journalist who In The Now reported was totally crushed by Bartlett's comments. Rønneberg told BuzzFeed News he only attended because the Syrian ambassador to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, was scheduled to speak.
Independent Canadian journo totally crushes MSM reporter on what’s actually going on in SyriaGreek politicians reacted angrily on Monday following the admission by former Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz that Turkish secret agents intentionally started forest fires in Greece in the 1990s as part of state-sponsored sabotage.
The claims are not new and were common knowledge on the islands of the eastern Aegean which were particularly hard hit by wildfires in the 1990s. But Yilmaz?s comments -- part of an interview published in the Turkish daily newspaper Birgun over the weekend -- are the first admission by an official source that Ankara was funding subversive activities in Greece.
According to Yilmaz, who served as premier three times in the 1990s, agents of the Turkish secret service set fire to Greek forests during the leadership of his archrival Tansu Ciller, from 1995 to 1998. During that period major forest fires caused huge damage on the islands of the eastern Aegean and in Macedonia.
The news sparked political outrage Greece on Monday. Foreign Ministry spokesman Grigoris Delavekouras said the claims were?serious and must be investigated,? adding that Athens was awaiting a briefing from Ankara.
Conservative New Democracy?s shadow foreign minister Panos Panayiotopoulos said the revelations?cast heavy shadows over Greek-Turkish relations? and called on Turkey recompense Greece for losses incurred.
Giorgos Karatzaferis, the leader of the right-wing Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS), was indignant and triumphant, noting that he had been accused of extremism when as an MP he had accused Turkish secret agents of arson in Greece.?Now, from the lips of former Turkish premier, we have an admission to the crime,? he said.Republican presidential Donald Trump Donald John TrumpREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails Trump urges North Korea to denuclearize ahead of summit Venezuela's Maduro says he fears 'bad' people around Trump MORE and his running mate, Mike Pence Michael (Mike) Richard PenceVenezuela's Maduro says he fears 'bad' people around Trump 'And the award for best political commentary by an Oscar nominee goes to...' UN nuclear watchdog: Iran maintains compliance with 2015 pact MORE, shared an awkward embrace at the end of Pence's speech to the Republican National Convention Wednesday.
Trump emerged onstage at the end of Pence's speech as the crowd in Cleveland gave them a standing ovation. But when Trump leaned in as if to kiss Pence on the cheek, he instead abruptly stopped and settled on an air-kiss.Members of Parliament gave themselves a six per cent increase to their travel budgets and a slight salary increase this spring, according to minutes of a closed committee meeting that were made public this week.
The board of internal economy is the governing body that oversees financial and administration matters of the House of Commons and its meetings are not open to the public. But on Thursday, the minutes of past meetings were posted online, revealing some details about the kinds of issues the board deals with. The minutes have always been available publicly upon request but now they can be accessed with a few clicks online.
Minutes from the March 25 meeting indicate the board approved an increase to the travel status expenses accounts for MPs worth $1,762 as of April 1. That brings the amount up to $28,000 for accommodation, meals and other incidentals.
The board also approved an increase of 1.6 per cent to MPs' sessional allowances and salaries.
The base salary for an MP was $157,731 and had been frozen with no increases since 2010-11. Now the base salary is $160,200.
Green MP Elizabeth May said Friday that the optics of a salary and travel budget increase right now are not very good. The Senate expenses scandal continues to dominate Parliament Hill and MPs have been under pressure to be more transparent about their books along with their Senate colleagues.
May noted that the overall budgets for MPs' offices have gone down but travel and MP salaries have gone up.
Gregory Thomas, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, questioned whether MPs deserve a raise. "For what? For a job well done? For eliminating corruption? Balancing the budget? Getting unemployment below seven per cent? It sure isn't pay for performance," he said in an email.
Thomas said the fact that politicians are getting increases in salaries and travel budgets "in the middle of biggest expense scandal in at least a generation" shows that parliamentarians are "tone deaf."
The meeting minutes give a glimpse into some other matters happening on Parliament Hill. At the most recent meeting on May 27, for example, the board members discussed a pilot project with a limited number of staff using the new BlackBerry 10s. The board also considered a request for filming in the House of Commons for the film adaptation of the novel Best Laid Plans, a six-part miniseries that will air on CBC.New Delhi: India’s beleaguered information technology (IT) industry has received a vote of confidence from Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp. since 2014, and the man universally acknowledged to have turned around the $85.32 billion company.
In India for a series of meetings and conferences across Bangalore, New Delhi and Mumbai, Nadella said in an interview that he thinks India’s IT sector is well positioned with generous prospects for both the Flipkarts of this world as well as the systems integrators.
A day after Microsoft signed an agreement with Flipkart whereby the latter will use Microsoft Azure as its exclusive public cloud computing platform, Nadella is clearly a man in a hurry. On Tuesday, he discussed how Microsoft could work with the government for better opportunities in areas such as rural health and employment with minister for communications and information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad, a day after he shared a platform with Nandan Nilekani, former chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and co-founder of Infosys Ltd.
At the core of his meetings has been the company’s cloud platform, Nadella’s focus area and one in which the company posted 93% growth in the last quarter. The company is also set to add State Bank of India (SBI) to its customer list for its growing enterprise cloud services in the country.
Although Microsoft already has various Indian banks and financial services firms as its clients, adding the country’s largest bank to that list will be a huge fillip in its rivalry with Amazon, which hitherto has been the market leader for these services.
In addition, 18 years after it set up a development centre in India, Microsoft is now ready to roll out India-focused products incorporating local features and solutions. Among these is a Skype client with built-in authentication for Aadhaar.
The Microsoft boss is convinced that despite the current challenges they face at home and abroad, Indian IT companies are on the right side of history. In particular, he’s excited about the energy he sees in the start-ups he’s been interacting with. Their solutions will soon reach massive scale in India and once that is done globally as well.
The trend dovetails with Microsoft’s business goals centered around empowering “every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more". Under Nadella, the company has given out Windows 10 as a free upgrade, while investing in new features for its cloud services and buying LinkedIn at a steep price of $26 billion, in an effort to enhance its potential customer base. Key to realizing the worth of these investments will be monetizing the relationships that the CEO has been fostering over the last few days in his various interactions with small and large business in India.0 $50K reward offered for info about bank robber who killed man
SOUTH STRABANE, Pa. - Citizens Bank and Giant Eagle are teaming up to offer a $50,000 reward to anyone who provides police with information that leads to the arrest and prosecution of a man who robbed a branch bank Sunday before fatally shooting a supermarket customer who tried to stop him from getting away.
South Strabane police released new photos of the robber at a news conference Friday, which show the man in the bank wearing a large, floppy straw hat that obscures much of his face.
Police are asking anyone who was there and saw the man or saw someone in the area discarding something from a car to contact South Strabane police.
“Citizens Bank and Giant Eagle have agreed to fund a reward pool of up to $50,000 for information leading to an arrest and identification of the person responsible for these crimes,” FBI Agent Patrick McGlennon said.
The robber, who police have been unable to identify, killed Vincent Kelley, 46, of Washington. Kelley tried to stop the man as he fled in a white, four-door sedan -- described as similar to a Toyota Camry -- from the Citizens Bank branch in the Strabane Square Giant Eagle.
Police have released information on the car's license plate, but officials are uncertain of the order of the numbers and letters on the plate. Letters on the plate start with H and include a Z and T, police have said. The numbers started with 6 and included 7, 8, and 9.
McGlennon said they’ve received several dozen tips, but none of them have panned out.
South Strabane police Detective Ken Torboli said someone may have had a run-in with the robber and did not know it.
“We know he fled in an erratic behavior in his vehicle, cutting off other vehicles at high speed,” Torboli said.
The vehicle and the money are likely to be stained by red dye from an explosive pack a teller hid in the loot.
“The individual who is driving the car is trying to clean the interior himself or have it professionally done,” McGlennon said.
Police told body shops to be on the lookout for a car that's brought in with red dye on it.
McGlennon also said they believe the man is from the area and familiar with the Giant Eagle and its surroundings.
“He has either gone in the bank before or been in the store before this robbery. He had some familiarity,” McGlennon said.
Channel 11’s news exchange partners at TribLIVE and The Associated Press contributed to this report.re: Louisiana politics at its finest, LSMSA Posted by BigJim Postedon 6/1/17 at 9:43 am to BigJake
Yeah I watched the debate (well most of it, it was long).
In the end the committee overruled the wishes of the faculty, staff, current students, parents and alumni to do what legislators do best, honor their own.
It was sad. And you are right, there was some clear arm-twisting going on as Katrina Jackson, who had nothing to do with the bill, came in as they were about to vote and made a show of how she was taking a tally of how people voted. Disgusting.
According to the testimony the Alumni give half a million a year to the school. That is pretty impressive when you consider that it's a high school (that doesn't have an athletic program).
I would not be surprised if those alumni choose to use their money elsewhere. Like say donations to political candidates that will actually support the school.Nicky Byrne, Kian Egan, Mark Feehily and Shane Filan - Westlife - are to split next year.
The lads have announced they will part ways "amicably" in 2012 following a greatest hits album and a farewell tour next year.
A statement released today by the boy band read: "After 14 years, 26 top 10 hits including 14 number one singles, 11 top 5 albums, seven of which hit the top spot and have collectively sold over 44 million copies around the world, 10 sell-out tours and countless memories that we will forever cherish, we today announce our plan to go our separate ways after a greatest hits collection this Christmas and a farewell tour next year.
"The decision is entirely amicable and after spending all of our adult life together so far, we want to have a well-earned break and look at new ventures. We see the greatest hits collection and the farewell tour as the perfect way to celebrate our incredible career along with our fans. We are really looking forward to getting out on the tour and seeing our fans one last time."
Westlife – who had a total of 14 number one hit singles, including 'Swear it Again' and 'Flying Without Wings' – thanked their fans for supporting them over the years and revealed their time together has been a "dream come true".
The statement added: "Over the years Westlife has become so much more to us than just a band. Westlife are a family. We would like to thank our fans who have been with us on this amazing journey and are part of our family too.
"We never imagined when we started out in 1998 that 14 years later we would still be recording, touring and having hits together. It has been a dream come true for all of us."
The band launched as a five-piece in 1998 but Irish singer Brian McFadden quit the group in 2004 to spend more time with his family and work on solo projects.
Westlife’s 'Greatest Hits' album is set to be released on November 21 following the release of their latest single 'Lighthouse' on November 13.
Westlife's forthcoming tour dates:
May 2012
Monday 14 Newcastle Metro Radio Arena
Tuesday 15 Liverpool Echo Arena
Thursday 17 Cardiff Motorpoint Arena
Saturday 19 Sheffield Motorpoint Arena
Sunday 20 Birmingham LG Arena
Tuesday 22 Nottingham Capital FM Arena
Wednesday 23 London O2 Arena
Saturday 26 Manchester Evening News Arena
Sunday 27 Glasgow SECCReport: 'Explosive' Growth Of 'Patriot Movement' And Militias Continues
An enormous surge in the number of groups that "see the federal government as their primary enemy" and in some cases have militias as their "armed wings" continues, the Southern Poverty Law Center reports today.
According to the civil rights organization's researchers, the rapid growth in such "Patriot movement" groups, which began when Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, has mushroomed since. They estimate there are now nearly 10 times more Patriot and militia organizations — 1,274 in all — in the U.S.
Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the law center, told us this morning that Obama's candidacy and election has fueled the growth in groups that believe the federal government will "impose martial law... confiscate guns... open concentration camps run by FEMA... and force the U.S. to become a socialist state."
"It's a conspiracy-driven movement," he added.
Also driving the growth in such groups: the recent recession, weak recovery and increasing "income inequality."
In its report, the center writes that:
"The Patriot movement first emerged in 1994, a response to what was seen as violent government repression of dissident groups at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and near Waco, Texas, in 1993, along with anger at gun control and the Democratic Clinton administration in general. It peaked in 1996, a year after the Oklahoma City bombing, with 858 groups, then began to fade. By the turn of the millennium, the Patriot movement was reduced to fewer than 150 relatively inactive groups. "But the movement came roaring back beginning in late 2008, just as the economy went south with the subprime collapse and, more importantly, as Barack Obama appeared on the political scene as the Democratic nominee and, ultimately, the president-elect. Even as most of the nation cheered the election of the first black president that November, an angry backlash developed that included several plots to murder Obama. Many Americans, infused with populist fury over bank and auto bailouts and a feeling that they had lost their country, joined Patriot groups."
The center's researchers report there's been slower growth in the number of "hate groups" across the nation — organizations that focus their anger on specific types of people and "propagate known falsehoods." There were an estimated 1,018 hate groups at the end of 2,011, up from 1,002 the year before.Unidentified remains discovered in unmarked graves scattered across Kashmir could undergo DNA testing in an effort to provide crucial information about an unknown number of "disappeared" people who went missing during the valley's years of violence.
The state's most senior politician has said he is prepared to carry out tests where family members are willing to provide a DNA sample of their own and help identify where they believed their relative might be buried.
"We would be prepared to consider DNA testing provided the people come forward with a sample," Kashmir's Chief Minister Omar Abdullah told The Independent. He said he also wanted to push forward with the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission for the region.
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.
In an unsettling reminder of the untold numbers of "disappeared" who were killed or went missing during the region's dark recent history, officials announced last month that a total of |
infrastructure have been successfully attacked and crippled via the internet.
Although the FBI and DHS started to investigate the incident, they initially downplayed the risk – this provoked the alleged hacker, "prof", who proceeded to intrude into a second water utility in Houston, Texas. To prove his intrusion, he released five screenshots of the utility's SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) system. In a manifesto on pastebin, the hacker said that he wanted to highlight SCADA system security issues to demonstrate how easy it is to access such systems and criticised the condition of security within the US infrastructure.
It remains unclear how the hacker accessed the system. Experts speculate that the SCADA software vendor's database could have been compromised and that harvested access data could have been used to launch the attacks. This would explain, in part, why the hacker has only targeted water utilities.
(sno)Storylines
Lilly Truscott (Emily Osment, left) and Oliver Oken (Mitchel Musso, right) portrayed Stewart's best friends throughout the series. Miley Stewart lives a double life as an average schoolgirl by day and an international teen idol Hannah Montana by night.[1] Her father Robby Stewart is a successful country music singer under the stage name Robbie Ray, and raises Miley and her brother Jackson Stewart as a single father in Malibu, California after their mother Susan died. Miley's best friend Lilly Truscott discovered her secret while attending a Hannah Montana concert.[1] Later in the first season, Miley herself revealed her secret to their close friend Oliver Oken with the intention of ending his romantic interest in Hannah Montana. Lilly and Oliver assumed the aliases Lola Luftnagle and Mike Standley III when appearing with Hannah in order to protect her secret. Meanwhile, Jackson is employed at Rico's Surf Shop, where his child-aged boss Rico Suave often assigns him to complete embarrassing tasks. Miley, Lilly, and Oliver begin high school in the second season. Rico, who begins high school after skipping several grades, nearly discovers Miley's secret on several occasions. Later in the season, Miley admits to Jake Ryan, whom she initially disliked and later dated in the second season, that she is Hannah Montana. However, their briefly rekindled relationship ends after he struggles to adopt a normal, non-celebrity lifestyle, which Miley is concerned she will lose as a result of dating the actor. While Miley is off shooting a movie (a parody of Indiana Jones), Lilly and Oliver begin dating in the third season. Though Miley initially feels uncomfortable with the changed dynamic of their friendship, she often helps the pair reconcile after arguing with one another. Miley herself begins dating Jake again, but develops feelings for her bandmate Jesse. Jackson moves into his own apartment while attending college, while Lilly moves in with the Stewart family after her mother finds work in Atlanta, Georgia. In the two-part season finale, Robby buys a ranch in Malibu to bring Miley's horse Blue Jeans from Tennessee, while Jackson leaves his apartment and returns home. Oliver also embarks on a tour with the band that lived above Jackson's former apartment. In the fourth season, the Stewart family moves into their new ranch, and Miley finds out that Jake was cheating on her, from Oliver who has a photo of Jake nibbling another girl's ear. She breaks up with him and soon starts to date Jesse. He admits that he discovered her secret by paying attention to her actions, and it begins to inconvenience her friends and family. After much deliberation, Miley reveals to Jay Leno's television audience that she is Hannah Montana. Afterwards, Miley and Lilly graduate high school, with arrangements to attend college. In the series finale, Miley and Lilly prepare to go to college, yet another movie offer comes up. Miley tries to make Lilly reject her, only to fail multiple times. She convinces Lilly to come with her to Paris (where the movie is shooting), however at the airport, Lilly decides not to go, but to return to college (this is due to Oliver convincing Lilly that Miley will get another movie role next year). Miley continues to Paris, only to come back, joining Lilly in Stanford. Jesse and Oliver guest star in that episode and a Montage of pictures play at the end of the episode.
Episodes
Cast and characters
Production
Reception
Criticism
Broadcast
Distribution
Films
Discography
Awards and accolades
See also
NotesCollege Halloween Costume Guide Says No Indian Headdresses, But Ridiculing Trump Is Fine
Schools Phase Out Valedictorian Title Citing 'Unhealthy Competition'
A Massachusetts elementary school canceled its Halloween events and is celebrating "Black and Orange Spirit Day" instead.
The principal of Boyden Elementary School sent a letter to parents informing them that the annual Halloween costume parade was canceled amid concerns over inclusivity and safety.
"The costume parade is out of our ordinary routine and can be difficult for many students. Also, the parade is not inclusive of all the students, and it is our goal each and every day to ensure all student’s individual differences are respected," the letter read in part.
On Friday, October 20, the school will have a Halloween party after school hours. But October 31 will be a "spirit day," on which students can wear the colors black or orange, but not costumes.
Some parents are not happy about the changes to the Halloween festivities.
"We have numerous events at the school that are not 'all inclusive,' so if you cancel one event, you have to cancel them all," parent Julie Rowre told Fox 25.
“Put a costume on. Parade down the street. Let them have their little time,” another parent told CBS Boston. “Why do you have to turn it into something political?”
"I think it's a lot of political correctness," a local resident said. "I think it's a shame because Halloween is the funnest day of the year - next to Christmas - for children."
Watch the "Fox & Friends" report above, and see the local story below.
High School Displays American Flag on the Ground for Free Speech Lesson
Student Group Says USC's White Horse Mascot Is a Racist Symbol
College: Normal-Sized Seats Are a MicroaggressionDonating to our work at the Paradise Factory contributes to the realization of new and vital artistic works, produced in a manner entirely unique to both theater and film.
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Not with any technological innovation or modern gravitas – we do this with a respect to the structure of storytelling, to the integrity of the written word, and to the discipline of a thorough and deep rehearsal process. This process was developed by Tom Noonan and championed by his play and film “What Happened Was…”
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[email protected] CITY — The Vatican served up tea and cucumber sandwiches on Tuesday as it launched its own cricket club, and challenged the Church of England to a match.
With the coat of arms of St. Peter's as its symbol, the club will give priests and seminarians — and eventually nuns — a new outlet for their sporting passions, said officials at the Pontifical Council for Culture.
"This represents the council's desire to go to the peripheries of the world that Pope Francis has spoken of," Monsignor Melchor Sanchez, who is the honorary president of St Peter's Cricket Club, told reporters at the launch.
Editor's Note : Health Benefits of Prayer Revealed!
The club colors are the yellow-and-white of the Vatican flag.
Sanchez said cricket could be a new way of engaging with other denominations and other religions, saying he hoped the Church of England would form its own team and the two could square off on Lord's cricket ground in London.
The game would be in September next year — the month chosen because it is a time of holiday for seminarians in Rome. Other games are planned with Hindu and Muslim teams of seminarians who would come over especially from India.
"I never imagined cricket was so popular in Rome," said Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, who is informally known as the Vatican's "culture minister."
"Cricket is alien to our culture but it has become part of our culture as an expression of inter-culturality," he said, explaining that a wave of immigration in Italy had brought many young aficionados of the sport to the country.
Theodore Mascarenhas, an Indian priest and a mean off-spin bowler, is the chairman of the cricket club. Looking at all the priests, he quipped: "I don't think we're lacking for spiritual direction or guidance".
"The team will be strong enough to beat anyone in the world," he said.
While Pope Francis is known as an avid fan of the San Lorenzo football club in his native Argentina, Mascarenhas said he was "a very open man. I think cricket is another thing that would be part of that openness."
A woman, Philippa Hitchen, who works for Vatican Radio has been brought on the board in the hope that "eventually we will have nuns playing so the gentlemen's game can also be a ladies' game," Father Mascarenhas said.
Preparations for the cricket club began around a year ago thanks in large part to the enthusiasm of Australia's ambassador to the Holy See, John McCarthy, who said the initiative was an example of "sporting diplomacy."
"This is a milestone for sport, for cricket, for the Holy See and for the seminarians," he said, adding that he estimated there were between 250 and 350 potential players from around the world studying in clerical colleges in Rome.
St. Peter's Cricket Club will play on the grounds of Capannelle Cricket Club outside Rome and will practice in Trastevere, near the city center.
The cricket club means business. One of its members is Brother K.M. Joseph, who promoted young sporting talent in schools in India.
ObamaCare: You Can Win With The Facts
Among the players he helped are famous Indian players like Mohammad Azharuddin, V.V.S. Laxman, Noel David and Youraj Singh.The helmet of a Grab bike rider is seen during rush hour traffic in Jakarta, Indonesia, July 18, 2016. REUTERS/Iqro Rinaldi
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Southeast Asian ride-hailing firm Grab on Monday said it has agreed to buy Indonesian online payment startup Kudo, marking the first investment under a recently announced plan to commit $700 million to its largest market.
Grab did not disclose the deal value. Reuters in February reported Grab's plan to buy Kudo for over $100 million, citing a person close to the matter. (click here)
Grab, the main Southeast Asian rival of Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL], said the deal would come under the $700 million it has committed to invest in Indonesia over the next four years.
Founded in 2014, Kudo helps consumers with no bank accounts and based in small towns and cities make online payments through its agents. Kudo in the statement said the acquisition created immediate synergies with its existing business.
The two firms also plan to explore opportunities to increase the types of financial services that Kudo could offer, including insurance and consumer loans, said Grab.
Upon closing the deal, the Kudo team and platform will be integrated with Grab’s online payment service GrabPay.
In a separate statement, Grab said it has hired Jason Thompson, previously of U.S. electronic payments company Euronet Worldwide Inc (EEFT.O), as head of GrabPay to be based in Singapore.Elizabeth Gilbert will publish a new non-fiction book called 'Big Magic. (Photo11: Jennifer Schatten)
Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert hopes to bring her magic touch back to the best-seller list with a new fall book called Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear.
Big Magic will be released on Sept. 22, publisher Riverhead said Monday.
The new book grew out of stories Gilbert has heard from thousands of readers who struggle to "feel authentic and inspired," who are stuck "in their jobs, relationships, and above all, within themselves," according to Riverhead.
In Big Magic, she probes the nature of creativity and "invites readers to embrace curiosity and to let go of needless suffering."
Gilbert has earned her guru credentials. Her self-help book Eat, Pray, Love was a No. 1 USA TODAY best seller and became a movie starring Julia Roberts as the author.
'Big Magic' by Elizabeth Gilbert will publish on Sept. 22. (Photo11: [email protected])
Gilbert also writes fiction; her 2013 historical novel, The Signature of All Things, about a female botanist, reached No. 19 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1BUjw4kAstronomers are up in arms over proposed congressional budget cuts that would cancel an ambitious but over-budget space observatory that has been pegged as the successor to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
The House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA proposed a 2012 spending bill last week that would terminate the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as part of wider-reaching cutbacks that would reset the agency's budget at pre-2008 levels.
"JWST will lay the foundation on which a better understanding of the early universe will be built," Debra Elmegreen, president of the American Astronomical Society, said in a statement. "It has the potential to transform astronomy even more than the Hubble Space Telescope did, and it will serve thousands of astronomers in the decades ahead. We cannot abandon it now." [Spectacular Hubble Telescope Photos]
The $6.5 billion James Webb Space Telescope, named after a former administrator of NASA, is an infrared observatory designed to peer farther back into the universe's history than ever before. The next-generation telescope is a follow-up to the 20-year-old Hubble Space Telescope, with JWST exploring deep-space phenomena from distant galaxies to nearby planets and stars.
Proposed budget cuts
Under the proposal announced on July 6, NASA would receive $16.8 billion in funding, which is $1.6 billion less than last year and $1.9 billion below President Barack Obama's 2012 request for the agency.
The draft legislation pulls the plug on funding for the JWST, a project the subcommittee described as being plagued by cost overruns and poor management.
Construction of the telescope has faced hurdles, including budgetary woes and delays to its targeted launch date. A panel investigation in November 2010 found that the project had overrun its cost by $1.5 billion, and blamed the troubles largely on mismanagement. Most recently, a revamped budget and technology plan estimated that JWST could launch by 2018.
"We still have a long way to go with budget deliberations for Fiscal Year 2012," NASA spokesman Dwayne Brown said in a statement from the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C. "NASA's budget submission already reflects tough decisions required in these difficult fiscal times and it still supports every element of the president's vision and the bipartisan NASA Authorization Act of 2010. We look forward to working with both houses of Congress to ensure we have a robust space exploration program and narrow America’s human space flight gap."
In the wake of the proposed cancellation, NASA's deputy administrator spoke about the value that the Webb telescope would have to NASA and the scientific community, and the agency's commitment to see the project launched within this decade.
"This is a perfect example of NASA revealing the unknown and reaching for new heights," Lori Garver told reporters at a July 7 news briefing from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "It was a scratch program; we developed technologies. We will be prepared to lay out a budget that will allow us to launch the Webb telescope yet in this decade, within the next budget cycle."
Fighting for the James Webb Space Telescope
The idea of canceling the JWST project has been met with strong criticism from lawmakers and scientists, who consider the decision shortsighted. [Infographic: Space Telescopes of the Future]
"The Webb telescope will lead to the kind of innovation and discovery that have made America great," Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said in a statement. "It will inspire America's next generation of scientists and innovators that will have the new ideas that lead to the new jobs in our new economy. The administration must step in and fight for the James Webb Telescope."
In the statement released by the American Astronomical Society (AAS), members of the organization said that the JWST is critical to helping astronomers better understand the earliest formation of stars and planets, and the telescope's operation will shed light on complex mysteries of the universe.
"As was true with the Hubble Space Telescope, recognized as a tremendous success by the public, scientists and policymakers, building the most advanced telescopes comes with the risk of unexpected costs and delays," AAS committee members said in a statement.
Canceling the JWST would not only affect program members at various NASA centers, it would likely also deal a blow to Northrop Grumman, the company contracted by NASA to build the telescope. Yet even with the future of the observatory hanging by a thread, the company said the outcome remains to be seen.
"The budget process in Congress is a complex and dynamic one," said Northrop Grumman spokesman Lon Rains. "We do not speculate on or try to predict the outcome of the process or what impact it may have on Northrop Grumman; however, we continue to closely monitor the budget process as it progresses. More than 75 percent of the hardware for the James Webb Telescope is built, undergoing testing or completed. We are working closely with NASA to deliver the Webb telescope as the agency directs."
This article was reprinted with permission from SPACE.com.
Related on SPACE.com:
Astronomers react to plans to cancel James Webb Space Telescope
Astronomers are up in arms over proposed congressional budget cuts that would cancel an ambitious but over-budget space observatory that has been pegged as theLoading... Loading...
Originally Published on February 10, 2016
“That’s why we look behind appearances, see the world like the eye on the pyramids” – Raiza Biza
In today’s society, “magic” and “religion” have become loaded words. From a scientific perspective, they have become akin to fairy-tales, folklore, and psychological simplicity. Those who find the value in it are sometimes treated with a condescending nature, or politely asked how they could put some much merit into “blind faith.” While it’s true that at times it does misplace and mis-interpret the idea of faith, considering religion and magic (or mysticism, as they will be referred to together from hereon out for scholastic reasons) a psychological crutch is not only incredibly conceited, but also incredibly illogical and irrational.
The mind of the modern, science-exclusive person, paints as many broad strokes in ideology as the mysticism it critiques, and today the theories of the Big Bang and even Darwinism and Relativity are indeed contested due to their scientific discrepancies. This is not to say that they are entirely untrue, but that they are merely incomplete in their current representations. Some may scoff at the idea, but there is a great deal of philosophy (most notably David Hume) that strongly argues how the idea of “empiricism” (empirical deduction in science) cannot be a truly objective form of investigation. This is not meant to discredit the value of empirical thought, but rather to equate ideas of mysticism and science through the common denominator of theory–nothing is set in stone, and so all is subject to change. After all, the data may be accurate, but human error in translation of the data will be ever-pervasive.
The problem here is that “Ideas” have been compartmentalized into a million different names. What started out simply as “Philosophy” in ancient societies has now become religion, politics, science, psychology, medicine, et cetera–not even counting all the secular schools of thought within these topics. The ideas of human progress must once again be reunited under one banner. It doesn’t matter what it’s called, the important part is that not a single piece of data is excluded from the process–all must be taken into account, and filtered through the context of two ways of action:
1) Helping life flourish
2) Helping life diminish
This is a fundamental truth of the Earth and the life she carries, as demonstrated by the classical thought-experiment of watching a lion, for instance, stalk its prey so that it may feed its cubs later. If the lion, in this case, were stalking its prey to rape and murder them, this would be an evident example of #2.
Mysticism is such a difficult field to enter into from a research-perspective because its ideas are always tossing around concrete resolutions that were developed to contain doublespeak–Mysticism is allegorical/analogical thought, and without the knowledge of the allegory, the ideas held about the mystical/religious principles are incomplete–this is the equation of symbolism and the context of its knowledge. This is why a person cannot equate one specific deity or entity to “Good” and “Evil” because the deity is only half of the equation–when considering “God” only as a monotheistic deity, the allegory that this image was meant to evoke has become lost, and what is left is merely and incomplete concept.
Likewise, there are ideas like “the Devil.” While this could upset a lot of people’s understandings here: just because a person is a Luciferian does not mean that they do things like sacrifice virgins, drink blood, and have orgies in the name of evil. To briefly explain this before moving on, the allegory that the image of Lucifer represents in Christianity serves an entirely different purpose to the pupil than what Lucifer represents to an actual Luciferian. To a Luciferian, Lucifer is not considered a Christian “Satanic Devil” but a “Light Bringer” synonymous with the archetype that the Greek titan Promeutheus as well represents. The archetype of the Light Bringer (Light Bringer being what Lucifer literally translates to) is meant to represent a bringer of truth, knowledge, and wisdom, thus becoming two totally separate entities in their function, despite sharing symbolism. This is not to say that the Satan/Lucifer of Catholicism is something that anyone should ever consider “worshipping” because this would be an entirely separate archetype represented by a Luciferian’s representation of the Light Bringer, which is an inherently positive thing to the Luciferian.
(More information on this concept can be read in Part 8 of this series.)
What follows in this 8-part article series “Beginner’s Guide to Metaphysics,” will be a brief, connective roadmap between the recurring ideologies of the surviving schools of mysticism in order to bring to discussion the second half of mysticism as a whole–its allegory. This allegory is what occultists, mystics, and scholars alike consider the “Old Religion” or “Prisca Theologia,” which is described as the recurring, underlying and fundamental truths that can be found in all forms of mysticism throughout human history. In fact, the idea of this Prisca Theologia is the actual definition of what is considered “the Occult,” and those considering the Occult to have a negative connotation have yet to breach one of the barriers to understanding metaphysics.
The important thing to remember from here on out, is that the choice in religion/mysticism was never meant to be either “Right” or “wrong” in and of themselves, only their interpretations can be bent around an individual’s good or evil wills. A dogmatic person will, of course, vehemently disagree with this, but progress has never been made through dogma, and in order to empirically assess the body of metaphysics from a scientific viewpoint, they all must be considered from the same objective viewpoint, with good and evil separated from the data and left in the realm of human emotion.
Perhaps a disappointment to some, a beginner’s guide to metaphysics does not come with any answers. The beginning of metaphysics is not finding hidden truths about the world or yourself–that comes later. The real beginning is learning to ask the right questions. True to this idea, the following analysis focuses on the mindset that each ideology is aimed to cultivate within an individual, and what types of questions that these mindsets are aimed to pose.
Originally published May 4, 2017
Beginners Guide to Metaphysics - Continued Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Eastern Mysticism: Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism
Part 3: Witchcraft: Paganism, Voodoo and Native American Mysticism
Part 4: Abrahamic Mysticism: Catholicism, Kabbalah and Islam
Part 5: Gnosticism
Part 6: The Mystery Initiations of Greece and Egypt
Part 7: Secret Societies: Freemasonry, Illuminati and Bohemian Grove
Part 8: Science and Mysticism Unified
Sources: https://aras.org/, http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/hamlets_mill/hamletmill.htm, http://72.52.202.216/~fenderse/The-White-Goddess.pdf, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVO2eEXs2-4, https://ccwe.wordpress.com/tag/dr-susan-greenwood/, http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/index.htm, http://theaeoneye.com/2015/05/28/forbidden-gnosis-in-prometheus-lucifer-and-icarus/, http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/s/sin_and_rebellion_archetypal_transgressions_against_the_gods.html
Help Us Be The Change We Wish To See In The World.Recently, I finished NBC’s hit show “The Office” for the fourth time. With the show on my brain and college football in the middle of the offseason, I figured now would be as good a time as any to compare everyone’s favorite Big 12 teams to a character from the American version of the hit NBC show.
I reached out to the big guns to help out with this project, so I’d like to thank Tyler Segraves, also known as @OSUfreak82 on Twitter, and former Cowboy receiver Justin Southwell, @JustinSouthwell on Twitter, for bringing their expertise of “The Office” to these comparisons.
*Quick editor’s note: If you are viewing this through Apple News or Google AMP, switch to the full version of the article with all the embeds. Trust me, it’s worth it.
Without further ado, here we go.
Oklahoma State Cowboys - Dwight Schrute
How would I describe Oklahoma State? Three words: hard-working, alpha male, jackhammer… merciless... insatiable.
If there is an Assistant to the Regional Manager in the Big 12 Conference, unfortunately, it’s Oklahoma State. Much like Dwight, Oklahoma State works hard and puts up great numbers. Oklahoma State will walk across hot coals if it means being on top, but OU (Michael Scott) is there to deny the Pokes.
In 2011, the Cowboys held the top spot for a brief period of time. Someone should have told them that guns aren’t allowed in the office.
There is hope, though. Dwight ends up as the regional manager in the end.
Oklahoma Sooners - Michael Scott
Michael loves to remind everyone that he is in charge and has been for many years. The thing is, many people don’t respect him because, let’s be honest, he doesn’t always make the best decisions. Even when everyone in the office is telling him it’s the wrong choice, he is dead set on doing what he wants because it will help him out the most.
Sound familiar?
No one in their right mind can deny the success that OU has had as of late, but let’s just say there has been plenty of less-than-stellar decisions that were made to ensure that success.
TCU Horned Frogs - Darryl Philbin
TCU started from the bottom - outside of a Power-5 conference, just like Darryl started in the warehouse. They’ve made it upstairs into an office (Big 12), but never captured that manager position (Big 12 title). However, everyone respects Darryl. While TCU hasn’t ever won a title, they are always a team to respect. It seems they are always just a couple steps away from being kings of the Big 12 year after year.
Baylor Bears - Toby Flenderson
Baylor is the team you want to leave behind on beach day. You want to kick them out of every meeting. You hate the fact that you are even associated with them. There’s just something annoying about them. Maybe it’s because RG3 won a Heisman in 2011 after Oklahoma State held the Bears to just 3 points through three quarters before calling off the dogs. Maybe it’s because Baylor won a conference championship in 2013 after losing 49-17 to the Cowboys.
Texas Tech Red Raiders - Kelly Kapoor
In my humble opinion, I think Kelly is one of the most annoying characters on the show. I’m not saying I don’t like Mindy Kahling, I just don’t like her character. Kelly is always talking about herself, has to be the center of attention and can’t be left out of the loop. Texas Tech is Kelly, not only because the team and staff think they are the best in the country, despite the lack of defense, but because of the Red Raiders’ fans. When was the last time you heard someone say this? “Those Texas Tech fans were delightful. We should hang with them more.” I wish I could send Texas Tech to the annex to go annoy Toby. Guns Up, Kelly.
Texas Longhorns - Ryan Howard
Much like Ryan always thought the office and Dunder Mifflin as a whole was his, the Longhorns are always thinking the Big 12 is theirs, even though they haven’t been on top of the division since Colt McCoy led them to the division title in 2009.
The whole “TEXAS IS BACK FOLKS” thing is equivalent to when Ryan was made corporate manager before his fall from glory back to his temp status — kinda like when Texas thought they were on top of the world for beating Notre Dame (who went 4-8), then quickly fell back to earth after losing to Kansas, giving the Jayhawks their first conference win since 2014.
Dunder Mifflin Infinity is essentially the Longhorn Network.
Ryan started the fire!
Iowa State Cyclones - Jan Levinson
The cast was always on pins and needles when Jan came around, because you never knew what she was going to do. Is she just going to check everything out and leave? Or is she coming hell-bent on destruction? Is she going to grab your Dundie and throw it at your $200 plasma-screen TV?
Similarly, everyone gets a little uneasy when Iowa State comes around. You’re never sure which version of the Cyclones are going to show up. Are they going to hang 66 points on Tech while holding one of the best offenses in the nation to 10 points? Or are they going to play their rivalry game against the Hawkeyes and get outscored 73-20 over the previous two years?
West Virginia Mountaineers - Creed Bratton
There was always something sketchy about Creed. He was odd, goofy and made you hope you wouldn’t run into him in an alley somewhere.
I could totally see Creed being a Mountaineer fan. He has just the stereotypical qualities people associate with West Virginia.
Also like Creed, WVU is way out there. And no one really knows how they got here.
Kansas State Wildcats - Jim Halpert
Jim is notorious for doing *just* enough to stay afloat at Dunder Mifflin. He rarely goes above and beyond, so people don’t expect him to do a ton of stuff regularly. Kansas State doesn’t want its fans to demand a ton from the team every season, so the team has stayed under 10 wins every season since 2012.
Jim is also notorious for pulling pranks on the office. While people initially get upset, in the end, no one can stay mad at Jim. Same at K-State. Are you trying to tell me that you can stay mad at Bill Snyder? I didn’t think so…
Kansas Jayhawks - Kevin Malone
Kevin is the bumbling, lovable idiot at Dunder Mifflin - similar to the Kansas football program.
No matter how hard the Jayhawks try, they can’t seem to do anything right and they embarrass themselves all the time.
However, every once in awhile, the stars align and Kansas football does something that will live forever.
Also, Kevin has a talent for basketball, and I guess you could say Kansas has a decent basketball team.By Dallan O’ Donnell: Boxing great “Sugar” Ray Leonard recently claims that both he and fellow legend Tommy Hearns would beat any fighter in this era. Both fighters were part of the “Big 4”, four great fighters who all had classic bouts with one another during the 80s.
The big four consists of both Leonard and Hearns and Roberto Duran and Marvin Hagler, four greatly talented fighters and rightfully four legendary boxers. But what Leonard is saying is far from true, he may believe it himself but this writer does not. I don’t believe Leonard would have beaten one Floyd Mayweather for starters, Leonard was quick, very quick, and probably quicker than Mayweather but Floyd is far more skilled than Leonard ever was, far more accurate and most of all far more defensively sound than any fighter that Leonard ever faced in his career.
It is not just Mayweather he would not beat. If I comprise a list of fighters from this era I come up with a “Big 5”, not “Big 4”. The list may not be popular but here we go: Floyd Mayweather Jr., Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto, Sergio Martinez and Andre Ward. The Big 4 would struggle, in my opinion, to beat any of these fighters on my list. Mayweather would beat all four in my opinion. Pacquiao would struggle more but still 9 times out of 10 he would come out on top.
Andre Ward is slick and skilful, much like Mayweather and would be too skilful for Leonard. Both Cotto and Martinez are relentless power punchers. They would be drawn into a battle with any of the “Big 4” and to be honest I would fancy their chances in a slugfest against all 4 Leonard, Hagler, Hearns and Duran. No doubt the 80s was a golden era, and no doubt that the Big 4 had no fear of fighting each other but if they were in their prime today then they may not be so revered. They were great fighters, all of them, and I have no doubt that if the “Big 4” and the “Big 5” were to meet they would be some classic fights, toe to toe battles and all out wars. But I won’t side with Sugar Ray.
I don’t think he would have beaten them all nor Hearns, Hagler and Duran. I think that we have a golden age in boxing with potential to explode over the next two years. If certain fights get made then this era will have been the greatest, one of those fights takes place on May 5th. If more fights like it get made, I feel Leonard may have to re-evaluate. Not many fans will agree with me but that is the beauty of boxing. Everyone has an opinion. But hopefully some can see the reasoning behind my words. If you have your own “Big 4” or comparisons from this era to the 80s era please comment or follow me on twitter @dallan09The two nations have only recently begun to resume high-level diplomacy. The verdict came just days after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India met with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani of Pakistan on the sidelines of a regional summit meeting in Bhutan.
On Monday, the court also acquitted two Indians whom the police had accused of aiding the terrorists by supplying them with a map of Mumbai. Judge Tahaliyani said that the links tying the two men, Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, to the map said to have been found in the pocket of one of the dead gunmen were tenuous. The map, for instance, was clean, while the pants and pockets of the gunman were soaked with sweat and blood, the judge said.
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The lead prosecutor, Ujjwal Nikam, said he would appeal the acquittals.
In the case against Mr. Kasab, the judge said that his confession, which he later retracted, and other evidence showed that he and the other gunmen had been trained and sent by the Pakistani terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Judge Tahaliyani said 35 men, including Hafiz Saeed, the founder of the group, appeared to have been involved in planning the attack. But the judge added that their guilt could not be proven in his court.
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India has sought the extradition of Mr. Saeed and other Pakistanis without success. Officials in Pakistan have said that India needs to provide more evidence of their involvement.
The trial took just over a year, a swift resolution for the judicial system here, where cases can drag on for decades. The court heard testimony from more than 600 witnesses, and reviewed thousands of pages of evidence and video and audio surveillance of the attack. The judge’s verdict ran more than 1,500 pages.
The trial has stumbled and lurched through setbacks and reversals. Mr. Kasab’s court-appointed lawyer was dismissed on the first day of hearings when she was found to be representing a witness to the attacks in a separate civil case. His second lawyer was dismissed late last year after a disagreement with the judge over a procedural matter.
Mr. Kasab has also changed his version of the events several times. After his arrest, he provided the authorities with a rich narrative about how he became a terrorist. But he recanted the statement at the start of the trial. Last July, he said in court that he was |
, I recommended he take things slow and easy and content himself with a simple instant coffee machine. Something he can experiment with; try a few different pods and flavours; see what he likes and doesn’t like and all without blowing too much a hole in his pocket if coffee doesn’t turn out to be his thing, afterall.
What options are available to him then? Well, he could always go down the Tassimo line. Yeah, they’re great – I’ve owned a Tassimo or two myself down the years; but everybody goes for one of those these days and if he’s embarking on a new course in his life, then he wants to be a trail-blazer. Well maybe not quite, but..
So, instead of the easy option, I told him to have a look at the DeLonghi Coffee Machine Range. DeLonghi machines are great little instant coffee machines that come with a whole host of features that come together to provide great coffee. You, like my friend, can’t really go too wrong with one of those coffee machines.
Fortunately, for my friend, he bought one and now as a new love interest in his life as the previous one is no more. Apparently, her ex came calling and she went running back there leaving my friend to spend a few lonely nights at home with his DeLonghi – still, every cloud has a silver lining and all that jazz.Casino promotions Edgeless Casino Introduces Revolutionary Transparent 0% House Edge Online Gambling
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Casinos can be easily rigged for a huge house edge. We want to change that by offering cryptocurrency based gambling mechanics that anyone can audit to see that we are not rigging the game and don’t have a house edge.
The problem is real. The Wizard of Odds blog about the online gambling industry has so far black-listed over 50 online casinos. These platforms have been caught cheating in many different ways, including rigging the outcome, failed win payouts, delayed funds withdrawals and many more. Bitcoin casinos are no better: case of famous bitcoin casino caught cheating.
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“0% house edge on our games will sound really controversial for most people and that’s the reason why we offer these games. Using blockchain we can also make it extremely profitable,” adds Draksas. “We also have plans for additional games and sports betting – everything will be fair and transparent, that’s our motto.”
Edgeless is based on popular blockchain technology called Ethereum, which enables the use of smart-contracts that anyone can audit. Usually casinos offer a “Fairness Check”, but that has not stopped these platforms from cheating, as a lot can be done behind the scenes at the server level. Blockchain-based smart contracts are fully transparent and players can be 100% sure that no one is trying to scam them.
Edgeless.io casino is going live in few months and before that, the company is raising funds through a new crowdfunding method called bankroll staking.
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The crowdfunding campaign will start on 28th of February 2017, 3:00pm GMT and the goal is to raise 360 000 ETH by selling Edgeless tokens for gambling enthusiasts.
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Images courtesy of edgless.io, ShutterstockOne way or another, Terrelle Pryor will no longer be an Oakland Raider by the close of business Monday.
That’s the word from Alex Marvez of FOX Sports, who reports that the Raiders will cut Pryor on Monday if they can’t trade him before then. That’s not a big surprise; it had already been clear that the Raiders have no plans for Pryor going forward, and that means it makes sense to send him packing before the start of the offseason training program.
It seems unlikely that anyone would trade for Pryor when the word is out that he’s about to be cut. Then again, he did show flashes of promise last season, and he’s only due a salary of $750,000 this year, so it’s possible that some team might think he’s worth a seventh-round pick.
Pryor is a phenomenal athlete who made some big plays last season, but those big plays were more with his feet than with his arm, and he still has a lot of work to do as a passer. If a team is willing to work with him as he develops, there’s still a chance that he’ll be a franchise quarterback. Just not in Oakland.Some three decades ago, I spent a sabbatical leave on the Amalfi Coast of Southern Italy. It was an idyllic period for me and my family. Within days of my arrival, I met Gore Vidal, the American writer, who lived nearby. I admired him and his work, and a kind of father-son relationship developed between us that lasted until his death in 2012. We often traveled together, and I would visit him every year in Italy. We talked on the phone every week, sometimes every day. But there was always a certain awkwardness about my academic side. "You must give up teaching," he would say. "It’s a terrible distraction."
Writers of his generation rarely found the university an agreeable setting, and many considered it a failure to take a professorial job. Gore noted that most of his contemporaries — Truman Capote, Carson McCullers, Norman Mailer, John Updike, Joan Didion, and William Styron, among others — earned a living by their pens. In that, they emulated the great generation that had gone before: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner. Only a few writers had strayed into the world of teachers, among them Saul Bellow and Richard Wilbur (both of whom Gore knew and admired). But they were exceptions.
American writers had rarely been involved with the academic world, especially novelists who could expect to earn a living from their writing. Even poets with academic credentials, such as T.S. Eliot (a doctoral candidate at Harvard who never defended his thesis and so never got his degree), worried about being stifled by teaching, gravitating instead to the worlds of journalism and business when they needed income. If anything, it was journalism that was the school for modern writers. Steinbeck had spent some desultory years at Stanford University, but he was an indifferent student and was able earn a good living from his fiction — the idea of teaching never seemed an option.
Gore’s own relationship with higher education was an especially anxious one. He was never gifted in any academic way, squeaking into Phillips Exeter Academy, the fancy prep school in New Hampshire, with help from his wealthy stepfather, an alumnus. His pedigree was fine enough for the elite schools: His grandfather was Sen. Thomas P. Gore, a Democrat who represented Oklahoma for many years. His father, Eugene L. Vidal, served in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration as director of air commerce. The fact that Gore struggled to get decent grades at Exeter soured him on the idea of college; getting a degree when the war ended seemed to him utterly pointless. Writers needed books and what Gore always called "voluntary readers," a phrase that he used to distinguish his own audience from that of many university-friendly writers whose books were assigned in class.
That attitude masked a deep insecurity. He wondered if he were missing something, and he worked maniacally to overcome any deficiencies by industrial-strength programs in reading. His knowledge of ancient and modern history was superb, and he had read most well-known writers in the English and American literary traditions. That "learning" undergirds his magnificent essays, as in "Novelists and Critics of the 1940s," where he shows off his erudition: "One could invent a most agreeable game of drawing analogies between the fourth century and today. F.R. Leavis and Saint Jerome are perfectly matched, while John Chrysostom and John Crowe Ransom suggest a possibility. The analogy works amusingly on all levels save one: The church fathers had a Christ to provide them with a primary source of revelation, while our own dogmatists must depend either upon private systems or else upon those proposed by such slender reeds as Matthew Arnold and T.S. Eliot, each, despite his genius, a ritual victim as well as a hero of literary fashion."
"Teaching has killed more good writers than alcohol."
After graduating from high school in the midst of World War II, Gore enlisted in the army, where he soon became a junior officer on a transport ship in the Aleutians. One night the ship was caught in an ice storm, and Gore suffered severe frostbite, leading to a serious arthritic condition that landed him at 19 in a military hospital in California. It was during this time as an invalid that he finished his first novel, Williwaw (E.P. Dutton & Co., 1946), which tells the story of a young man on a transport ship in the Aleutians. He was obviously following Hemingway’s famous injunction to write about what you knew.
The novel was published when Gore was 20, with a decent advance. A formal education seemed to him superfluous, as he was already a voracious reader. Throughout his long life, he remained fiercely dedicated to plunging into heavy tomes, taking notes. It was as if he were always studying for an exam that never quite occurred. Never in my life have I met anyone as deeply focused on his self-education, or as determined to expand his intellectual horizons in whatever ways he could. (I recall staying with him one time in the early 90s, when he was reviewing a new translation of Montaigne’s essays for the Times Literary Supplement. He sat for days on end with the French edition of the essays on his lap, rereading them, underlining passages, taking notes, comparing various translations. A dozen studies of Montaigne piled up on his desk. When he finished a long day of study, he would want to sit and discuss his ideas.)
Gore knew that, to earn a living as a writer, he must become the consummate salesman of his own work. And so after the war, he traveled about the country to give lectures and readings. "Gore’s reputation was beginning to expand in academic circles," Richard Poirier, a well-known literary scholar who met Gore in the early ’50s when he came to lecture at Williams College, later told me. "But he never actually liked colleges or universities, and they didn’t like him back. As an autodidact, he didn’t approve of those who didn’t fit that mold." It was obvious to Poirier and others who met him that Gore worried that campus life would somehow suck him into its vortex. "Gore kept his eye on New York, on Broadway, on Hollywood — always looking for what he believed was the main chance," Poirier noted. "He didn’t especially like being among ‘teachers,’ as he called us."
One can’t imagine Gore in an English Department in the ’50s or early ’60s, where polite decorum of a certain kind remained in place. "I didn’t want to wear a jacket with elbow patches," he once said to me. "I never smoked a pipe." And he liked to travel freely, on a whim. He also wanted to have lots of sex with men, preferably guys he picked up on the streets for anonymous sex. (Always ambivalent, he would say he liked gay sex, but he was not gay.) His irreverence toward authority would have put him at odds with any college administration, especially before the anti-authoritarian sentiments of the late 1960s and ’70s began to take hold. And his irascible temperament would have gone down badly in the faculty lounge, where he would have specialized in insulting colleagues. His own kind of writing — fiction, personal essays without footnotes — would never have earned him tenure. Yet he wanted to be seen as someone who was smart, well-informed, and very much on top of the intellectual world — the equal of Edmund Wilson, whom he admired.
In a sense, it was book-reviewing that became Gore’s Harvard and Yale. In the mid-’50s, he began writing for a variety of publications, including the New York-based biweekly The Reporter and, beginning in the ’60s, The New York Review of Books. He liked to take on fairly academic subjects, such as the experimental French Nouveau Roman, literary theory, or postmodern fiction. Nevertheless he could not conceal his contempt for academic writing. "The Hacks of Academe," a famous essay that appeared in the Times Literary Supplement in 1976, was ostensibly a review of a collection of essays on the novel by the literary critic John Halperin, but Gore used the occasion to bash academic pretensions and bad writing, sometimes in a decidedly snooty voice: Critics in the volume like Meir Sternberg, Robert Bernard Martin, Irving H. Buchen, Alan Warren Friedman, Max F. Schulz, and Alice R. Kaminsky "have nothing urgent or interesting to say about literature," he declared with undisguised glee, attacking their prose, inelegant phrases, and clumsy writing, damning their reliance on stock phrases and jargon. He wondered why they bothered to write at all, guessing that it was probably because "the ambitious teacher can only rise in the academic bureaucracy by writing at complicated length about writing that has already been much written about."
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In 1950, Gore took up residence at Edgewater, a grand Federal-style mansion on the Hudson River, near Rhinebeck, N.Y., where he met one academic who impressed him deeply: F.W. Dupee. Known as Fred, Dupee, a professor of English at Columbia University, had a Ph.D. from Yale. His interests ranged widely and his essays appeared regularly in The Partisan Review and The New York Review of Books. His genteel manner and easy erudition appealed to Gore, who was always somewhat insecure about his own social and intellectual status, and they quickly became friends.
Indeed, Gore quickly became Dupee’s informal student, later recalling to me, "Fred had written on Henry James, and he had read everything worth reading. Nobody else could talk about literature in quite the same way, with such passion and clarity. He had been a Marxist in the ’30s, a fan of Trotsky, but then had settled into a clear-eyed humanism, somewhat apolitical, very shrewd. He edited The Partisan Review for a period when it was actually readable — not a long period."
Gore also associated with such notable figures as Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and John Kenneth Galbraith — scholars who had advised presidents and had positions of leverage in the "real" world of American politics. With the examples of his grandfather and father before him, Gore was never sure whether he could live up to the family name. Being among "important" people reassured him. One evening in 1960, he accepted an invitation to Schlesinger’s house in Cambridge, Mass. As Schlesinger recalled in his letters, Gore behaved badly. The other guests at dinner included Reinhold Niebuhr, Edmund Wilson, and the British economist and Labour politician John Strachey — three of the most eminent thinkers in their respective fields. According to Schlesinger, a drunken Gore "dominated the evening, instructing Niebuhr in theology, Wilson in literary criticism, and Strachey in economics and strategy. Next morning he called up and apologized for being tight."
A turning point came when Harvard invited him to give the William E. Massey Sr., Lectures in the History of American Civilization in 1992. That prestigious series had previously featured Eudora Welty, Irving Howe, Conor Cruise O’Brien, and Toni Morrison, so Gore felt in good company. He told me that, after the war, he had given a reading from his first novel at Harvard, and that stayed in his memory as a glorious event, as several of his former classmates from Exeter had attended. Now he felt ready for a return to Cambridge, and his lectures became Screening History (Harvard University Press, 1992), a wonderfully unorthodox blend of gossip, personal history, film criticism, and reflection on what he considered the primary art of the time. "Today the public seldom mentions a book," he told the standing-room-only audience in Memorial Hall on the first night, "though people will chatter about screened versions of unread novels."
The invitation to give the lectures had been the handiwork of the historian David Herbert Donald, who had advised Gore about his bestselling novel Lincoln (Random House, 1984). I remember going to the Harvard Faculty Club on Gore’s first day in Cambridge, for lunch with Donald and Galbraith. Gore seemed quite excited to take his place among those luminaries: "They’re really the two most important professors in this school," he told me. "I met Ken during the 1960 election, in Los Angeles. He was running the brains trust for Jack."
My diary captured the moment:
As we approach the stairs of the red brick building, he grows somber: "My friends from Exeter came here right after graduation. I preferred the army, real life, war. They invited me to give a reading after the war. I wasn’t yet 24. I think I was the only person of my generation to speak at Harvard who had never gone to Harvard, never spent a day in any college." "Do you wish you’d gone to college?" "No, but you do. You’re like the rest of them. They think it’s only possible to think if you’ve been properly trained. But I trained myself. I read everything. The classics, history, literature, politics. I didn’t need professors like yourself telling me what to do." "When did I ever tell you what to do?" It’s a rhetorical question, and he ignores me. "Gore!" says Galbraith, waiting for us, an absurdly tall man with thick white hair, a baritone voice. He exudes professorial gravitas. "You’re lecturing tonight. I can’t make it. But my emissaries will take notes. Break a leg." Gore frowns. Donald, the most genial man in the world, comes into view, smiling. He welcomed us warmly. Gore seemed in heaven in the oak-paneled dining room. "Gore is talking about the movies tonight," says Donald to Galbraith. "His own experience of the movies. Is that right, Gore?" "It’s the history of my times. And your times, Ken." Galbraith responds: "We miss you around here." "Miss me? I’m here." "You live in Italy. You ran away from home, lit out for the territory." "So did you. Aren’t you a Canadian?" As ever, Gore has done his homework. And remembers it. "Gore is our national historian — among novelists," says Donald. "I’ve read one or two of your novels," says Galbraith. "It’s the essays that interest me." I wonder if Gore is going to like his time at Harvard. Somehow I don’t think so.
In fact, I think Gore did like Harvard, and he would be invited back a few years later to give another lecture.
In the fall term of 1993, he came to visit me at Oxford University, where I was a visiting fellow at Christ Church College. He had seemed eager to be there, and I did my best to provide social occasions that might interest him. One night, I invited Isaiah Berlin — the great historian of ideas — to join us, as I knew Gore liked meeting people with a reputation for intelligence and wit. Again, my diaries captured the moment:
After a long dinner at high table at Christ Church — roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, and string beans followed by lemon tart — Gore and I sit with Isaiah Berlin in the hushed Senior Common Room under a portrait of John Locke, one of the most illustrious of former students of the college. In the tradition of Oxford, I get a bottle of port from the drinks table, although Gore wonders if there is any Scotch. There is, of course. Berlin looks at him sternly. "That’s John Locke," I say, nodding to the picture. "He was here in the middle of the 17th century. They pray to him every night after dinner." Berlin has intimidated Gore throughout the evening: I’ve never seen that before. He wore a look of childlike amazement on his face throughout the meal. Of course everyone in Oxford considers Berlin the best talker in the university, possibly in Britain. His lectures are flawless performances, without notes, full of quotations that he has memorized verbatim. He seems to have read everything, exuding a wisdom and calm that Gore has rarely encountered. "I’m sure you know, Gore, that Locke influenced Jefferson," says Berlin. "Called him the most important man in history, with Bacon and Newton his closest rivals." Gore shuffles through memory, looking for the correct notecard. "I think he quoted Locke in the Declaration of Independence," he says. "Indeed," says Berlin. "He was among the first to see that the separation of Church and State was essential in a sane republic." "I would get rid of the Church altogether," Gore says. "No! We need the Church. I’m a Jew, but I like the fact that people pray. It opens them to an experience beyond the self." "Do you believe in God?" Gore wonders. "That depends, as always, on one’s definition. We’d be very small in this universe without the idea of God." "Locke argued for tolerance," I put in. "He’s the father of tolerance, when it comes to religious belief." Berlin nods eagerly. "We’re all liberals, aren’t we? We owe that to our man here." "Me?" Gore teases. "Of course we mean you," says Berlin. "You’re our guest tonight."
Both of those extracts highlight the way Gore simultaneously wanted to compete with scholars on their own ground, showing off his knowledge of whatever field spread out before him, and wished to remain aloof, someone who didn’t need to teach to earn a living. But he was, in many ways, made for the high table or faculty club, being a sharp wit, full of wry asides and memorable aphorisms, able to quote passages from favorite authors at length, eager to debate ideas. And he was, I think, a compulsive teacher: I listened to the equivalent of long lectures from him on many occasions. He would, as any good tutor might, cross-examine me, testing my theories, insisting that I support my arguments with appropriate references and sound logic.
That’s part of the reason Gore would seek out academic settings, giving lectures in his later years at the University of California at Berkeley and other universities, where he enjoyed playing the role of professor — a role he took on, quite literally, in 1994, when he played a Harvard professor in With Honors, a minor part in a minor film about a student who loses his thesis in vaguely amusing circumstances. Around the same time, Gore had a brief residence at Dartmouth College, which he hugely enjoyed. Nevertheless, his many fans (and surely his family) were stunned when, soon after his death, they discovered that he had left his entire fortune, estimated at $37 million, to Harvard, which would house his papers. My guess is that, in a strange way, the gesture was his attempt to associate in perpetuity with academe at what he considered its highest level.
Gore’s complex, even troubled, relations with the academic world weren’t atypical of his generation of writers, but by the 1960s it had become commonplace for serious writers to take up residence on campuses, where they would teach their craft to aspiring authors. That, I know Gore believed, rightly or wrongly, represented an incredibly dark turn for American literature, and he found little to interest him in fiction by writers in creative-writing programs.
"Teaching has killed more good writers than alcohol," he once said to me. I found it a chilling thought.
Jay Parini is a novelist, poet, and professor of English at Middlebury College. His book Empire of Self: A Life of Gore Vidal will be published by Doubleday in October.
Correction (9/24/2015, 1:41 p.m.): This article originally misstated the publication for which Gore Vidal reviewed a new translation of Montaigne’s essays in the early 1990s. It was the Times Literary Supplement, not The New York Review of Books. The article has been corrected.Mark Hamill might be playing The Joker in The Flash Season 3.
With Barry having gone and messed up the timeline, it's possible that Mark Hamill, who plays Trickster in the series, might actually be some sort of version of the Joker in The Flash Season 3's different timeline(s).
Of course Mark Hamill is known for voicing the Joker, so it's possible the producers of The Flash may have gone and given fans what they have wanted to see for years -- Mark Hamill as the Joker! Or maybe at least some sort of cool nod and Easter Egg.
Check out set images of Mark Hamill that have surfaced online for The Flash Season 3 where he looks a lot like Joker.
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8pm ET on The CW.It's hard for many people to sit still when a Beyonce song comes on but for this Stafford County Police lieutenant, he had to get in "Formation" literally.
In an Instagram video posted by @mrldavis, Lt. Deuntay Diggs transforms into a Beyhive-member, while in uniform, and shows off his amazing dance moves at the recent FredParent Back to School Expo at Spotsylvania Towne Centre. The expo is an event that collects school supplies for children in need. Lt. Diggs performed during a lip synch contest featuring law enforcement, and he won.
According to Lt. Diggs, Beyonce is his favorite singer. “I’ve followed her since Destiny’s Child way back in the day."
The video clip now has over 11 thousand views and counting.
Beyonce sparked controversy with some police officers across the country following her performance of "Formation" at the Super Bowl earlier this year where she and her background dancers wore Black Panther-inspired costumes.
A group of officers in Florida threatened to boycott the singer by refusing to work at one of her "Formation World Tour" concert stops.
Nevertheless, Beyonce told ELLE Magazine back in April she is not "anti-police."
“Anyone who perceives my message as anti-police is completely mistaken. I have so much admiration and respect for officers and the families of the officers who sacrifice themselves to keeps us safe. But let's be clear, I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things."
Lt. Diggs says he doesn't interpret the song as being "anti-cop."
“People have different interpretations of the video. I don’t take it as an anti-cop songI like the song," said Lt. Diggs. “I was thinking of songs that are relevant to now and songs that would get the community engaged and so that’s why I chose Formation."
Lt. Diggs also says he thinks "Formation" is a great way to reach out to the community as a law enforcement officer, especially now.
“I want to show the community that, law enforcement, we’re human, that we have feelings and emotions and we’re really part of the community," said Lt. Diggs. "I know there’s a lot going on nationally when it comes to law enforcement and the community, so I’m really focused on bridging that gap and listening to people.”Police are trying to find the owner of a drone that crashed into a crowd during a running of the bulls event in Virginia over the weekend.
WASHINGTON – Police are trying to find the owner of a drone that crashed into a crowd during a running of the bulls event in Virginia over the weekend.
A video captured a spider-like drone flying above Virginia Motorsports Park in North Dinwiddie, Va., when it suddenly dipped and crashed into the grandstand.
The Dinwiddie County Sheriff’s Office says several people had very minor injuries.
Dinwiddie County Sheriff’s Major William Knott says the drone that crashed was one of two carrying cameras over the event and he says they don’t know yet who was operating the drones. They also don’t know if any laws or regulations were broken.
“I don’t know if there is something in the code that address this,” he says. “I’m just gonna have to investigate this further.”
Delegate Ben Cline, R-Bath, who had proposed a two-year moratorium on police use of drones due to privacy concerns, says the crash now raises additional safety concerns about drones. The proposed moratorium legislation was pushed back for more study.
“This presents the same danger that helicopters and other private aircraft create and the more of them that are flying in the sky the more danger there is for the people on the ground,” Cline says.
He adds there is likely to be a bigger effort to regulate drone use in Virginia as a result of the incident.
The incident happened Saturday at the Great Bull Run, which featured numerous activities, including the signature event — a running of the bulls inspired by the annual event in Pamplona, Spain.
WTVR-Channel 6 in Richmond reported the drone was taking video of the event, which was protested by some animal rights groups who said in put people and animals in danger.
WTOP’s Hank Silverberg and Mitch Miller contributed to this report. Follow @hsilverbergwtop and @WTOP on Twitter.By Ed White
Associated Press
DETROIT — Prosecutors at the trial of seven Michigan militia members displayed pictures and dramatic video of bombs ripping through a steel drum and cars Thursday, all demonstrations conducted by agents with explosive parts or diagrams linked to the group.
Defense attorneys had objected days earlier, claiming the images could have an improper "theatrical impact" on the jury. The judge allowed some, noting the tests were substantially similar to explosives at the heart of conspiracy charges against members of the Hutaree group.
This undated photo entered as court evidence and provided by the United States District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division in April 2010 shows alleged members of the Hutaree group in an unknown location. Identifications were added by the federal authorities. (AP Photo)
The jury heard loud booms and saw close-up photos of the impact of explosives on cars, a 55-gallon steel drum and plastic targets. The drum was ripped, and the cars bore large holes and severe damage under and inside the vehicles.
Members of the militia are charged with conspiring to rebel against the government, conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction and other weapons crimes. The government says they wanted to kill a police officer then attack the funeral as part of a domestic war. There was plenty of anti-government talk but no hard evidence of a specific time to strike someone -- a key point repeatedly the defense raised.
Prosecutors closed their case Thursday after more than five weeks of trial. Lawyers for the seven defendants, from Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, have suggested they'll need a week to present their side, starting next Tuesday.
The final witness was FBI agent Steve Haug who, while posing as a New Jersey trucker, joined the Hutaree and secretly recorded hours of conversations and video critical to the government's case. He was called back to the stand for a grilling by defense lawyers who wanted to raise doubts about his credibility.
Haug acknowledged he was suspended without pay for five days for signing another agent's name on an evidence package in 1996 in Newark, N.J. He had been with the FBI less than a year. It had nothing to do with the Michigan militia investigation.
"You know chain-of-custody issues can jeopardize a prosecution," said attorney James Thomas, who earlier said it was proof of Haug "cutting corners."
The government did not call Joshua Clough of Lenawee County, Mich., as a witness, the only Hutaree member to plead guilty since arrests in March 2010. He pleaded guilty to a firearm charge in December and admitted the militia's goal was to use bombs against local, state and federal authorities. He faces at least five years in prison.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Graveline declined to comment on why Clough wasn't part of the government's case. A ninth militia member faces his own separate trial.
Copyright 2012 Associated PressFor a humorous rendition of this page, see Trees/Humor.
Trees are a type of plant. They can either be native to the biome or planted by the player in a growing zone. Vulnerable to fire and when burnt, they leave behind burnt trees. Cutting them down yields wood a resource to craft weapons and feed the fueled generator. Other uses include flooring and building furniture.
Native trees are immune to blight.
Teak and Cecropia are native to Tropical biomes.
Oak and Poplar are native to temperate biomes.
Cacti and Poplar are native to Arid biomes (only Cacti in Extreme Desert). Cacti are unique in that they have a fertility sensitivity of 0% and minimum fertility of 5%.
Birch and Pine are native to colder biomes (bar Ice Sheet).
Ecosystem
Trees are natural food source for Alphabeavers and Thrumbos.
Harvest
At 40% growth it is possible to obtain 50% of their coveted yield. Cacti can be cut at 20%. Note that the Growth Time in the below table assumes 24hr growth. Trees don't grow between 19h and 6h. Note that environmental factors such as temperature and light levels further negatively influence growth speed.
Temperature
If the ambient temperature drops below freezing, trees will cease to grow until back into their comfortable range again (including Pine trees that are native to cold biomes). Some trees will instantaneously shed all of their leaves at -2°C, sturdier specimens will hold out until -10°C. This range differs from tree to individual tree. If the temperature remains at a comfortable level for at least a day, their leaves will magically reappear.
Cover
Trees can be used for cover at 25% efficiency.
Comparison table
Tree Grow Days Real Grow Days Harvest Yield Wood per Day* Oak tree 30 51.82 45 0.87 Cypress tree 35 60.55 43 0.71 Maple tree 25 43.25 25 0.58 Drago tree 15 26 25 0.96 Saguaro cactus 5 8.64 15 1.74 Poplar tree 15.05 26 30 1.15 Pine tree 20 34.55 27 0.78 Birch tree 20 34.55 27 0.78 Teak tree 32.5 56.14 54 0.96 Palm tree 14 24.22 18 0.74 Bamboo tree 12 20.76 13 0.63 Cecropia tree 14 24.18 18 0.74 Willow tree 13 22.46 17 0.75
*Wood per Day is based on Real Grow Days.'Of Course My Spanish Is Not the Same As That of a Native Speaker,' Says Wagner Moura About 'Narcos' Series
09/08/2015 - 10h18
Advertising
GABRIELA SÁ PESSOA
FROM SÃO PAULO
Last week's discussion speaks Spanish. Since the series "Narcos" was first aired on Netflix, on August 28, Brazilian actor Wagner Moura's performance as Pablo Escobar, the famous Colombian drug boss, has been caught in the crossfire: praises versus criticisms to Moura's accent - who pressed the SAP button to play the character in a foreign language.
With no previous knowledge of Spanish, Moura moved to the character's hometown, Medellin, Colombia, months before the beginning of the shooting to learn Spanish.
His performance was praised in the U.S. - The New York Times said it is "prize-worthy", while The Hollywood Reporter magazine said it is "far from the clichés" connected to Pablo Escobar.
But others said that Moura's artificiality when speaking Spanish was a downside. In Colombia, Arcadia magazine classified the series as "disappointing," a "linguistic palimpsest" of the continent.
Folha contacted Moura, who said he does not feel comfortable to comment on something which, according to him, does not need to be debated. He says he understands that his Spanish is not as good as that of a native speaker.
"I'm sorry but there isn't much to say. I think that there is no reason for me to try to justify the criticism I've received. That is the work, there are people who like it and people who don't - that is how this business works. Of course my Spanish is not the same as that spoken by a paisa [residents of the region] of Medellin. Nor is it as good as that of anyone who speaks Spanish since he was born. I guarantee, however, that I gave my best."
Translated by THOMAS MUELLO
Read the article |
Lateline host Emma Alberici that there were "a whole variety of reasons why women choose not to go into the federal Parliament and why sometimes women are not successful in gaining preselections. I don't think there's one silver bullet that's going to solve this issue. I think we need to put in place a number of strategies in order to encourage women to have the confidence to put up their hand for Parliament, to make sure that they're supported and set up for success."
So the confidence gap to which O'Dwyer referred is not – in fact – a girlish nervousness about asking a question in Parliament, but an entirely hard-headed cost-benefit analysis about the chances of success in a party system that coughs up only one in five federal parliamentarians who are female, a proportion that drops back to one in 10 if we're talking about the cabinet.
Caution – in such a statistical environment – is not infantilism. It's realism.
O'Neill's point, however, about quotas infusing women forever with the visceral fear that they have been promoted for their boobs and not their brains, is an entirely fair one.
Can you imagine how dreadful it would feel – how soul-sapping – for a human being to suspect on any level that their success was attributable to their genetic equipment rather than their merit?
It would be paralysing. Imagine the shame.
I certainly hope nothing like that ever occurs to the 97 per cent of chief executives of major Australian companies who are male. Or to the 90 per cent of cabinet members who happen, thanks to an – I'm sure – entirely unrelated coincidence, also to have been favoured at birth not only with superior merit, but also with certain crucial dangly bits.
Horrible thought! According to the 2013 Women In Media Report, 80 per cent of experts and commentators quoted in Australian newspapers are male. Nobody tell Brendan O'Neill, please. I'm not sure he could bear the uncertainty, next time he is asked for his opinion.
Let us pray that no man ever wakes in fright, wondering why exactly it is that he is nine times more likely than a female competitor to make it to a senior leadership role in a big organisation, despite the fact that female university graduates have outnumbered male ones for nearly two decades.
As a society, surely we owe it to men to relieve them of this crippling burden of self-doubt. Tell you what: Let's call it 50/50, eh? That way, everyone can relax.Village in Illinois, United States
Lake Theater and shops along Lake Street
Oak Park is a village adjacent to the West Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the 29th largest municipality in Illinois as measured by population in the 2010 U.S. census.[3] As of the 2010 United States Census the village had a population of 51,878.[4]
Oak Park was settled beginning in the 1830s, with rapid growth later in the 19th century and early 20th century. It incorporated in 1902, breaking off from Cicero. Development was spurred by railroads and street cars connecting the village to jobs in Chicago. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright and his wife settled here in 1889. Population peaked at 66,015 in 1940. Smaller families led to falling population in the same number of homes and apartments. In the 1960s, Oak Park faced the challenge of racial integration, devising many strategies to integrate rather than resegregate the village. Oak Park includes three historic districts for the historic homes: Ridgeland, Frank Lloyd Wright and Seward Gunderson, reflecting the focus on historic preservation.
History [ edit ]
In 1835, Joseph Kettlestrings, an immigrant from England, purchased 172 acres (70 ha)[5] of land just west of Chicago for a farm and their home. Once their children were born, they moved to Chicago for the schools in 1843, and moved back again in 1855 to build a more substantial home a bit east on their quarter section of land. More farmers and settlers had entered the area. Their land was called by several names locally, including Oak Ridge. When the first post office was set up, it could not use the name Oak Ridge as another post office was using that name in Illinois, so the post office chose Oak Park, and that name became the name for the settlement as it grew, and for the town when it incorporated in 1902.[5]
By 1850, the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad (after that, the Chicago & Northwestern and now Union Pacific) was constructed as far as Elgin, Illinois, and passed through the settlement area.[6] In the 1850s the land on which Oak Park sits was part of the new Chicago suburb, the town of Cicero. The population of the area boomed during the 1870s, with Chicago residents resettling in Cicero following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and the expansion of railroads and street cars to the area. "In 1872, when Oak Park received its own railroad depot on the Chicago and Northwestern Railway, its rapid emergence as a residential suburb of Chicago began. In 1877, the railroad was running thirty-nine trains daily between Oak Park and Chicago; in the subsequent year, more railroads and street car lines, with increased service, came to link Oak Park and Chicago. As Chicago grew from a regional center to a national metropolis Oak Park expanded – from 500 residents in 1872 to 1,812 in 1890, to 9,353 in 1900, to 20,911 in 1910, to 39,585 in 1920. Oak Park thus emerged as a leading Chicago suburb."[7]
A review of Oak Park's history by Wiss, Janny, Elstner Associates in 2006 further explains the importance of railroads and street cars in the development of Oak Park:
As suburban residential development continued in the 1880s and 1890s, streetcars and elevated trains supplemented the original main line steam railroads to connect Oak Park commuters to jobs in downtown Chicago. One of the first streetcar lines was the Chicago, Harlem, & Batavia “dummy” line, which ran approximately along the present-day route of the Eisenhower Expressway. The “dummy” trains used a miniature steam locomotive with a false cladding designed to conceal most of the moving parts and avoid startling horses. This line first began operation in 1881, but did not provide direct commuter service to downtown Chicago until June 1888. A more extensive streetcar network throughout Oak Park was opened in 1890. In the future village of Oak Park, this system ran east-west on Madison Street and Lake Street, with a north-south connection on Harlem Avenue. Streetcar service was discontinued in 1947, to be replaced by buses. The Lake Street Elevated Railroad (today’s CTA Green Line) was extended into Oak Park in 1899–1901, although the trains ran at ground level until the 1960s. The Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad (today’s CTA Blue Line) was extended into Oak Park in 1905, providing local service over tracks originally placed by the Chicago Aurora & Elgin electric interurban train. The “Met” line moved onto new tracks along the Congress (Eisenhower) Expressway in 1958.[8]
The Village of Oak Park was formally established in 1902, disengaging from Cicero following a referendum. According to the local historical society, "The period 1892–1950 saw the construction of almost all of the housing stock in Oak Park, and most of the village's current buildings."[5] The village population grew quickly, and "by 1930, the village had a population of 64,000, even larger than the current population",[5] while cherishing a reputation as the "World's Largest Village."[5] Chicago grew rapidly in the 19th century, recording 4,470 residing in the 1840 Census in the place so recently a fur trading post, reaching 1,099,850 in 1890, and then 1,698,575 in 1900, passing Philadelphia to the number two spot in the US, and in that year, the fifth largest in the world. Chicago was well located on the shores of Lake Michigan for transport; after the fire of 1871, Chicago rebuilt its center and exploded with new ideas; Oak Park grew along with its neighbor to the east, having location and railroad and street car connections in its favor.
After World War II, "Oak Park was affected by larger developmental trends in the Chicago Metropolitan area. The construction of the Eisenhower Expressway cut through the southern portion of the Village in the mid 1950s. Starting in the 1960s and 1970s, Oak Park has made a conscious effort to accommodate changing demographics and social pressures while maintaining the suburban character that has long made the Village a desirable residential location.[8] Beginning in the 1960s, Oak Park faced the issue of racial integration with effective programs to maintain the character and stability of the Village, while encouraging integration on racial basis. This was perhaps the greatest challenge to Oak Park, which some judge it has met with success, see #Demographics. Population fell from the peak level, primarily from smaller average household size, including a rise in one-person households.
Oak Park has a history of alcohol prohibition. When the village was incorporated, no alcohol was allowed to be sold within its village limits. This law was relaxed in 1973, when restaurants and hotels were allowed to serve alcohol with meals, and was further loosened in 2002, when select grocery stores received governmental permission to sell packaged liquor. Now alcohol, such as beer and wine, is easily accessible.
In 1889, Frank Lloyd Wright and his wife settled in Oak Park. He built many homes and the Unity Temple, his own church, in the village, before he left in 1911 to settle in Wisconsin. Oak Park attracts architecture buffs and others to view the many Frank Lloyd Wright designed homes found in the village, alongside homes reflecting other architectural styles. The largest collection of Wright-designed residential properties in the world is in Oak Park.[9] A distinct focus on historic preservation of important architectural styles began in the 1970s and continues, with many buildings marked as historically significant, and so far, three historic districts defined. Other attractions include Ernest Hemingway's birthplace home and his boyhood home, the Ernest Hemingway Museum, the three Oak Park homes of writer and Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, Wright's Unity Temple, Pleasant Home, and the Oak Park-River Forest Historical Society.
Oak Park and River Forest High School is a comprehensive college preparatory school, with a long list of alumni who have made major or notable contributions to their fields of endeavor. Among these are Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway, football Hall-of-Famer George Trafton, McDonald's founder Ray Kroc, city planner Walter Burley Griffin, comedian Kathy Griffin, basketball player Iman Shumpert, and the voice of iconic cartoon character Homer Simpson, Dan Castellaneta.
Geography [ edit ]
Oak Park is located immediately west of the city of Chicago. The boundary between the two municipalities is Austin Boulevard on the east side of Oak Park and North Avenue/Illinois Route 64 on the village's north side. Oak Park borders Cicero along its southern border, Roosevelt Road/Illinois Route 38, from Austin to Lombard; and Berwyn from Lombard to Harlem Avenue. Harlem/Illinois Route 43 serves as its western border, where between Roosevelt and South Boulevard, it borders Forest Park and between North Boulevard and North Avenue to the west it borders River Forest.
The entire village of Oak Park lies on the shore of ancient Lake Chicago, which covered most of the city of Chicago during the last Ice Age, and was the forerunner to today's Lake Michigan. Ridgeland Avenue in eastern Oak Park marks the shoreline of the lake, and was once an actual ridge. As with the geographical setup of the Chicago River, which connects to the present day Lake Michigan just north of the city's Loop, the ancient Des Plaines river once emptied into glacial Lake Chicago, making prehistoric Oak Park a "Plains river Delta" system. One of North America's four continental divides runs through Oak Park. This divide, a slight rise running north-south through the village, separates the Saint Lawrence River watershed from the Mississippi River watershed, and is marked by one plaque on Lake Street at Forest Avenue and another in the northwest corner of Taylor Park.
According to the 2010 census, Oak Park has a total area of 4.7 square miles (12.17 km2), all land.[10]
Transportation [ edit ]
Public transit [ edit ]
Oak Park is accessible from Chicago by service on the Green Line and the Blue Line at five CTA stations in Oak Park. Oak Park also has a station for Metra's Union Pacific / West Line. Bus transit service within Oak Park and to other suburbs is also provided by the CTA and Pace.
Streets, addresses, and expressways [ edit ]
The Eisenhower Expressway is the primary expressway between Chicago and Oak Park. The highway also provides connections to O'Hare International Airport. Major east-west streets in Oak Park continue east into Chicago.
The streets are laid out in a grid pattern, occasionally with local streets ending in a cul-de-sac to maintain local character. Oak Park has its own street numbering system that begins, for east-west streets at Austin Boulevard (no east or west designation), and for north-south streets, at the elevated train tracks located just south of Lake Street, which divides the numbers, getting larger going north or south from there, and requiring north or south designation on addresses. The border streets do not follow the Oak Park numbering system; rather they match the address system with the cities sharing those border streets. For example, addresses on Austin Boulevard match the Chicago system, with the zero line at Madison Street, and along North Avenue, addresses match the Chicago system, with Austin Boulevard at 6000 W and Harlem at 7200 W. Additionally, Elizabeth Court, located within the Frank Lloyd Wright Historic District, maintains its original numbering. The houses on that cul-de-sac start at 1 and go up to 12.
Lake Street
Bicycles [ edit ]
Augusta Boulevard through the village is part of the Grand Illinois Trail; the trailhead of the Illinois Prairie Path is less than a mile from Oak Park. With several cycle clubs and groups, Oak Park is considered a bicycle-friendly community, and the tree-lined streets of the community as well as its proximity to trails in nearly communities attract cyclists to Oak Park, easily accessed by the Green Line, Blue Line, or Metra. Bicycle lanes are marked on many streets throughout Oak Park, though no fully segregated cycle facilities have been put in place.
Bicycle sharing services are coming to the village. Located on Lake Street near Harlem Avenue, Greenline Wheels, one of Illinois' first Low-profit limited liability companies, rents bicycles. Divvy bike sharing, which serves the city of Chicago, came to Oak Park in 2016.[11] Due to usage and budgetary difficulties, Divvy exited Oak Park and the stations were removed in 2017.
Demographics [ edit ]
Historical population Census Pop. %± 1910 19,444 — 1920 39,858 105.0% 1930 63,982 60.5% 1940 66,015 3.2% 1950 63,529 −3.8% 1960 61,093 −3.8% 1970 62,511 2.3% 1980 54,887 −12.2% 1990 53,648 −2.3% 2000 52,524 −2.1% 2010 51,878 −1.2% Est. 2017 52,261 [2] 0.7%
Unity Temple, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1905 and finished in 1908
As of the 2010 census there were 51,878 people, 22,670 households, and 13,037 families residing in the village. The population density was 11,037.9 people per square mile. The racial makeup of the village was 67.7% White, 21.7% African American, 0.2% American Indian, 4.8% Asian, 2.0% some other race, and 3.6% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.8% of the population. In Oak Park, 13.1% spoke a language other than English at home and 10.3% were foreign-born.[12]
For the period 2009–11, the estimated median annual income for a household in the village was $78,384, and the median income for a family was $105,217. Male full-time workers had a median income of $77,760 versus $58,653 for females. The per capita income for the village was $46,687. About 5.9% of families and 8.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.0% of those under age 18 and 4.3% of those age 65 or over.[13]
In the 1960s Oak Parkers began a concerted effort to avoid the destructive racial housing practices occurring in nearby communities. Racial steering and block-by-block panic peddling caused rapid racial change on Chicago's west side, including the Austin Community Area adjacent to Oak Park. Whites left west side neighborhoods based on concerns of property value losses and crime increases, and some businesses left as well. The Village of Oak Park passed a fair housing ordinance in 1968 (in the same year as the federal Fair Housing Act) to ensure equal access to housing in the community. In 1972, the Oak Park Housing Center was founded by Roberta "Bobbie" Raymond to promote integration in the community, by ensuring equal access and discouraging white flight.[14][15] Part of this effort included banning "for sale" signs on houses. Although this law became unconstitutional with the decision in Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Township of Willingboro, usage of the signs is still strongly discouraged by local realtors.[16]
An evaluation of the policy in Oak Park to promote integration, written in the early years of the 21st century noted the gradual increase in the share of Village population that is black, at 22% in 2000, and further observed '"as late as 2000 there were no resegregated census tracts, with tracts ranging from 7% black to 36% black.... this was not because the pattern of rapid westward resegregation had run its course, because events in neighboring suburbs showed that segregation trends were still operating. Instead, the pattern in a sense leaped over Oak Park to other suburbs farther west, including Bellwood and Maywood, which resegregated in a relatively short time.[17]
Government [ edit ]
Village [ edit ]
Since 1951 Oak Park has been organized under the council-manager form of municipal government. The village government includes an elected president and an elected village board which hires a village manager to conduct the day-to-day affairs of the administration. Oak Park also has five additional governments which levy real estate taxes. These include the Oak Park Township, the high school district (which also levies from adjacent River Forest), the elementary school district, the library district, and the park district.
The United States Postal Service operates the main Oak Park Post Office at 901 Lake Street and the Oak Park South Post Office at 1116 Garfield Street.
Elections [ edit ]
Oak Park's Village Board, Village President and other elected officials are elected through a two-stage election process. A primary election is used to nominate party candidates, and a general election is used to elect government officials. Oak Park's election turnout varies greatly depending on whether it is a municipal or national election. In the 2012 Presidential Election, Oak Park had the highest voter turnout in suburban Cook County, 79.8% of registered voters cast a ballot.[18] Municipal elections for the Board of Trustees and Village Clerk generally have much lower voter turnout, averaging around 20% and are held in spring, consistent with state law. The municipal elections are considered non-partisan, as the national political parties do not put up the candidates. Candidates step forward, or are found by a citizens group that works to find people to have new candidates for each election cycle, encourage participation in local issues.
School Districts [ edit ]
Oak Park Public Library
The public primary schools (Lincoln, Mann, Longfellow, Beye, Irving, Holmes, Whittier, and Hatch) and the middle schools, Percy Julian Middle School (formerly Nathaniel Hawthorne) and Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School (formerly Ralph Waldo Emerson) are operated by the Oak Park Elementary School District.[19] These ten schools are part of elementary school District 97, which regularly adopts medium-term strategic plans.[20]
Performance of schools in Oak Park as evaluated by standard statewide tests is released periodically, known as the school report cards.[21]
The renaming of the one junior high school, now middle schools, after prominent African-Americans rather than giant American literary figures was done in part to motivate minority students in their educational pursuits. A gap in school performance, referred to as "this intolerable and persistent inequity,"[22] remains, as of the date of the report.[23]
Oak Park is the home of two high schools: Oak Park and River Forest High School, the sole school in educational District 200, and Fenwick High School. Oak Park and River Forest High School is a public school which is jointly run by Oak Park and neighboring village River Forest, and Fenwick High School is a Catholic college preparatory school run by the Dominicans. Both high schools have a long history of high academic standards. Oak Park and River Forest High School bestows the Tradition of Excellence Award to distinguished alumni, including Ernest Hemingway, Ray Kroc, Dan Castellaneta, football Hall-of-Famer George Trafton, actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, astronomer Chad Trujillo, geochemist Wally Broecker, and environmental leader Phil Radford. Oak Park and River Forest High School is one of seven secondary educational institutions in Illinois with the ability to induct students into the Cum Laude Society.
Park District [ edit ]
The Park District of Oak Park was first organized in 1912 as the Recreation Department of the Village of Oak Park. Under the direction of Josephine Blackstock and her successor, Lilly Ruth Hanson, it embarked on a vigorous program of recreation for villagers. The playgrounds were named by Blackstock after famous children’s writers.
In the late 1980s the Recreation Department was dissolved, and the Park District of Oak Park was created as a separate tax-levying body. It comprises thirteen parks scattered throughout the village, for a total of 80 acres (320,000 m2) of parkland, a historic house available for functions with payment of fees, the Oak Park Conservatory, and two outdoor pools. The Park District also provides dog exercise areas where dog owners may bring their pets with payment of fees. A second outdoor pool, an official sized ice rink, a green roof and synthetic-turfed playing fields are at Ridgeland Common at the corner of Lake Street and Ridgeland Avenue, originally built in 1962. It was completely renovated from March 2013 to June 14, 2014.[24][25]
Public Library [ edit ]
Founded as a public library in 1903, after electing its first Board of Trustees, the Oak Park Public Library has a rich and celebrated history in Oak Park. The library has a main campus overlooking Scoville Park at the corner of Oak Park Avenue and Lake Street, as well as two branch libraries, the Dole Branch Library and the Maze Branch Library.[26] As a member of the SWAN library consortium, the Oak Park Public Library offers its cardholders access to nearly 8 million items.
Police and Fire Departments [ edit ]
Fire [ edit ]
Providing Fire Protection and Emergency Medical Services, the Oak Park Fire Department currently operates out of 3 Fire Stations, located throughout the Village, Fire Station # 1 (Headquarters), Fire Station # 2 (North) & Fire Station # 3 (South) under the command of a Battalion Chief per Shift. The Oak Park Fire Department operates 3 ALS Engines, 1 ALS Truck, 3 ALS Ambulances, 1 ALS Paramedic Squad, 1 Command Unit, and several specialized MABAS Divisional Apparatus.[27]
Fire Station Locations and Apparatus
Engine Company Truck Company Ambulance Special unit Command unit Address Truck 631 Ambulances 612–614 618 (Pick-up Truck), Squad 611, the MABAS Division 11 T.R.T. Unit & MABAS Division 11 Haz-Mat. Unit 1100 Command Unit 620 (Battalion Chief) 100 N. Euclid Ave. Engine 602 212 Augusta St. Engines 603 & 604 MABAS Division 11 Air Support Unit 900 S. East Ave.
Police [ edit ]
Combating crime and providing safety programs in the community, Oak Park's police department is the third largest in the state per capita.[citation needed] In 2011, crime had dropped 16 percent on average in Oak Park, according to data released at a community forum. However later in 2017 crime rose by 2 percent.[28]
Crime [ edit ]
In 2016 there were 68 robberies and in 2017 there were 134. In 2016 there were 80 vehicle thefts and in 2017 there were 107. There were also two homicides, the first in five years.
Arts and culture [ edit ]
Oak Park has an active arts community, resulting in part from its favorable location adjacent to Chicago (seven miles west of the "Loop"). It is home to numerous theater, music, dance, and fine arts professionals. The arts district on Harrison, bounded by Austin Avenue to the east and Ridgeland Avenue to the west, features boutique galleries, shops and restaurants.
Oak Park is home to several professional dance and theatre companies, including Circle Theatre, Oak Park Festival Theatre, and Momenta resident dance company of The Academy of Movement and Music. Oak Park, with neighboring River Forest, also plays host to the Symphony of Oak Park and River Forest, which celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2009.
Oak Park is also home to WPNA, broadcasting from the former Oak Park Arms Hotel at 1490 AM since 1951. Run by the Polish National Alliance, the station's programming serves the diverse linguistic and cultural communities in the Chicago metropolitan area (in the late-1960s WPNA had the only "underground" disc jockey in Chicago, Scorpio). There is also the Oak Park Art League (OPAL), a nonprofit visual arts center founded after World War I (renamed in 1970), which provides classes, workshops, lectures, demonstrations, and exhibitions.[29] Since 1921, OPAL has been providing opportunities for arts engagement and cultural enrichment. Over 4,500 artists participate in OPAL’s events each year.
Oak Park has been home to numerous festivals and holiday observances. The July 4 celebration featuring fireworks draws thousands to the Oak Park-River Forest High School football stadium. A Day in Our Village, held in June, allows local groups to set up tables to seek members.
Architecture and historic districts [ edit ]
Frank Lloyd Wright spent the first 20 years of his 70-year career in Oak Park, building numerous homes in the community, including his own and Walter Gale House. He lived and worked in the area between 1889 and 1909. One can find Wright's earliest work here, like the Winslow House in neighboring River Forest, Illinois. There are also examples of the first prairie-style houses in Oak Park. He also designed Unity Temple, a Unitarian-Universalist church, which was built between 1905 and 1908. There were several well-known architects and artists that worked in Wright's Oak Park Studio, including Richard Bock, William Eugene Drummond, Marion Mahony Griffin, and Walter Burley Griffin.
Many buildings in Oak Park were built by other Prairie School architects such as George W. Maher, John Van Bergen, and E.E. Roberts.
Oak Park's housing stock reflects the decades of its rapid growth while it was part of the town of Cicero and since 1902 when it became a village. Historic preservation has been a priority since an ordinance passed in 1972 and since revised.[30][31] There are 2,400 historic sites in Oak Park, the majority of which are homes built in the Queen Anne, Prairie School and Craftsman styles of architecture.[32] The Village of Oak Park displays these online on an interactive website.[33] Three historic districts recognize the variety of styles often standing next door to each other. The three districts are Frank Lloyd Wright, Ridgeland-Oak Park, and Seward Gunderson,[34] outlined on a map from the Village.[35] A fourth district is under consideration as of 2015, of 176 homes built by Thomas Henry Hulbert.[32][36]
The Art Deco style main post office on Lake Street was designed by White and Weber in 1933. It is part of the Ridgeland-Oak Park Historic District.[37]
Points of interest [ edit ]
Notable people [ edit ]February 28, (NYALA, MEROWE) – A reconciliation conference between Darfur’s Rizeigat and Ma’alia tribes being held in the locality of Merowe in the Northern state has stalled over the right of land ownership known as Hakura (traditional land grant).
Maalia and Rezeigat delegations arrive at Al-Tawisha in North Darfur before the signing of a cessation of hostilities deal on 22 August 2013 (Photo: Hamid Abdulsalam/UNAMID)
Leaders of the traditional administration in East Darfur state called upon the two negotiations delegations to overcome the stalemate in order to restore the social fabric which has been ruptured for long time by fighting among various ethnicities.
Mohamed Salih, a tribal chief demanded in a statement to Sudan Tribune the two delegations to make compromises in order to arrive at a peaceful settlement for all differences which lead to the outbreak of bloody conflicts and claims lives of innocent civilians.
He added the reconciliation conference offers a golden opportunity that should not be missed to bring the bloody conflict between Rizeigat and Ma’alia to an end.
The reconciliation conference between the two tribes has convened on 15 February in the town of Merowe, Northern state under the auspices of the first vice-president Bakri Hassn Salih.
Last July, vice-president Hassabo Abdel-Rahman tried to mediate between the two tribes and organise a reconciliation conference in Al-Foula in West Kordofan state.
However, the meeting was cancelled after the Rizeigat rejected the participation of some Ma’alia members, saying they belong to another tribe. The Ma’alia were also sceptical about the involvement of Abdel-Rahman who is a member of Rizeigat tribe.
The two tribes also failed to hold another conference scheduled for 10 August.
Last August, 200 Ma’alya and 123 Rizeigat tribesmen were killed in clashes which took place in the Umm Rakubah area in East Darfur’ Abu Karinka locality.
Armed clashes between the two tribes in 2013 killed over 149 people and forced an estimated 51,000 people to flee their homes and seek shelter in Adila, Abu Karinka and Ed-Daein localities.
Both the Rizeigat and the Ma’alia are pastoralist tribes, based in East Darfur. The centre of Rizeigat territory is in El Daein town, while the Maalia centre is in Adila, the second largest town after El-Daein.
Tribal fighting has intensified during the last two years in Darfur and Kordofan regions in western Sudan leading to thousands of dead and injured and forcing over 300,000 people to flee their homes.
Salih, who addressed the closing session of the conference, urged Ma’alia to sign the reconciliation document, saying "we wish this document be signed in order to complete the reconciliation process".
He expressed appreciation to Rizeigat delegation who accepted to sign a permanent reconciliation pact with their Ma’alia brothers, stressing his government’s ability to carry out its duties and establishes security and peace in the country.
The reconciliation conference wrapped up its works on Saturday and urged the two tribes to fully abide by the provisions of the document and normalize their ties.
The conference determined that the land belongs to Rizeigat and owned by the state according to the constitution, law and customs, pointing the chiefdom of the Ma’alia will remain as it is in accordance with the ministerial decree number 57 of the 2004.
It also called upon the two tribes to work hard to achieve peaceful coexistence and return the affected to their villages, noting that individual incidents must be dealt with according to the law.
The document further called for paying previous blood money and return homes and shops to their Ma’alia owners who have been evacuated by the authorities during the clashes to preserve their lives.
The conference also approved a presidential decree to form a mechanism including police, security services and the traditional administration to follow up on the implementation of the conference decisions and oversee the return of the affected population.
(ST)Windfarm cable archeological dig unearths fascinating clues to our past
Dr Richard Newman at the archaeological excavations being carried out from Bawdsey to Bramford, as part of work to install the onshore cable route for East Anglia ONE windfarm. Picture: TOM POTTER Archant
Archaeologists are unearthing the secrets of our past, before a modern engineering feat arrives to change the future.
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Archaeologists working on the digs between Bawdsey and Bramford. Picture: TOM POTTER Archaeologists working on the digs between Bawdsey and Bramford. Picture: TOM POTTER
The burial of cable along 37km of the Suffolk landscape will propel construction on one of the world’s largest offshore wind farms.
Archaeological dig site in Suffolk. Picture: SCOTTISHPOWER RENEWABLES Archaeological dig site in Suffolk. Picture: SCOTTISHPOWER RENEWABLES
But first, evidence of life during Roman, Anglo-Saxon and medieval times is being exhumed.
Archaeologists working on site in Suffolk. Picture: SCOTTISHPOWER RENEWABLES Archaeologists working on site in Suffolk. Picture: SCOTTISHPOWER RENEWABLES
So far, discoveries have included fragments of bronze age cooking pots, a belt buckle from the 10th or 11th century, a wind instrument carved from bone, evidence of defences dug to repel Viking invaders, and parts of 13th century green-glazed face jugs, probably made near King’s Lynn.
Digging work in progress. Picture: TOM POTTER Digging work in progress. Picture: TOM POTTER
Discoveries at one of the sites, just north of Ipswich, indicate a riverside settlement between the Anglo-Saxon to high medieval era.
A piece of green glazed medieval face pot found on the archaeological dig in Suffolk. Picture: WARDELL ARMSTRONG A piece of green glazed medieval face pot found on the archaeological dig in Suffolk. Picture: WARDELL ARMSTRONG
Dr Richard Newman, post-excavation manager at Wardell Armstrong Archaeology, said: “We already know there were later medieval settlements in the area, due to the presence of surviving churches from the period.
A piece found on the archaeological dig in Suffolk. Picture: WARDELL ARMSTRONG A piece found on the archaeological dig in Suffolk. Picture: WARDELL ARMSTRONG
“But why put a settlement where it’s likely to flood? The reason, we think, is that they wanted to be close to the river; that there was something here to do with milling. In fact, we found a millstone, and presume this could be where the miller lived.
This type of vessel was often used as a container to bury the cremated remains of a dead ancestor. The sherds recovered here did not have any evidence of cremated remains so the vessel could simply have been used as a cooking pot over 3,000 years ago. Picture: WARDELL ARMSTRONG This type of vessel was often used as a container to bury the cremated remains of a dead ancestor. The sherds recovered here did not have any evidence of cremated remains so the vessel could simply have been used as a cooking pot over 3,000 years ago. Picture: WARDELL ARMSTRONG
“The earlier stuff is more difficult to understand. There was clearly a bit of quarrying, and maybe fishing, or fish processing.
Archaeologists have spent months excavating, carefully removing and logging material. Picture: TOM POTTER Archaeologists have spent months excavating, carefully removing and logging material. Picture: TOM POTTER
“These weren’t isolated people. The millstone we found was made from the lava quarries in the Eifel region of Germany.
One of the opened trenches. Picture: TOM POTTER One of the opened trenches. Picture: TOM POTTER
“Suffolk would have been one of the most densely populated places in the country. There was intensive land use and an internal trading network, even as far back as the Anglo-Saxon period.
Every find is carefully bagged and logged. Picture: TOM POTTER Every find is carefully bagged and logged. Picture: TOM POTTER
“At another site, we found huge ditches, more than two-metres deep, which would have created a massive barrier to movement. This wasn’t just a hedgerow ditch; this was massive. It must have been defensive – and was likely to be from the Viking wars.”
Archaeological excavations are being carried out from Bawdsey to Bramford, as part of work to install the onshore cable route for East Anglia ONE windfarm. Picture: TOM POTTER Archaeological excavations are being carried out from Bawdsey to Bramford, as part of work to install the onshore cable route for East Anglia ONE windfarm. Picture: TOM POTTER
So far, Dr Newman’s favourite find has been a silver buckle, bearing two dragon heads and an ornate pin in the shape of a sword. It was unearthed during a metal detecting survey before digging began, on a site thick with colluvium and alluvium – material deposited by centuries of flooding – mainly from the river.
Once recorded the sites will be closed ready for the power cables to be put in place. Picture: TOM POTTER Once recorded the sites will be closed ready for the power cables to be put in place. Picture: TOM POTTER
“It’s in such good condition, it could |
this year, Abbey Brewing Company also happens to be the only one taking Jagermeister seriously too. It's five-dollar-everything: $5 craft beer taps, $5 Jager shots and $5 well drinks. No admission, of course, but bring an appetite because the Abbey's serving up free German pub grub too. Goes from 1-5 p.m.
German American Social Club of Miami Oktoberfest, October 18-20, 25-27
Want some authentic German Oktoberfest this year? The German American Social Club of Miami is getting down for the 56th consecutive year, the longest running Oktoberfest in Miami. You can't mess with that. Adult day passes are $10, festival passes are $30 and under-21 passes are only $1.
Hofbraü Beerhall Miami Oktoberfest
If Germany is celebrating Oktoberfest right now, then it stands to reason that so is the staff at the Hofbraü Beerhhall in Miami Beach. Hofbraü imports it's beer directly from the Staatliches Hofbräuhaus in Munich, a brewery that's owned by the German state of Bavaria. This is the place for genuine German beer with six different varieties on tap: the original, Oktoberfest, maibock, hefeweizen, dunkel and hefeweizen dunkel.
Oktoberfest at The Federal Food Drink and Provisions
Going by their cuisine this time of year and when they started, The Federal seems to be completely in sync with the German harvest. From September 21 to October 6, chef Caesar Zapata and his Federales will be going sauerkraut on your asses with a craft biergarten and a signature Oktoberfest menu that includes a choice of items like potato-wrapped knockwursts and apple strudel. Price for dinner: $33; beer flight: $12; bucket of five Oktoberfest beers: $15. Just the spot to hit before a festival binge.
Oktoberfest at the Royal Bavarian Schnitzel Haus
The Schnitzel Haus is straight-up German cuisine all year-round, but chef Alex Richter is preparing a fine Oktoberfest menu for the occasion that includes plates like crispy roasted duck, red cabbage and bread dumpling ($24 for one, $47 for two); and Spaten Oktoberfest bier on tap, $12 for one liter and $23 for two-liter boots.
Grovertoberfest, October 19
The truest Miami beer festival this time of year would go to Grovetoberfest in Coconut Grove. For the third straight year, Peacock Park will be inundated with over 250 beers from across the world, including several local ones. Ticket prices range from $40 for general admission, to $90 for a VIP package. All ticket levels include unlimited beer.
Oak Tavern Oaktoberfest Beer Dinner, October 23
Oak Tavern chef and owner is teaming up with Esquire and Miami Herald beer writer Evan Benn to throw an Oktoberfest beer dinner. The four-course dinner will include plates like brined pork shoulder with caramelized kraut and Semmelknodel (bread dumplings), house pretzels and pumpkin cheesecake paired with the beers from across the world. Festivities start 7 p.m. with a beer aperitif and appetizers. Price is $50 not including tax and gratuity. Call 786-391-1818 for more information or to make a reservation.
Get more beer by following David Minsky on Twitter and Instagram
Follow Short Order on Facebook, on Twitter @Short_Order, and Instagram @ShortOrder.Following is but a partial list of the un-bonafide ingredients typically found in today's processed foods. The food additives list was excerpted from "A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives" by Ruth Winter, M.S. It is disturbing to note that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not require food manufacturers to clearly label packages -- they are not even required to disclose that animal products are contained in foods that might appear to be vegetarian. Hidden away beneath the laboratory names of food additives, chemicals, emulsifiers, etc., are beef, horse, and even human by-products. The more you read on this subject, the more you will scrutinize the exact nature of foodstuffs you purchase for preparation and offering to Lord Krsna!
Please note that this list does not include egg, onion or garlic ingredients, all of which are considered un-bonafide, and are not offerable to Sri Krsna.
UN-BONAFIDE FOOD ADDITIVES ADDITIVE
Albumin (Albumen) and Lactalbumin Ambergris (Spermaceti) Blood Calcium Stearate (Stearic Acid) Calcium Stearoyl Lactylate Cholic Acid Choline Bitartrate Civet, Absolute
Cysteine. L Cystine Datem Emulsifiers Enzymes Fatty Acids Gelatin Glycerol Monostearate Glycine Lard Lipids Lysine, L and DL Magnesium Stearate Mono and Di-glycerides Myristic Acid Natural Flavorings Oleic Acid Oxysterins Pepsin Polyglycerol Esters Polysorbates (Tween) Rennet (Rennin) Serum Albumin Shortenings Sorbitan Monostearate Stearyl Lactate Uric Acid (Urea) Vitamin D3 Waxes SOURCE
Egg whites, blood
Sperm Whale or Dolphins
Slaughtered animals Slaughtered animals
Slaughtered animals
Animal bile Animal tissue
Cats
Human and horse hair Urine, horse hair Animal or vegetable Animal or vegetable Animal or vegetable Animal or vegetable Animal or fruit Animal or vegetable
Animal or vegetable Pork fat and oils Animal or vegetable Casein, fibrin, blood Tallow, vegetable, Stearic Acid
Animal or vegetable
Animal or vegetable Many are animal
Animal or vegetable fats, oils Tallow, vegetable, Stearic Acid Hog enzyme Animal or vegetable fats, oils
Stearic Acid
Rennet Animal or vegetable Blood plasma, cows Stearic acid
Animal or vegetable Human Urine Animal or synthetic Animal, insect, petroleum, vegetable TYPICAL USES
Emulsifier
Flavoring for food & beverages, margarine
Cheese making, medicines Emulsifier and coloring agent
Dough conditioner in bakery products; whipping agent Emulsifier B-complex vitamins
Raspberry, butter, caramel, grape and rum flavorings for beverages, ice cream, ices, candy, baked goods, chewing gum Bakery products, pizza and pie dough Nutritional supplement Dough conditioner Binders, thickeners, preservative Wide use Emulsifiers, binders; yeast Sour cream, yoghurt, pudding Margarine, shortening, noodles
Flavor enhancer Food products, packaging Shortening, flavoring, thickener Wheat-based foods, breads cereals Anti-caking agent
Emulsifier, softener, preservative
Flavor enhancer Wide use
Butter, cheese, spice Prevents oil from clouding Cheese, vitamins Emulsifier
Emulsifiers, “non-dairy”
Cheese and dairy Moisturizing ingredient Baked goods Emulsifier, defoamer, flavor
Bakery products, pancake mix Yeast foods, pretzels, wine Milk and milk products Wax fruits and vegetables; candy coating
Following is a limited list of some of the brand name products availale on supermarket shelves which seem, at first glance, to be vegetarian. On closer inspection, however, we find that a variety of animal products are included in these foods as flavoring agents, emulsifiers, additives, etc. As above, we have not included products containing eggs, onion or garlic in the following list. Eggs are one of the most often included items on the un-bonafide foods list that you'll find in processed foods. Fortunately, in most cases, egg substances are clearly labeled 'egg'.Transfixed by the newfound wonders of his college environment, Rutgers engineering freshman Bailey Freeman reportedly acquired his very first male contraceptives from a vending machine in the Lynton Towers on Livingston campus.
After a passionate, sweaty round of “League of Legends” with his high school friends, Freeman told reporters he ventured downstairs to the first floor vending machines for “combat fuel”—his usual selection of Funyuns and Chex Mix. Upon discovering that the machine was vacant of his beloved onion flavored rings, Freeman began exploring alternatives, at which point he noticed a row of mysterious little white boxes at the very bottom of the machine.
“I honestly couldn’t believe my eyes,” said the freshman, visibly hyperventilating. “There they were, bottom row. Swedish Fish, Doublemint gum, Advil, then BOOM fuckin Lifestyles with spermicidal lube. Spermicidal lube! I saw that and was just like, ‘fuckin’ college, man,’ you know?”
Fully ready to leave his virgin loser past behind and enter the world of super hot college coed intercourse he read about on anime forums, Bailey slipped a few wrinkled bills into the machine.
“I heard Rutgers was one of the most sexually active campuses in the country, but selling condoms in vending machines? In a freshman dorm? That’s fuckin rad,” Freeman told reporters.
Witnesses told reporters that after purchasing the condoms, Bailey Freeman made eye contact with another student who was looking to use the vending machine, Danielle Sawyer, and immediately darted back to the elevators in a manner students could only describe as “Naruto-like”.
“Everybody knows girls won’t let you smash without a condom, my dad told me that,” explained Freeman, gleefully fondling the foil packets between his fingers. “These bad boys are my first class tickets to Poonsville, USA.”
Despite his enthusiasm, it’s not clear whether Bailey Freeman is currently in a relationship with a human partner, or if he has had any contact with the opposite sex, or for that matter, any sex, since arriving on campus.
Listen to our podcast!The new leak suggested that the NSA may have hacked into EastNets, a Dubai-based firm that facilitates payments in the global SWIFT transaction system for a collective of major banks based in the Middle East. The leak included detailed evidence that a string of major financial firms in Qatar, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Syria, Yemen, and the Palestinian territories, may have been hacked - or potentially targeted - by the US government. However, the BBC reported on Friday that EastNets denied claims its service had been compromised. "The reports of an alleged hacker-compromised EastNets Service Bureau network is totally false and unfounded," a spokesperson said. "The EastNets Network Internal Security Unit has run a complete check of its servers and found no hacker compromise or any vulnerabilities".
But the contents of the leak appeared to suggest otherwise. One spreedsheet contained in the release listed a slew of banks based in the Middle East that were successfully infected by NSA spyware. Qatar First Investment Bank, Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation Bahrain, Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange, Tadhamon International Islamic Bank, Noor Islamic Bank, Kuwait Petroleum Company and Qatar Telecom, are just a few of the financial institutions that were targeted by the NSA, according to the leaked files. Fairfax was not able to verify the authenticity of the files - and the NSA has not commented on the leak. Also published were many programs for attacking various versions of the Windows operating system, at least some of which still work, researchers said.
In a statement to Reuters, Microsoft, maker of Windows, said it had not been warned by any part of the US government that such files existed or had been stolen. Following the leak, Microsoft released a statement outlining the risks that may have been created by the disclosure. "Today, Microsoft triaged a large release of exploits made publicly available by Shadow Brokers. Understandingly, customers have expressed concerns around the risk this disclosure potentially creates". "Our engineers have investigated the disclosed exploits, and most of the exploits are already patched". Criminal hackers could use the information released on Friday to hack into banks and steal money in operations mimicking a heist last year of $US81 million from the Bangladesh central bank.
That cyberattack was likely the work of the North Korean government, according to the Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab ZAO. The SWIFT messaging system is used by banks to transfer trillions of dollars each day. Belgium-based SWIFT downplayed the risk of attacks employing the code released by hackers on Friday. SWIFT said it regularly releases security updates and instructs client banks on how to handle known threats. SWIFT said it had no evidence that the main SWIFT network had ever been accessed without authorisation. It was possible that the local messaging systems of some SWIFT client banks had been breached, SWIFT said in a statement, which did not specifically mention the NSA.
The documents released by the Shadow Brokers on Friday indicate that the NSA may have accessed the SWIFT network through service bureaus. SWIFT service bureaus are companies that provide an access point to the SWIFT system for the network's smaller clients and may send or receive messages regarding money transfers on their behalf. "If you hack the service bureau, it means that you also have access to all of their clients, all of the banks," said Matt Suiche, founder of the United Arab Emirates-based cybersecurity firm Comae Technologies, who has studied the Shadow Broker releases and believes the group has access to NSA files. The documents posted by the Shadow Brokers include Excel files listing computers on a service bureau network, user names, passwords and other data, Suiche said. "That's information you can only get if you compromise the system," he said. Cris Thomas, a prominent security researcher with the cybersecurity firm Tenable, said the documents and files released by the Shadow Brokers show "the NSA has been able to compromise SWIFT banking systems, presumably as a way to monitor, if not disrupt, financial transactions to terrorists groups".
If legitimate, the files released by Shadow Brokers would be the most significant exposure of NSA files since the leaks in 2013 by former US intelligence contractor, Edward Snowden. The infamous whistleblower described the exposure of the files as the "Mother Of All Exploits" on Twitter, writing that the release of the files was "wrecking the internet". The documents released by the hackers did not clearly indicate whether the NSA had actually used all the techniques cited for monitoring SWIFT messages. Fairfax Media, Reuters, AAPAtlantaDad Senior Member
Drives: Night Blue 2016 GTI Autobahn DSG PP LP
Location: Cumming, GA Join Date: Jan 2016 Posts: 2,743 Drives: Night Blue 2016 GTI Autobahn DSG PP LP
Quote: jmp4golfvw Originally Posted by
...OP, I bought pretty much the exact same TSI, does make for a choice sleeper I think as well thanks for the post and info...
I've always thought our 1.8's were stronger than they were letting on...I figure with the jb1 and 93 octane be doing at least stock GTI numbers fairly easy (based on those stock #'s + an average 35 whp) and even PP #'s with some mods, that's not too shabby at all......OP, I bought pretty much the exact same TSI, does make for a choice sleeper I think as wellthanks for the post and info...
Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk I think you lost sleeper status when you changed to a center exit exhaust. But a nice look all the same!Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk
2016 GTI NB PP LP | Cobb AP w/ MAPerformance Stage 2 | MAPerformance Catted/Resonated DP | Baun Performance FMIC | APR TIP | AFE drop-in w/ snow guard delete | 034 Dogbone Insert | Stoptech Slotted Rotors w/ EBC RedStuff Pads
Thou shalt read this first: __________________2016 GTI NB PP LP | Cobb AP w/ MAPerformance Stage 2 | MAPerformance Catted/Resonated DP | Baun Performance FMIC | APR TIP | AFE drop-in w/ snow guard delete | 034 Dogbone Insert | Stoptech Slotted Rotors w/ EBC RedStuff PadsThou shalt read this first: http://www.golfmk7.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18297DUNEDIN, Fla. – When the Toronto Blue Jays dismissed Eric Owens last October, conventional wisdom suggested they’d replace him with another assistant hitting coach. Instead, they changed not only the coach but the entire job description, hiring Derek Shelton in an all-encompassing role that will see him work with position players, pitchers, coaches and front office staff. The job title: quality control coach.
MLB Quality Control Coaches Derek Shelton, Blue Jays
Henry Blanco, Cubs
Mike Shildt, Cardinals
Juan Castro, Dodgers
Robby Hammock, Diamondbacks
If the role sounds unfamiliar, it’s because it hadn’t crossed over to baseball until recently. Shelton’s the American League’s lone quality control coach, joining four National Leaguers and a wider range of NFL coaches.
“Honestly for me, it was a lot less about the title and it was more about the fact that this is where I want to be,” Shelton said.
“There’s more to the title than the two words in it,” Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins added. “He’ll be impacting not only hitting but collaborating with our defence and pitching and working with our analytics to help our players get better on an individual to individual level.”
Shelton’s experience as hitting coach for the Cleveland Indians and Tampa Bay Rays gives him insight into both hitters and pitchers, but the Blue Jays are a veteran team composed largely of players comfortable in their own routines. That’s what makes this spring so important for the 46-year-old Shelton.
The Blue Jays envision him as someone who can help foster collaboration between departments — making sense of advanced reports with hitters, for example, or looking analytically at a struggling pitcher. For that to work, he must first build relationships with a wide range of people.
“The trust has to be there,” Shelton said. “I don’t expect a guy to say ‘this guy gives me information, I trust him.’ I have to develop that. Those are the relationships I’m hoping to build sooner rather than later, but some of that has to happen over time with conversation.”
In other words, he’s not going to walk up to Troy Tulowitzki on day one of spring training and tell him to lower his hands or lengthen his stride.
“One hundred per cent,” Shelton said. “Especially this club here. These guys are established major-league players and you have established major-league superstars. When you have that you have to gain their trust in terms of the relationships you build.”
Fortunately for Shelton he’s already familiar with much of the organization. He worked with Atkins and team president Mark Shapiro in Cleveland, he has worked baseball camps with hitting coach Brook Jacoby, and he knows Melvin Upton Jr., Steve Pearce and J.P. Howell from their time with Tampa Bay.
Years of conversations around the batting cage provide some familiarity with many of the Blue Jays’ other hitters, such as centre fielder Kevin Pillar. After hearing that the Blue Jays had hired Shelton, Pillar reached out to Atkins for his number, eager to talk hitting.
“He’s helped a lot of good hitters become great hitters and a lot of okay hitters become good hitters,” Pillar said. “But more than anything I wanted to know what he saw in me from the opposing dugout—the way that he felt teams could attack me where he felt I was weak.”
“He’s been a huge asset to this team,” Pillar added. “I know his strength, more than anything mechanical is breaking down pitchers and that’s something I could benefit from.”
That skillset could also help the Blue Jays’ pitchers. Shelton’s background’s on the hitting side and he continues to spend lots of time talking hitting, but he has also been working with pitching coach Pete Walker and bullpen coach Dane Johnson. Having coached in Tampa Bay from 2010 until his dismissal in 2016, Shelton knows exactly how opponents game plan for Blue Jays pitchers.
“Pete and I talked about different pitchers,” Shelton said. “‘Hey, what are you seeing on what this guy does, how would you attack him? What have you got on this guy?’”
Shelton’s tenure in Tampa Bay also exposed him to a wide range of analytical tools used by the ‘extremely analytics-based’ Rays. The Blue Jays have their own set of analytics, and once Shelton gets a feel for the players’ learning styles, he’ll start mixing those in selectively.
“The thing with analytics is that the people you’re giving the information to are the most important people,” he said. “However you can explain it to them and bring it to them and broach it with them in a way where they understand it—and each individual’s different.”
A one-size-fits-all approach just wouldn’t work.
“Every player’s going to understand it differently, they’re going to apply it differently,” Shelton added. “That part of it’s big: learning what guys want, what they need—what they don’t want”
In some instances, Shelton could go back to the front office to get exactly what players need to succeed on the field.
“He’s very comfortable with analytics, certainly interpreting the information and even asking questions that can make us better,” Atkins said.
Eventually a daily routine will take shape for Shelton, but at this point there’s no such thing as a typical day. For now, he’s just working on getting to know the Blue Jays’ players, a process he expects will continue all spring, and possibly after opening day. So far he likes what he sees.
“For me to watch the Blue Jays lineup from this side and see J.D. and see Jose and see Tulo and see Russ—you could go on and on—it’s exciting for me to see that,” he said. “Then to come in and watch (Rowdy) Tellez, (Anthony) Alford and (Richard) Urena, it’s all new to me. I’m excited probably more this spring than I have for a spring (in a long time) because I’m watching all new guys.”For one team of NYU students and grads, tattoos are more than a symbol of rebellion — they are a business.
The company, called Ephemeral, developed a tattoo ink that won’t last forever — just for a year or two. And if you change your mind before the art fades, there’s also a quick and easy way to remove your tattoo.
The original idea came to Seung Shin, Ephemeral’s CEO, while he was still studying Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Tandon School of Engineering. Although he’s always been interested in tattoos, he’d been apprehensive about getting
one himself.
“I come from a traditional Asian family, so my parents despise tattoos,” Shin said. But in 2014, he took the plunge.
“I thought, ‘I’m a college guy, I’m an adult,’ so I decided to get a tattoo anyway,” he said. When he went home, his parents weren’t happy with the new decoration on their son’s bicep, and convinced him to get it removed.
As Shin discovered, laser tattoo removal can be painful, expensive and also has no guarantee of completely getting rid of the design. Complete tattoo removal can take up to ten sessions. Shin only went to one, returning to school with his tattoo and a new business concept.
He pitched the idea to some of his fellow chemical and biomolecular engineering students at Tandon — Brennal Pierre, Vandan Shah and Anthony Lam — and started work on creating a new kind of tattoo.
Traditional tattoos last forever because the ink is made of very large molecules. Macrophages, the cells your immune system uses to get rid of stuff like bacteria, just can’t break down the huge dye molecules.
Ephemeral uses a different approach. Lam, another of Ephemeral’s co-founders and the company’s Senior R&D Researcher, said that each dye molecule in their ink is small but it’s encased in a special capsule.
“The reason it’s encapsulated is so that it stays in the skin, so the macrophages can’t eat it up,” Lam said.
These capsules protect the ink from your immune system, but they also can easily be dissolved by a removal solution that Ephemeral has developed. If you decided you no longer want an Ephemeral tattoo, an artist would simply retrace the design with a tattoo gun loaded with the removal solution.
Even if you don’t decide to use the removal solution, the capsules protecting the ink will eventually break, and your tattoo will disappear. Unlike traditional inks which are often made of heavy metals, Ephemeral’s formula is made up organic compounds that can safely be absorbed by your body.
With the help of Josh Sakhai, the company’s CFO and a sophomore studying in both Stern and CAS, the Ephemeral team won first place in the Technology Venture category of last year’s W. R. Berkley Innovation Lab $200K Entrepreneurs Challenge. Just last month, the company was also awarded the title of “Coolest College Startup” by Inc.com.
Sakhai has high hopes for Ephemeral’s future.
“Five years down the road, I hope we’ve substantially dented the tattoo industry, its culture and its future,” he said. “I hope to see a lot more people with ink.”
Shin, Ephemeral’s CEO, is planning to be one of those people despite his negative experience with his first tattoo.
“I already have plans for two full sleeves,” he said. “I’m gonna be decked out.”
A version of this story appeared in the Monday, April 18 print edition. Email Kendall Levison at [email protected]The Commonwealth Bank is in negotiation with the NSW Government to allow customers to use its tap-and-go payment cards and smartphone apps to pay for transport.
Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, group executive of institutional banking and markets for CBA, said the bank hoped customers could use existing payments systems rather than an Opal card to pay for transport.
CBA CEO Ian Narev has been holding talks with NSW Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian. Credit:James Alcock
"We've been working closely with the Department of Transport and our vision is that you can use your ordinary credit card including a PayTag to walk through the gate and there will be no need for additional infrastructure or for the Government to issue cards or tickets - you can use your everyday card and wallets," said Bayer Rosmarin.
Bank chief executive Ian Narev said he had met with NSW Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian on Monday night.The definition of doxing is the publication of a physical residential address, or information protected by law (social security numbers, medical records, and so forth).
***
Abusive people love claiming they’ve been doxed.
Here, I have to acknowledge that I’m pulling a similar move. The word “dox,” like “abuse,” is infused with fear and panic. A popular stance is that doxing is strictly unacceptable. It is the great taboo of the Internet. Similarly, who on earth would defend abuse?
But while we engage in some level of productive discourse on what counts as abuse and what abusive dynamics actually are (though not nearly enough!), there is very little productive discourse on what doxing actually is.
Doxing has taken on a deeply nebulous and completely unhelpful definition, mostly thanks to abusers exploiting the hell out of the word.
Let’s take a look at the evolution of “doxing” or “doxxing,” starting with a textbook example of doxing. In 2007, Kathy Sierra was fully doxed—her Social Security number, her physical address, and much much more was all posted online with malicious intent. Yet the term “dox” was not commonly associated with what happened to her until many years later.
The strict “hacker” definition of “dropping dox”/“dropping docs” involves the publication of documentation, which can include addresses, phone numbers, financial information, medical records, and emails. Schneier dates the term back to 2001 (confined mostly to hacker circles, I imagine), but some people have given me anecdotal and unconfirmed accounts of it being used in the mid-to-late 1990s.
The word burst into the mainstream in 2012 (although it had been used in previous articles in 2011 in the newspaper), as documented by The New York Times’s “Words of 2012.” The NYT defines “dox” as
DOX: To find and release all available information about a person or organization, usually for the purpose of exposing their identities or secrets. “Dox” is a longstanding shortening of “documents” or “to document,” especially in technology industries. In 2012, the high-profile Reddit user Violentacrez was doxed by Adrian Chen at Gawker to expose questionable behavior.
Between 2001 to 2012, “dox” undergoes a remarkable dilution. It starts out as an information dump that includes physical addresses, social security numbers, financial information, and other information protected by law and/or acquired in ways criminalized under federal and state law. Then it comes to mean “unmasking.”
Adrian Chen did not publish Michael Brutsch’s address. He did not publish his SSN. He did not hack and publish Brutsch’s personal documents. He merely outed Michael Brutsch as Michael Brutsch.
Depending on the circumstances, outing someone can be quite dangerous and is unwarranted or immoral. But that depends on the circumstances. When an abusive anonymous individual is terrorizing individuals that go by their real names on the Internet, it is sometimes better for everyone that that person be unmasked. An unmasking can make people safe, even if the abusive anon is not arrested, reported, or even fired from his workplace. Unmasking can deter an abusive personality from serially harassing people out of a community.
For a word so infused with moral authority, “dox” should not encompass actions that are often justifiable depending on the circumstances.
Unmasking someone by their full name, identifying someone by their first name, identifying their place of work, or screencapping e-mails are not doxing. They are—once again, depending on the circumstances—possibly abusive things to do. But they are not doxing.
Do you know what is an abusive thing to do? To expand the definition of doxing in order to harness public outrage without having to actually discuss the circumstances in which you have been exposed.
While the definition of “harassment” remains nebulous, there is no reason that “dox” should be diluted.
The definition of doxing is the publication of a physical residential address, or information protected by law (social security numbers, medical records, and so forth).
A similar analysis will appear in my forthcoming Internet of Garbage, published as an ebook through Forbes.The last time John Kasich went to New Hampshire, the visit did not go well. It was 16 years ago, and Kasich, a 47-year-old Republican congressman who had made his name in D.C. as the budget-balancing enfant terrible of the Gingrich revolution, was running for president. Just when Kasich thought he was really connecting with a voter in Lebanon, the woman looked at her watch and asked him when the candidate was going to arrive. A few months later, Kasich’s candidacy was over, a minor footnote to George W. Bush’s steamroll to the GOP nomination. Kasich is now the two-term governor of Ohio, and he’s thinking about running for president again. He returned to New Hampshire a few weeks ago and was surprised to find that his reception was very different. A gathering at the Snow Shoe Club in Concord, for example, drew a standing-room-only crowd, and the audience members all seemed to know who he was. “Sixteen years ago, I would have been shoveling the driveway!” he told me afterward.
At 62, and having just been reelected by a 30-point margin, Kasich is both in the prime of his political career and facing what could be a now-or-never moment. He has been contemplating, he told me, “some things that are extremely personal—what is my purpose in life?” He also told me he was trying not to let all the attention he’d received in New Hampshire go to his head, but it sounded like he was having a hard time. “I just feel so liberated,” he said. “All the things I’ve done are finally paying off.” Last week, Kasich announced the formation of a 527 fundraising committee, which will allow him to travel, raise money, and build a national political infrastructure as he explores a presidential run. Its board includes a top New Hampshire GOP name, former Senator John E. Sununu. As the 2016 Republican primary has begun to take shape, it has attracted a madding crowd of colorful aspirants, from the White House legacy (Jeb Bush) to the Obama-bashing African American neurosurgeon (Ben Carson). Collectively, the contenders are far better credentialed than those of 2012, when the race for the nomination often seemed to pit the snow-white Mitt Romney against seven or more dwarves. (Remember Rick Santorum? He might be running again, on the rationale that he came in second last time.) Yet they all seem to have weaknesses that could become fatal flaws, from Bush’s silver-spoon image to Carson’s total lack of political experience and penchant for comparing Obamacare to slavery. There’s Chris Christie’s scandal-tarnished reputation, and Scott Walker’s seeming unreadiness for the national spotlight. The three candidates who’ve now publicly declared—Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio—were all elected to the U.S. Senate in the last five years; they lack executive experience, and their records are thin. GOP voters have told pollsters they are wary of a candidate whose résumé resembles Barack Obama’s.
If only, Republican voters might be thinking, there were a candidate who could appeal to blue-collar voters but also mingle with the GOP establishment. A governor who’d proven he could run a large state but who also had national experience. Someone who’d won tough elections and maintained bipartisan popularity in an important swing state. A candidate whose folksy demeanor and humble roots would contrast nicely with Hillary Clinton’s impersonal, stiffly scripted juggernaut. That’s Kasich’s pitch, in a nutshell. He’s not well known among the national Republican base or conservative activists in Iowa and New Hampshire. Nor has he begun to do the sorts of things—hiring big-name national consultants, seeking commitments from donors—that would put him on the radar of the pundits tracking the race. But he has a large and loyal potential fundraising base (he raised nearly $30 million for his reelection campaign despite a weak opponent), a knack for commanding a room in an unorthodox manner, and credentials that demand to be taken seriously. Kasich has managed a $72 billion state budget and served on the House Armed Services Committee. He won 86 of Ohio’s 88 counties in his reelection, including Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County—unheard-of for a Republican: In 2012, President Obama won Cuyahoga by a two-to-one margin. The New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote in January that Kasich was the most underrated potential Republican candidate, describing him as “fresh but seasoned and managerial.” If he does get in the race, says John Weaver, a Texas-based GOP consultant who was John McCain’s chief strategist, “he would absolutely be a threat for the nomination.”
Kasich, however, has a couple of weaknesses of his own. He has frequently defied his party’s right wing, including on the hot-button issue of Obamacare. And he has a combustible personality that strikes some as refreshing and genuine but others as erratic. “He’s not an ordinary politician,” says Keith Faber, the president of the Ohio Senate, who accompanied Kasich to New Hampshire. “Before he answers a question, he doesn’t sit and think, ‘Oh, what is the least controversial way to discuss this so no one will misinterpret me?’ He says what he thinks.” If Kasich runs for president, as he now seems almost certain to do, that quality could make him 2016's most interesting entrant.
The thing about John Kasich is, he’s kind of a jerk. Lobbyists in Columbus warn their clients before meeting the governor not to take it personally if he berates them. A top Ohio Republican donor once publicly vowed not to give Kasich a penny after finding him to be “unpleasantly arrogant.” As a congressman, Kasich sometimes lashed out at constituents—one who called him a “redneck” in a 1985 letter got a reply recommending he “enroll in a remedial course on protocol”—and when Kasich was thrown out of a Grateful Dead concert for trying to join the band onstage, he allegedly threatened to use his clout to have the band banned from D.C. As I was writing this article, Kasich’s press secretary, Rob Nichols, helpfully emailed me the thesaurus entry for “prickly,” sensing that I would need it.
I spent several days with Kasich in Ohio in February, and during that time he told me, repeatedly, that he did not read The Atlantic—and his wife didn’t, either. He said that my job, writing about politics and politicians, was “really a dumb thing to do.” Later, he singled me out in a meeting of cabinet officials to upbraid me for what he considered a stupid question in one of our interviews. At a Kasich press conference I attended at a charter school in Cleveland, he interrupted several speakers, wandered off to rummage on a nearby teacher’s desk as he was being introduced, and gleefully insulted the Cleveland Browns, to a smattering of boos. But while Kasich can be rude—and at times even genuinely nasty—he is also prone to spontaneous displays of empathy, frequently becoming emotional as he talks about the plight of people “in the shadows.” To his allies, these traits are two sides of the same coin. They describe Kasich as a sort of heartland Chris Christie—brash, decisive, authentic—without all the baggage. “He does have a tendency to ready-fire-aim,” says Mike Hartley, who helped run Kasich’s 2010 campaign for governor and worked in his administration. “But here’s the thing—he makes things happen. His will is tremendous, and he gets people to follow him. He’s an ass-kicker.” Like Christie, Kasich can be a compelling speaker; he’s a good storyteller, and his brusqueness gives him a similar sort of anti-charisma. A 2010 article in Columbus’s alternative weekly recounted multiple episodes of Kasich’s boorishness, only to conclude that “perhaps Ohio could use a good SOB in the Governor’s Mansion.”
Kasich’s peremptory, irreverent manner, and his way of seeming to be perpetually going in a million directions at once, can strike observers as flightiness. One national Democratic strategist told me he considered Kasich “a bit of a flake |
Tuesday morning.
“Many are struggling to get clean drinking water, and more than 100,000 people have left Puerto Rico alone. This is not acceptable, and we are here today to tell the people of Puerto Rico and tell the people of the Virgin Islands that they are not forgotten, they are not alone, and that we intend to do everything possible to rebuild those beautiful islands.”
The far-reaching legislation would grant $62 billion to the governments of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, $27 billion to renovate infrastructure, and $13 billion in additional Federal Emergency Management Agency funding to rebuild the electric grid “with more modern, resilient technologies,” instead of the Stafford Act’s requirements that the grid be restored to its condition before the storms, according to a summary of the bill from Sanders’s office.
Talks between Sanders, Warren, and other Democrats on a Puerto Rico messaging bill began roughly a month ago, as first reported by The Intercept. The legislation is not intended to become law as written, but to lay down a marker for Democrats to fight for as negotiations continue over relief for the island.
The plan for Puerto Rico, while costly, pales in comparison to the tax cuts Senate Republicans are putting the finishing touches on, estimated to cost the Treasury some $1.5 trillion over the next decade and many trillions more in years to come.
As for Puerto Rico’s crippling $74 billion debt, Warren, D-Mass., said the island needs “full debt relief,” and she will be working alongside Sanders and other colleagues to introduce a debt relief plan in the weeks ahead.
“The vulture funds that snapped up Puerto Rican debt should not get one cent from the island, not one cent,” she said Tuesday.
Sanders also pointed out that unlike Texas and Florida, which suffered natural disasters recently, “the people of Puerto Rico and the people of Virgin Islands, while being full American citizens, they have no United States senators here to represent them,” and “they do not have full voting members in the U.S. House.”
And the Boricua voice in Congress will soon suffer a further loss as Puerto Rican member and outspoken advocate, Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, D-Ill., announced on Tuesday he won’t seek re-election but has plans to help rebuild the hurricane-ravaged island.
For decades in Congress, when Sanders introduced a bill, he tended to do so alone. And when he launched his presidential bid, it was more of a solo protest effort rather than as the leader of a movement. But Sanders has become much more of an organizer, and, as he did with his Medicare for All bill, unveiled his Puerto Rico effort with an influential group of lawmakers, including three — Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Kamala Harris, D-Calif.; and Warren — routinely floated as 2020 presidential candidates.
The bill co-sponsors also include Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass. and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. The Virgin Islands’ delegate to Congress, Democratic Rep. Stacey Plaskett, Rep. Nydia Velázquez of New York, and Rep. Darren Soto of Florida are introducing the House version.
“The bill that Senator Sanders has introduced in the United States Congress is a comprehensive plan that provides the blueprint for the transformation of Puerto Rico,” Carmen Yulín Cruz, mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, said in a statement. “Senator Sanders also shows a great deal of respect and faith in us when claiming that the recovery or Puerto Rico must be in Puerto Rican hands.”Star Trek: Discovery is one of the most anticipated projects in the world of fandom. It will be the first Star Trek show in nearly two decades. Part of the excitement came from Bryan Fuller‘s attachment. Fuller recently helped create the greatest iteration of Hannibal Lecter. He is also working on adapting Neil Gaiman’s American Gods to the small screen. Plus, he’s putting together a new version of Amazing Stories. The guy is insanely busy. It looks like his overloaded schedule has finally caught up with him.
Fuller will no longer be the showrunner for Star Trek: Discovery. He’s stepping away from the day-to-day elements of producing the show. He has already mapped out the first season’s story arc and has the first two scripts ready. Though he will remain a presence on the show, his guidance will be more distant that before.
But That’s Not the Worst Part…
That’s the bad news. Here’s the worse news. Stepping in to help with this loss is screenwriter Akiva Goldsman. Who is Akiva Goldsman? Let’s go down the list: Batman & Robin, Lost in Space, I, Robot, I Am Legend, Winter’s Tale, The 5th Wave. Noticing a pattern? It’s a pattern of bad. Goldsman is notorious for “fixing” a lot of film scripts. He isn’t taking over as showrunner but he is going to be one of the top creatives for Star Trek: Discovery.
Star Trek television shows have always prided themselves on their intellectual elements. Goldsman is the guy that studios bring in when they want a story to appear smart. Unfortunately, that means they don’t actually turn out smart. A lot is riding on Star Trek: Discovery and Goldsman’s involvement has just turned this excitement into anxiety.
Hopefully, Fuller will still be involved enough to steer the ship in the right direction. If Star Trek: Discovery isn’t a hit with fans, the television series may go back into hibernation."A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." ~ Second Amendment, U.S. Constitution
Following the Sandy Hook massacre, gun rights, gun laws and the Second Amendment have been the subject of a national dialogue. Any discussion of these topics is severely tainted by calculated messaging by the NRA to deceive and mislead our citizens to believe that the Second Amendment grants far reaching gun rights which have not and do not exist.
The Second Amendment became part of our constitution in 1791. For well over two centuries the Supreme Court never decided that the Amendment granted a constitutional right to individuals to bear arms. The widely held notion that such a right existed was a myth fabricated by the NRA for its own self interest and for the corporate profits of gun manufacturers. This fabrication altered the mindset of most Americans to accept fictional Second Amendment rights that permitted the proliferation of all manner and kind of dangerous weapons. We became a gun culture run rampant. The gun manufacturers reaped enormous profits as gun sales soared. In 2011 industry wide gun sales were $4.3 billion. Misconceptions generated by the NRA created a warped interpretation of Second Amendment that generated these sales.
The fraud perpetrated by the NRA is patent. We do not heed the warnings of prominent citizens such as former attorneys general Nicholas Katzenbach, Ramsey Clark, Elliot L. Richardson, Edward Levi, Griffin B. Bell and Benjamin R. Civiletti. The joint statement in the Washington Post of these former attorneys general in 1992 reads as follows:
"For more than 200 years, the federal courts have unanimously determined that the Second Amendment concerns only the arming of the people in service to an organized state Militia: it does not guarantee immediate access to guns for private purposes. The nation can no longer afford to let the gun lobbies' distortion of the constitution cripple every reasonable attempt to implement an effective national policy towards guns and crime."
In a PBS News Hour interview in 1991, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger referred to the NRA Second Amendment myth as "one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American people by any special interest group that I have ever seen in my lifetime."
The opinions of these distinguished legal scholars had no bearing on NRA propaganda that continued unabated. During the weeks before the 2000 general election, a self-anointed constitution "scholar," Charleton Heston, ceremonial president of the NRA, flooded the airways to urge voters to support candidates who would protect and preserve Second Amendment rights. Little did most Americans realize that such rights did not exist. The NRA's reading of the Second Amendment was purely fictional and unsupported by the law of the land.
Candidates for public office both state and federal reaped in political contributions from the NRA. These elected officials feared the wrath of the NRA should they stray from the NRA's Second Amendment myth.
A norm evolved offering sanctity to gun owners and manufacturers. Gun manufacturers and the NRA prospered and profited. As one gun manufacturing executive states the equation, the NRA "protects our Second Amendment rights and those rights protect the ability to buy our products." Elected officials stand idly by while gun deaths and massacres escalate without lasting public outcry or meaningful legislative efforts.
The statistics are staggering. The depth of lost life is evident by comparing deaths in foreign wars and firearm deaths of citizens within our borders. In all foreign wars during our history about 650,000 soldiers died. In the 45 years since Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated in 1968, there have been over 1.3 million deaths in our country caused by firearms. The fraud perpetrated by the NRA as recognized by former Chief Justice Burger is linked to these deaths. The blood of thousands upon thousands of Americans permanently stain the hands of NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre.
How did the NRA gain such power and influence on our citizenry? For the first century of its existence beginning in 1871, the NRA primarily devoted its efforts to gun safety. Following enactment of new restrictive gun laws requiring gun licensing and taxes, a 1977 coup within the NRA membership led by militants resulted in a new harder edged and more aggressive NRA. The truth mattered not. The edifice of the NRA headquarters would now bear an abbreviated version of the Second Amendment: "The Right of the People to keep and Bear Arms Shall not be infringed." The NRA amended the Constitution unilaterally to avoid even a hint that the language pertaining to a Militia had any meaning. The law of the land spoke otherwise.
In 1939 the Supreme Court issued the Miller decision. The justices ruled that "the Second Amendment must be interpreted and applied with the view of its purpose of rendering effective Militia." That was the state of Second Amendment law until the 2008 Heller decision. Prior to Heller, the Supreme Court never recognized that individuals had an individual right to keep and bear arms. It was the NRA propaganda, not the law of the land, that led the cry for unlimited gun ownership and protection of gun owner rights. The NRA myths allowed the cycle of expanded gun sales and NRA power to purchase political influence. Democrats and Republican alike announced their allegiance to the Second Amendment and the public grew to believe that the NRA view of the Second Amendment was consistent with constitutional law. The NRA controlled too many elected officials to allow for protection of our citizens from gun violence, gun deaths and unspeakable gun horrors in schools and public places.
The NRA myths were disseminated on other fronts. Articles appeared in NRA publications and rewrote history by declaring that "Armed citizens [were] unregulated except by his own ability to buy a gun at whatever price he could afford." This credo became an NRA rallying cry.
The NRA poured millions upon millions of dollars into congressional and state legislative campaigns. Gun owners and manufacturers poured more money into the NRA. The revisionist view of Second Amendment rights gained momentum in 1982 when a Senate judiciary subcommittee issued a report about the discovery of "long lost proof" of an individual's constitutional right to bear arms. The chair of the subcommittee was Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. The "proof" has never surfaced.
For over three decades the NRA funded legal research, legal seminars and pushed for law review articles supporting individual rights to bear arms. This and the NRA persuasion of elected officials led to a dramatic shift in Second Amendment legal views. In 2003 the NRA established a $1 million chair at George Mason University law school. The views of NRA supported professors and legal scholars were relied on in the 2008 Supreme Court decision finding an individual right to bear arms for the first time.
What did the Supreme Court say in the 2008 Heller decision? The Court held that there existed an individual right to bear arms only for traditional purposes such as self-defense in the home. The Court declared that the Second Amendment should not be understood as conferring a "right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose." The Court gave examples of firearms laws presumed to be lawful. These included laws prohibiting firearm possession by felons, mentally ill persons and possession of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings. The Court found that conditions on the commercial sale of firearms were presumptively lawful. The Court said this list was not exhaustive; and found that the Second Amendment is consistent with laws banning firearms that are "dangerous and unusual."
The ruling in Heller was a departure from the 1939 decision in the Miller case where the court stated that the "obvious purpose" of the Second Amendment was to ensure effectiveness of the stated Militia. However, even with this departure the decision in Heller is limited in its scope. The only right specifically mentioned in the Supreme Court's opinion is the right of an individual to possess a gun for self-defense in the home.
Did this limited decision stop the NRA from its propaganda campaign? Of course not. On Meet the Press on March 24, 2013, Wayne LaPierre declared to the nation that under the Heller decision it would be an "absolute abridgement" of constitutional rights to regulate assault weapons. That myth, heard by millions, was intended to again mislead the country into believing that there are sweeping Second Amendment rights that cannot be regulated. Nonsense. The very language of the Supreme Court opinion in Heller calls out LaPierre as a liar.You can make your very own organic, natural hair products at home for a fraction of the cost of most product lines. It's easy to create organic shampoos, conditioners, and hair masks right in your kitchen. Completely natural, non-toxic hair products offer hydration, nutrition and stimulation to the scalp and hair.
Here are some of my favorite tips for getting and keeping the best natural-looking healthy hair. I would love to hear all of your personal tips for healthy hair.
10 Ways to Have Healthy Natural Hair
1. Make an Herbal Hair Mask
Combine 1 teaspoon of triphala powder (an Ayurvedic herb you can purchase online), with 1 tablespoon of aloe vera gel and a small amount of water until a paste is formed. Wet hair and apply paste to scalp and hair. Leave on for at least 20 minutes and rinse.
2. Use Natural Sesame Oil Conditioner
For dry hair, rub a small amount of organic sesame or olive oil on broken and split ends. Cover hair in a plastic bag or a shower cap and leave for at least 45 minutes, or up to overnight. Shampoo and rinse well.
3. Keep Hair Clean, Not "Over-Cleaned"
It's important to have clean hair but over washing can leave hair brittle and void of natural lubricating oils. Wash hair every other day or every third day.
4. Don't Drink Beer - Rinse With It!
Pre-shower, give your hair a rinse with 1/4 cup of flat organic, high-quality beer. Leave the beer in the hair for 15 minutes, then rinse with a natural shampoo as normal.
5. Try a Basic Baking Soda Wash
Simply giving your hair a weekly baking soda rinse will help rid the hair of the layers of chemical gels and environmental pollutants that can attach to the hair throughout the week. It also gives the hair a vibrant glossy feeling and may even lighten it. Add 1 tablespoon of baking soda to your hair while doing your normal shampooing regime.
6. Try a Sandalwood Powder Hair Mask
Add 2 teaspoons of organic sandalwood powder to 3 tablespoons lime juice for an excellent cooling summer hair mask. You may also replace sandalwood with licorice powder, or combine both into a mix.
7. Use a Coconut Oil Conditioner
For dry and brittle hair, increase moisture by giving yourself a coconut hot oil treatment. Massage a small amount of warm coconut oil (organic and cold-pressed if possible), into scalp and through ends. Cover and let sit for at least 30 minutes, and then shampoo and rinse as normal. You may need to wash twice to get out all of the oil.
8. Use Essential Oil Remedies
Avoid harsh chemical sprays. Rosemary essential oil is an excellent de-tangler. Rub a few drops into your palms and then through damp, tangled hair. You can also put a little rosemary oil on your hair brush for de-tangling action.
9. Eat for Healthy Hair
Drinking purified water and eating a healthy, organic, plant-based diet helps healthy locks. Avoid processed foods with chemicals and preservatives that strip body and hair of healthy, natural glow.
10. Use a Castor Oil Deep Conditioner
For extra conditioning and healthier hair, add 2 teaspoons of castor oil to one egg white. Massage the oil-egg mixture into wet hair and scalp. Leave for at least 25 minutes before rinsing.
Switch to all natural hair care products. Doing a full body cleanse will also help improve the health of your hair.
†Results may vary. Information and statements made are for education purposes and are not intended to replace the advice of your doctor. Global Healing Center does not dispense medical advice, prescribe, or diagnose illness. The views and nutritional advice expressed by Global Healing Center are not intended to be a substitute for conventional medical service. If you have a severe medical condition or health concern, see your physician.These are the rules according to Hop. To break with my tradition of long explanations, this is just the rules and not much else. Love them, hate them, disagree with them, don't care, these are my rules. Don\t like 'em, then write your own. I encourage discussion and suggestions so I can continue to add to my list.
1. You need to skate more and skate every day.
2. Will you sponsor me? No, asking is not enough, you need to be worthy.
3. How do I get sponsored? Follow the rules.
4. I got my first sponsor, should I sign the contract? Never sign a contract unless it is for an amount of money that will change your life.
4a. Why do they want me to sign a contract? To lock you in and give you nothing - rookie mistake.
4b. What if my sponsor insists I sign a contract? Stall and start delivering fast. Tell them to talk to your mum or your dad. Dog ate it. You lost it. I mailed it back. If it is an issue, tell them the truth, Hop says never sign (rule 3) and then write a letter stating that you will honor what is in the contract. Even better, make it public and put it in a blog post.
5. Do I need to start a blog? Yes
5a. How do I start a blog? That is the subject of another blog post.
6. How do I get noticed? Do something extraordinary.
7. I want to be a pro skater and make lots of money, how do I do that? There is no money in being a pro (there can be only one Tony Hawk), if you want to be wealthy, get a job.
7a. If you organised skaters into an hierarchical chart it would look like a pyramid. Pro skaters at the top, skaters getting into the sport at the bottom. The whole system depends on a new flow of skaters on that bottom level. They are sold the dream of the pro skaters at the top. In fact, there can only be a few skaters at the top. The reality is most skaters at the bottom, never make it to the top. Not because of their talent, but because of the way the system is designed. Much the same way as most crack dealers in America still live with their mum.
8. I sent in a sponsorship proposal and they said no, what should I do? Be nice, and keep in contact every 3 months.
9. Do I need a manager? No you need to skate more.
10. My mate/friend/uncle/brother said he can get me a deal, what do you think? Something is worth as much as you paid for it.
11. I want to be sponsored so I never have to pay for gear again. You should get a job and earn some money so you can buy the gear you really want.
12. What is the secret to getting sponsored? Successful pro skaters or sponsored skaters would do what they are doing even if they were not getting paid. And most are not. (skateboarding's dirty little secret)
13. Who should be my first sponsor? Your local skateshop. If they are not interested, then go back to school, go to university/college or get a job but skate for life.
13a. Why wont my local skateshop sponsor me? They hate you, get over it. It shouldn't effect your love for skating.
13b. My local skateshop doesn't do sponsorship, what should I do? You should fake it until you make it. Promote that skateshop like they sponsor you.
14. I buy all my skate gear from overseas shops not local, should I ask them to sponsor me? You are killing the industry you want to support you. You're a dick, you should stop skating.
15. My girlfriend/boyfriend wants me to stop skating? You should get a new girlfriend/boyfriend.
16. My family think I should quit and get a real job. Agree with them and then do what you want to do.
17. My sponsor wont pay for [fill in this area]. You should get more sponsors.
18. I can not get money only flow, what should I do? Take it and get a job to pay for the rest.
19. Do you think being a sponsored skater is right for me? I think sponsorship is a legal form of slavery, but it's a frickin good lifestyle.
20. Should I be pro skater all my life? Yes if you want to be poor all your life, if not, do it for the lifestyle until your 29, then get a real job.
21. If I have partied the night before a race and I'm hungover, should I puke or fight to keep it in? You should go home and puke and get a real job. You should only puke from too much skating not too much drinking.
22. Should I party the night before an event? Lets not but say we did. 23.What is the difference between flow, sponsored and pro? Flow is free gear and you need a job. Sponsored is flow and cash but you still need a job. Pro is making enough money so you can buy a house.
24. I'm making lots of money, what should I buy? A house.
25. Should I skate on Sunday or go to church? What am I a priest.
26. The wheels I love wont sponsor me but I can get cash from the other wheel company, what should I do? Take the money unless it breaks rule number 33.
26a. Why can't I get sponsored by the brands I want? Sponsorship is not about you, it about promoting someone else so they can make lots of money.
27. Why aint the best skaters sponsored? Because they don't sell out. They would rather get a job, be free and skate what they want.
28. I'm overseas, sleeping on a couch, in a stranger skater house, what do you think will happen? I think you will wake up with a new haircut.
29. What is better: sponsored rider or ambassador? I think you need to skate more and think less.
30. How do I get good photos of myself skating? Pay a photographer.
31. How do I get in skate magazines? Send them photos, write them articles.
32. James Kelly accepted by friend request on Facebook, do you think I can crash on his couch? Yes. 33. The internet has changed everything. Old business models are dying. You are not a skater you are a brand. You are a business. Your decisions should always reflect this truth.
33a. Sometimes the right path is taking the money but every decision should not be about more money. Sometimes, more money hurts your brand. Associating your brand with an arsehole, just makes you an arsehole. A short term gain in money can mean you take a bigger loss in the long term.
34. Who makes the most money in skate, who are the biggest sponsors? Soft drink and shoe companies...and Google.
35. Why wont Landyachtz sponsor me? If they sponsored everyone, who would buy their boards.
36. Do I need a nickname? Yes it is goose.
37. Can I push mongo and still be sponsored? No, there is a reason it is called shit foot. Stop polluting the sport I love.
38. If I can survive a 2 hour phone call with Chaput, do you think he'll sponsor me? Yes, that is how it works.
39. I'm on Facebook 24/7 will that help? No you should skate more.
40. How do I get people to remember me? Keep telling them your name and wear the same clothes every day (hat tip to Talking Heads).
41. My mum says I'm the best skater she's ever seen. She lied.
42. What is more important friendship or podiums? Podiums are no fun if you have no friends to share it with.
43. I won a race/event I'm rich. You should act like your poor. One win does not make you a winner. One pay cheque does not make you a bank.
44. My sponsors wont talk to me, what should I do? You're doing a crap job as a sponsored skater. Fix that.
45. I dont enjoy skating anymore, its like a job, what should I do? It is a job and also think about rule 7.
46. How do I get sponsors to watch my sponsor me video? Make a video worth watching. If it doesn't go viral, you are not worth sponsoring. Still want to make that sponsor me video?
47. What is the best thing you can do for a new sponsor? Over deliver in the first 3 months.
48. How do I do a sponsorship proposal? Ask your English teacher. Find some who can write good copy. You provide them with the raw data.
49. What do sponsors look for in a skater? Eyeballs. How many eyeballs look at you each year?
50. How do I become a better skater? Skate with winners.
51. Why am I so unlucky at races and events? Winners make their own luck. You are not professional in your approach to this sport.
52. I just won my first World Cup race, will it change my life, what should I expect? You should expect to get a bucket of water poured over you.
53. If there is no money, why should I want to be sponsored by a well known brand? Exposure. Your local video get hundreds of views, a major brand video gets hundreds of thousands of views.
54. Should I get angry when I don't win? No. See rule 1, and get even.
55. Do I need to be fit? You have read rule number one right? Athletes that take their job seriously...see rule 73.
56. Clean bearings or new bearings? Skateboarding is not all about skill. A large part of success is equipment. Did Brock ever turn up at Mt Panorama in a beat up racing car? Does P-Rod start a competition on a thrashed skateboard? Clean your bearings, maintain your gear, and you'll find yourself improving.
57. I can do 50ft standies, will you sponsor me? No. That is like saying I can ollie, sponsor me...and I get those emails as well. A sponsored skater can skate everything, they may choose to specialise in one area, but they can do everything. If you can not skate everything: see rule 1.
58. Everyone passes me going downhill, do I need faster bearings? No, you need a better tuck.
59. Why do I have to skate everyday? Skateboarding is about progression. If you are not progressing, you are not skateboarding
60. Do I have to take drugs? No.
61. What is the most important thing being a professional skater? Staying in control. Anything you do that breaks this rule should be questioned. Take drugs and lose control = wrong. Bomb a hill and lose control = wrong. Roll into mega ramp and lose control = wrong. Get the idea?
62. Why does everyone say no to my sponsorship requests? You're a loser. Seriously, sponsors say no because you make it easy for them to say no. A sponsorship proposal is NOT you asking...will you sponsor me?
63. Question why you need to be sponsored.
64. If you quit the sport because you can not be sponsored, that confirms all the industries reasons why they said no. Pro skaters skate no matter what.
65. I dont like skating in the rain. Move to Vegas.
66. How do I pay for my first overseas trip? Get a job
67. Why should I travel overseas? Cultural exchange. Learning about other communities, and bring the best of what you have experienced and making your local scene better.
68. Does history really matter? Knowing where you came from, and who's shoulders you are standing on is important...especially if they are the people you are asking to sponsor you (think about it) 69. How do I improve? Longboarders should watch skateboard videos and get inspired. Skateboarders should watch longboard videos. Both should watch surf videos.
70. Should I bad mouth another skater? Never. See rule 99. Always be straight with a fellow skaters.
71. Sign of an amateur: - spends more time getting sponsors than skating - never skates by himself - always scamming for the next free deal - blames his sponsors, his gear and never himself - always has an excuse - can drink/smoke faster than they can skate - tells everyone how good they are
73. Sign of a professional - they are an athlete - maintain their gear to get maximum performance - keep fit to get maximum performance from their body - practice when they are not skating - put the interest of the sport first - helping the next generation - humble
74. Why does skating have a future? Because we'll never run out of places that have never been skated
75. Does it matter that I never get sponsored? No, what matters is that you skate for life.
76. All my crew and friends are give up skating, what should I do? Get new friends and crew.
77. Why have my friends given up skating? They have discovered parties, cars, motorbikes, girls and alcohol/drugs. Sad thing is when they get older the thing they will regret is giving up skating.
78. Having a passion does not guarantee success, loving what you do does.
79. Acknowledge that the next generation will have it better, in every way, than you. If that doesn't happen, you failed.
80. Stop worrying about what people think of you.
81. What is the best skill I need to have at an event/race? Being able to be by yourself, motivated and not feel lonely.
82. Companies (big sponsors) set budgets up to 18 months in advance. If you want to be part of their budget, you need to think about your future.
83. You have two main tools: your body and your brain. Develop in equal portions.
84. The most successful professional skaters have two outstanding skills that are not related but are used in conjunction. Skating + film making, skating + writing, skating + photography (understand?)
85. Everything you need to be a pro is found at school/college/university/library. In the age of the internet: reading, writing and creativity is as important as skating.
86. It takes five years to build a business to be successful and it takes five years to become a pro skater.
87. I don't have five years, I need money now! Get a job.
88. Don't look to or predict what will happen in year five when you are at year 1.
88a. I'm past year five and why am I not there yet? Reinvent yourself. That means taking it back to nothing.
89. Skateboarding and longboarding is art. Artists don't have sponsors they have benefactors. Who makes the best benefactors? Friends, family and fools.
90. Sponsorship is marketing. So learn about marketing. Start here.
91. My sponsor wants me to do it his way? Learn his way, do it your way but with respect.
92. Everything has been done, nothing is new, what can I do? Being original is not inventing. It is taking small pieces of what has been invented and creating your own version.
93. What if I just want to party? Come back in 12 months and read this post again.
94. I hate the industry, my last sponsor screwed me. If you want to be a professional skater then you have to forget everything about a bad deal, and never think about it again. You may not believe it, but you were at least half of the problem.
95. Can I be sponsored if I'm shy? Sure, they make some of the best pros. It is not a weakness but a strength. You are more focused, better at listening, make better networks (see rule 98).
96. Education should never stop. We never stop learning skate. We never stop improving our brain. The smartest people I know, failed at school. An exam is not a judge of intelligence, just as a competition is not a judge of a skater's skill. If you don't understand, you need to read more books.
97. Read more books.
98. Successful skaters network. A network is a series of circles - you are in the middle. First circle is friends and family. Second circle is local community. Third circle is online community. Fourth circle is events, competitions and races. Fifth circle is local industry - distributors, sales, shops. Sixth circle is brands. Seventh circle is leaders and mentors.
99. First rule of skate club: membership is not based on how well you skate, but only if you are holding a skateboard or longboard. There are so many haters, we need all the club members we can get!
100. No one is going to pick you, pick yourself Credit to James Altucher for the original idea and the inspiration to write this list. I will be writing a blog soon: Why you dont need to be sponsored.Paul Sperry at CounterJihad unveils a public record showing Omar Mateen gave his house to his sister and Afghan-born brother-in-law virtually for free — with his wife Noor Salman as a witness — two months before he slaughtered dozens of gay clubgoers in Orlando, Florida.
From CounterJihad:
Several weeks before he massacred 49 at an Orlando gay nightclub, Muslim terrorist Omar Seddique Mateen transferred over his interest in his Florida home to his older sister and Afghan brother-in-law, property records show — an indication the family possibly had some knowledge of his martyrdom plans.
Authorities say the fatally shot Mateen clearly was prepared to die in a gun battle with police during the June 12 attack, the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil since 9/11.
On April 5, Mateen “quit-claimed” the deed on his Port St. Lucie, Fla., house, signing it over to his sister, Sabrina Abasin, and his brother-in-law Mustafa Abasin for just $10 according to county property records. The records list his wife Noor Salman as a witness in the curious real estate transaction.
Mateen’s wife, who is expected to be charged as an accessory in her husband’s attack, reportedly has told authorities Mateen began casing targets as early as April. He was regularly training with firearms well before April.
Earlier this week, the mysterious brother-in-law — Mustafa Abasin, aka Mustafa Aurakzai — escorted the widowed Salman, who wore a hoodie to shield her face from cameras, to the Port St. Lucie home to collect belongings. Florida state records indicate he was born in Afghanistan.
Read the rest of the story here.As national mourning is declared for Thailand’s 70 million
inhabitants, RSF is concerned about possible reprisals against local
and foreign reporters who, in the coming days and weeks, cover and
comment on political events linked to the 88-year-old king’s death
and the succession.
“We caution Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha against using
lèse-majesté charges to silence either journalists or members of
the public, who are the ones most affected by the king’s death,”
said Benjamin Ismaïl, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.
“Even if Thailand now faces many political uncertainties, we think
it is not only inevitable but also essential that the media and
social networks discuss all political issues including the monarchy
and the current political regime. Restricting the public debate
would be contrary to the duty of the government and NCPO to serve the
general interest.”
There is no shortage of taboos for the media in Thailand but
lèse-majesté (criticizing the monarchy) is the biggest headache
because the charge is widely used and it is punishable by three to 15
years in prison under article 112 of the penal code. Journalists even
hesitate to cover lèse-majesté court cases or to do online searches
for terms related to the subject.
Hundreds of people, including journalists, intellectuals, academics
and politicians, have been arrested on lèse-majesté charges. As no
more than an anonymous phone call suffices for the Department of
Special Investigations to begin an investigation, strict
self-censorship is the rule.
Three journalists are currently serving a prison sentence on a
lèse-majesté charge. One is Somyot Prueksakasemsuk, the
editor of the magazine Voice of Thaksin, who was sentenced to
11 years in prison for publishing two articles (not by him) in 2010
that were deemed to have defamed the king and the monarchy.
A military court sentenced Kathawuth Bunphithak, a
citizen-journalist and online radio presenter to five years in prison
on 18 November 2014 for hosting a web radio programme on political
subjects that allegedly violated the lèse-majesté law. Six days
later, Thai E-News website editor Somsak Pakdeedech was
sentenced to four and a half years in prison for posting an article
he did not write himself.
Ranked 136th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2016 World Press Freedom Index, Thailand has seen drastic curbs placed on media freedom since
the military staged a coup in May 2014.
RSF issued a report on the situation |
Account Members – This is the basic rule to enforce for yourself reducing your exposure to Alibaba scams. Free accounts are not checked or verified by Alibaba therefore if sellers are serious about offering quality services, they will pay required fees for a Gold Supplier account to validate their commitment. Although this does eliminate scammers, but keep in mind that this doesn’t guarantee a professional service or quality products. Technically you haven’t been ‘scammed’ if you received lower quality products, but it can be just as damaging to your business.
Avoid Big Brands – Branded goods are by far the most common product in these scams on Alibaba. This is because big brands carry high persuasive power that scammers seize this opportunity to carry out their misconduct. They know that a brand attracts higher margins simply because of the name, and it’s very easy to advertise the name. For instance, electronics are particularly attractive to scammers due to their popularity and high profit margin. Alibaba will also notify buyers when big brand names are being searched reminding buyers to be cautious.
Verify Suppliers – Alibaba has their own verification program in place which serves to safeguard buyers by ensuring sellers are legally registered companies. Here is a chart that summarizes the 3 different levels of verification Alibaba,
Verified Documentation – Asking for legal documentation from a Chinese company is another way to quickly reveal untrustworthy companies should they refuse to send you any documentation. Key document to ask for is a business license and legitimate companies usually agree to comply. Keep in mind that you need to verify the documentation, as we all know that pretty much anything can be replicated in China, including official documentation. You can verify documentation received using this website, China Checkup, with a small fee. Get Samples – It is vital that before you invest any significant amount of money into inventory, you need to get samples from suppliers to check and verify product quality. Do Your Homework – Time to play detective and put effort into researching more about suppliers found on Alibaba. The best and easiest way to do is to ask Google for help. Do they have a website? Is the company address legit? Do they have any social media accounts? Do they have any bad reviews online? This may seem obvious, but you will be surprised how many sellers are not doing their homework. The indication of Company Size – You can also use information available on Alibaba to determine the legitimacy of a company. Companies with less than RMB500,000 (around US$75,200) registered capital should be avoided if possible. This is the strongest indicator of the supplier’s scale of operations as the more capital they registered, the more likely they are to care about their reputation.Another good practice is to cross-check the established year of a company and make sure it matches their profile. For instance, the company shown in the image below is established in 2011 and have been on Alibaba for 11 years. Meaning we are in the year 2022 now? Also, the registered capital is only RMB30,000 (around US$4,510) Not sure about you but this sounds dodgy to me!
Compared to the following company which was established in 2013 and have been running the business for 4 years on Alibaba (matches the year we are in now which is 2017). They also have a registered capital of RMB2,000,000 (around US$300,700) which makes them look more trustworthy. Which company would you contact and source from? The answer is pretty obvious. Trade Shows and Exhibitions – Another great way to figure out if a supplier on Alibaba is reliable to to ask if they attend any trade shows or exhibitions throughout the year. It is safe to say that legitimate companies would attend trade shows to promote their businesses and prospect potential clients. You can search the supplier details on the official China Exhibition website should they attend any of these events.
Conclusion
Sourcing for reliable suppliers on Alibaba might be a new experience for you but with all the gold nuggets given in this article, it can be safe and rewarding at the same time. You can refer back to this article and drop a comment whenever you have questions. Always do your due diligence and if a deal feels too good to be true, trust your gut feelings and walk away. There are plenty of suppliers on Alibaba and all within a few clicks away.
There are also other B2B sourcing platforms such as Alibaba’s sister company AliExpress of which you can purchase products in smaller quantity at a higher price of course. You can also check out other popular sourcing platforms such as Made-In-China and Global Sources but do know that majority of suppliers on these alternative platforms are on Alibaba as well. Afterall, Alibaba is still by far the largest online B2B sourcing platform. Best of success sourcing for your reliable suppliers on Alibaba.Spending more on healthcare doesn’t make a nation healthier. We evaluated 5 factors to compare the state of health around the world.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the United States spends more on healthcare than any other country in the world.
But that high spending doesn’t mean we are healthier than other countries. A look at healthcare costs and service outcomes seems to indicate that others are getting more bang for their buck.
Here are some of the key statistics that tell us just where the United States ranks with other world powers in samples of expenditures and outcomes:
1. Total Health Expenditures as a Percentage of GDP
GDP, or gross domestic product, refers to a value placed on a country's goods and services. It is the single most important measure used in determining inflation and the economic health of a nation.
At 17.2 percent of GDP, the United States was definitely spending a higher percentage of its resources on healthcare in 2016 than these other developed countries.
2. Annual Costs of Healthcare Per Capita
Another useful way of looking at what a country is spending on healthcare is to examine the average amount it spent in a year per person for this purpose.
This number can be compared to other years and to other countries to get some idea about the effectiveness of governmental policies concerning healthcare.
With numbers such as these, we can compare what other developed countries spent on average for each of their citizens in 2016 in contrast to the United States' per capita healthcare expenditures that year.
In the United States, the annual cost of healthcare per capita was $9,892.00 and is still rising.
While politicians fight with one another, the United States continues to be number one in high healthcare costs per capita.
3. World's Infant Mortality Rates Per 1,000 Live Births
The infant mortality rate is based on the number of deaths in children under one year of age per 1,000 following live births.
The highest rates in the world are found in underdeveloped countries without government services, clean water or adequate health care.
The infant mortality rate remains higher in the U.S. than in most other developed nations.
The infant mortality rate in the United States is estimated to be 5.67, almost three times that of Japan.
4. Life Expectancy Across the Globe
Life expectancy is the average number of years persons born in the same year are expected to live and is based on the numbers and ages of recorded deaths.
In the U.S., life expectancy is surprisingly lower than in many other developed countries.
For the United States, the average life expectancy was 81.6. That is five years less than Japan.
5. MRI Machine Availability
MRIs are used to take pictures of the inside body structure and of organs. They are used both for diagnoses and for monitoring certain treatments.
A recent Globe Newswire article from October 2017 reported that the "Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems market is projected to exceed USD 8.5 billion by 2024."
The high costs associated with MRI Machine use further restricts the likelihood that poorer countries will be able to afford the machines in their local environments.
This chart shows the number of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) units in selected (OECD) countries per million inhabitants as of 2015 (or latest year available):
In the United States, 35.5 MRI machines were available for every million people, second only to Japan in this grouping of industrialized nations.
Why the Discrepancy?
Statistics such as these beg the question of why the United States spends so much on healthcare but achieves inferior outcomes to its neighbors.
The answer may lie in costs for drugs, medical equipment, health insurance administration and waste.Well, this feels like a blast from a past. The Brand New/Taking Back Sunday feud was truly one for the ages, and all these years later, in 2015, we’re still learning more.
In a recent interview with O.C. Weekley, TBS frontman Adam Lazzara called BN singer Jesse Lacey a “dick” and “not a good person.”
Read a clip from the interview where Lazzara discusses Lacey below:
When asked about playing a song like “There's No 'I' In Team,” which directly references a longstanding feud with the band Brand New (specifically front man/former Taking Back Sunday bassist Jesse Lacey), Lazzara continues to add fuel to the old fire.
“I think Jesse Lacey is just a dick,” he says. “He just sucks. He's not a good person.”
Lazzarra [sic] goes on
“Who am I to say?”, he says. “There's somebody out there that's gonna say I'm not a good person. I don't know.”
Read more: When your head goes through the windshield: the 10 best moments of the TBS/Brand New feudDefault Title - £6.00 GBP Regular price £6.00 £6.00 (Roughly $8 or €7) Quantity Add to Cart
These beautiful metallic ink posters are perfect for your home or design studio. Clients and friends will love them.
Each poster is limited to just 400 examples.
The posters are printed using silver metallic ink (Pantone 877) on 250gsm paper. Each design is made from 8 individual cards and when combined produces a poster unlike any other normal poster. And the "cut up" design reduces the amount of postage you have to pay. Like flat pack furniture but without the instructions.
You don't even need to pay to get them framed – they look great stuck straight on your wall.
Individual card size: A5 (148 x 210mm or 5.8 x 8.3in)
Complete poster size: A2 (420 x 594mm or 16.5 x 23.4in)
When putting your poster up leave a 10mm gap between cards for best appearance.Two former Whitehorse doctors have been ordered to pay damages to a patient for years of pain and suffering caused by a birth control device they had failed to remove in 1986.
The patient, Chrystal Tupper, was fitted with an intrauterine device for birth control in 1985. She complained of abdominal cramps and was planning to have it removed the next year when she became pregnant.
Doctors Roger Mitchell and Gerald Doersam were tasked with performing an abortion and a tubal ligation as well as removing the IUD.
Both doctors failed to find the device and both assumed, without talking to each other, the device had been expelled before or during the abortion.
Tupper too assumed the IUD was gone, as nobody told her otherwise. For the next 20 years, the abdominal cramps and chronic pelvic pain continued.
It wasn't until 2006 that Tupper's doctors discovered the copper device had moved to an unusual location. They removed it surgically.
In his ruling, Yukon Supreme Court Justice Gerard Hawco blamed Mitchell and Doersam for not ensuring the device was gone.
He awarded Tupper $60,000 plus special costs for the pain and suffering she endured because of their negligence.There's a growing concern for sea lions across the Southland. Six more were found dead over the weekend, and the numbers are skyrocketing at alarming rates.According to animal rescue officials, there have been 210 sea lion deaths in 2015. That number is much higher than average, which ranges from about 50-75.Monday morning, Peter Wallerstein with Marine Animal Rescue picked up an underweight sea lion pup from a dock in Marina del Rey. He said the 9-month-old pup had already been tagged by federal researchers."These animals aren't finding food right now, and there's tons of them coming up on the beach," Wallerstein said.Area residents first spotted the pup Sunday night."I could see his hip bones jutting out through his skin. I could see his entire rib cage when he was on his side, very skinny," described Dana Feldman of Marina del Rey.On Sunday, six sea lions were found dead on beaches in El Segundo and El Porto, near the northern end of Manhattan Beach.The big reason for the spike in sea lion deaths is hunger. Marine experts say unusually warm water is forcing nursing mothers to head further out to sea to find food. As a result, sea lion pups are being left behind."When they don't come back for the pups, the pups leave and then they're lost. They can't find food, and they're starving and hypothermic," Wallerstein said.Already this year, more than 900 sick sea lion pups have been cared for along the West Coast. More than 500 of those pups are still in rehabilitation. Those numbers are typically lower as well, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.Meantime, Sea World in San Diego has actually shut down its sea lion live show for two weeks, so trainers can help rescue the sick and emaciated pups.As for the rehab process, the pups are given a fluid and antibiotic treatment and are hopefully released after a few months.It you do see sick sea lions, experts say you should not approach them because they are known to bite."Don't pour water on them, don't try to feed them. Just don't do anything. Just wait for rescuers to come," Wallerstein advised.Animal rescue officials said the pup rescued Monday morning will likely make a full recovery.Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) (BRK-B) was a struggling textile company when Warren Buffett first invested in it in 1962.
Today, it’s a $400 billion behemoth. In Buffett’s own words, it’s a “sprawling conglomerate, constantly trying to sprawl further.”
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The companies in Berkshire’s portfolio vary greatly. But one thing ties them all together: Buffett says they’re about “maximizing long-term capital growth.”
Here’s a brief introduction to Berkshire Hathaway.
The insurance business is the backbone of the company
After it acquired National Indemnity in 1967, Berkshire relied on its insurance businesses to power much of its expansion.
As Berkshire has gotten bigger and diversified its businesses, its insurance operations have become a smaller contributor to earnings than in the past, currently making up 26% of total company earnings. But they remain an important part of the company’s access to a permanent capital base by generating what’s known as “float.”
Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett talks in front of a mock BNSF railroad engine. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
“Float” is money collected up front that is not paid out until later. In Berkshire’s property & casualty (P&C) insurance businesses, premiums are collected up front, but claims are paid out often years or decades later, allowing the float to be used for investments.
Today, Berkshire’s insurance group consists of four segments: GEICO (auto insurance), General Re (reinsurance), BH Reinsurance Group (retroactive reinsurance through subsidiaries), and BH Primary (focused on commercial markets, led by National Indemnity Co).
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The property and casualty insurance business has faced headwinds—including deteriorating pricing and margin compression. But 2016 posted solid performance, with GEICO in particular making a comeback. Last year, GEICO suffered from higher personal auto claims (as a result of more low gas prices and more driving), and this year it accelerated new business efforts.
Berkshire’s insurance float was only $1.6 billion in 1990, and sat at $91.6 billion as of 2016. It is now over $100 billion, including the $10 billion reinsurance deal with AIG (AIG).
Equity portfolio
Berkshire’s investment portfolio represents Buffett’s long-term conviction ideas.
At the end of 2016, about 60% of his equity portfolio was invested in five companies—Wells Fargo (WFC), Coca-Cola (KO), IBM (IBM), American Express (AXP) and Apple (AAPL), a position he initiated last year and built up even more recently.
Buffett also made a big bet on airlines last year, diverging from his position in the past. He significantly increased his positions in Delta (DAL), United Airlines (UAL) and American Airlines (AAL) while adding a big stake in Southwest Air (LUV).
Shift to non-insurance businesses
Berkshire has evolved from its early years, when it was an insurance-driven company driven by outperformance on investments. It is now a large conglomerate that includes many non-insurance businesses.
The railroad business now comprises 22% of Berkshire earnings. Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (BNSF), which Berkshire acquired in 2009 for $44 billion, is one of seven major railroads in North America and carries 17% of all inter-city freight. Berkshire has been investing heavily in this business.
Utilities businesses comprise 10% of Berkshire earnings. BH Energy owns four utilities servicing customers in 11 Western/Midwestern states, two electricity distribution companies in England, two interstate pipelines, a renewable energy business, and a residential real estate brokerage firm.
Berkshire’s manufacturing, service and retailing (MSR) operations, 35% of total earnings, include everything from candy to jets. Companies include food supply chain company McLane, manufacturing businesses (like specialty chemicals company Lubrizol, industrial components company Marmon, flooring company Shaw Industries, and paint and coatings company Benjamin Moore), service and retailing businesses (including NetJets, See’s Candies, Borsheim Jewelry Company, the Pampered Chef, and Oriental Trading Company), recently acquired battery maker Duracell, and aerospace components manufacturer Precision Castparts, which Berkshire bought in 2015 for $37 billion.
Its finance businesses, 8% of earnings, focus largely on the manufacturing and financing of homes and the leasing of transportation equipment. They include Clayton Homes, UTLX, XTRA, and other leasing and financing activities.
Acquisitions accounted for about 60% of Berkshire’s earnings growth in the past 20 years, according to Morgan Stanley.
As Morgan Stanley’s Kai Pan points out, Berkshire has a “managers as owners,” mentality, a decentralization that allows each unit to focus on long-term goals. Additionally, Pan highlights, each unit maintains an economic “moat” in its respective industry, separating it from competition to some degree.
More acquisitions are likely on the horizon for Berkshire, which has an estimated $60 billion in excess capital.
Valuation
Buffett’s preferred method for evaluating the attractiveness of investments and businesses is intrinsic value, which represents the sum of all of discounted cash flows that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life. The investor Whitney Tilson sees the current intrinsic value at $300,000 per share, significantly above the recent share price of $247,520.
Book value is another approach used to value Berkshire. However, Buffett has noted that the metric has underrepresented Berkshire’s intrinsic value because of the number of operating businesses Berkshire has acquired, which are held on the books at cost.
A book value calculation does, however, provide a floor for investors. Berkshire has an open-ended share repurchase program that authorizes management to repurchase shares if the stock price drops below a price-to-book ratio of 1.2x.
Beneficiary of stimulus
As Morgan Stanley’s Kai Pan points out, Berkshire has large exposure to Industrials and Financials and thus will be a major beneficiary of the administration’s “pro-growth” policies and tax reform, if they pan out.
“Given Berkshire’s outsized exposure in Industrials and Financials, it is not surprising that BRK shares have rallied +22% post-election vs. +14% for the S&P 500,” Pan wrote on March 20. “A potentially lower US corporate tax rate would also aid earnings. A 20% tax rate could boost BRK earnings by ~14% vs. its current ~30% consolidated tax rate,” he added.
The bottom line: Berkshire’s business has transformed over the years, but remains focused on long-term return and the efficient use of capital.
Nicole Sinclair is markets correspondent for Yahoo Finance
More about Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway:Almost three years ago I went on a first date. Little did I know that first date would bring me on countless adventures that have enriched my life. Memories that will last forever were made all based off of a first date to Walden Pond. Hopefully this story will inspire you to explore your own backyard.
Here's the thing, this first date kicked off three amazing relationships. The first and most important is with my amazing girlfriend (we've been together since). The second is with a game called Geocaching. The third is my blossoming relationship with my own sense of adventure, curiosity and love of nature.
I owe all of this to Jess (obviously). Jess introduced me to this amazing game called Geocaching. Feel free to checkout geocaching.com for the best introduction possible but I'm a talker so I also want to tell you all about this great game - but first, some pictures that will show you the beauty that exists in your own backyard.
It is important for me to remember that almost every adventure we take is very close to home and yet, we see amazing and new places every time we go geocaching. We have lived in the Boston area for most of our lives and yet, we discover new places all of the time.
If you're new to Boston, check out this article from our friends over at Journey Boston. Learn about Boston's history while exploring one of the most vibrant cities.
The view from Boston Harbor - headed for Spectacle Island.
This Art Park would have been forever hidden if someone hadn't hidden a Geocache nearby.
This beautiful lake in southern New Hampshire was only discovered because of a Geocache hide.
We found this rope course after a day of winter caching in southern Vermont.
The Lynn Woods is a gem hidden away. Go here, it's amazing!
So what is my rap about Geocaching?
Geocaching is an international treasure hunting game that uses high-tech satellites and GPS (your smart phone, duh) to help you explore your own backyard and beyond. You follow a compass, use hints and a developed-over-time sense for finding the containers that have small items to trade and a log book to prove your victory.
There are special items called Travel Bugs, Trackables, or Geocoins that are passionately sought after by experienced cachers. These items are very cool to find and trade, but the best part of Geocaching is when you find beautiful and unique places that have been in your own backyard this whole time.
Before you go on your next adventure,
be sure to check out our free First Hike Checklist!
Geocaching takes almost no time to learn, but takes forever to master. We recommend looking in state parks for great places for new geocachers. If you are in the Boston area, we recommend geocaching in Blue Hills Reservation. Check out this blog post to learn about 5 Tips for Geocaching in Blue Hills.Hamid Nehal Ansari, a Mumbai resident, was taken into custody by Pakistani police and Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials in Kohat near Peshawar in November 2012.
A 31-year-old Indian national, who had gone missing in Pakistan in 2012, has been sentenced to three years in prison by a Pak military court for espionage.Hamid Nehal Ansari was convicted on Sunday in Kohat, a city in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, and was shifted to Peshawar Central Prison, a jail spokesman said.He has a right to appeal under the Pakistan Army Act.India had sought consular access for Mr Ansari, an engineer, and asked Pakistan to ensure his safety and security.According to Dawn, Mr Ansari has confessed to illegally entering Pakistan from Afghanistan for espionage. He had seven Facebook accounts as well as around 30 email addresses. He was reportedly found to be in possession of sensitive documents, it claimed.Over three years after Mr Ansari went missing in Pakistan where he had allegedly gone to meet a girl he had befriended on the Internet, authorities last month admitted that he has been in army custody and facing a trial in military courts.In light of the information, a two-member bench had on January 13 disposed off a habeas corpus petition filed by Fauzia Ansari, the convict's mother, against his alleged illegal detention.Court had asked the government to respond to the petition by Fauzia Ansari on the whereabouts of her son.In response, Military Intelligence Directorate intimated that Mr Ansari was in military custody and is being tried by a military court.Mr Ansari, a Mumbai resident, was taken into custody by police and Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials in Kohat, about 70 kms from Peshawar, in November 2012. Ever since, his whereabouts were unknown. Mr Ansari's mother claimed he was in touch with some Pakistani friends who had suggested him to cross into Pakistan from Afghanistan without a visa. She claimed that he had befriended a Pakistani woman through social media and had gone to Pakistan to meet her.Tesla’s Premium Upgrade Package for the Model X and Model S includes an assortment of technology advancements including the Bio Weapons air filtration system, and what the company describes as “Soft LED ambient interior lighting”.
Illumination from the interior LED lighting is quite subtle and dim enouabgh that one could argue that it provides little more than just a faint glow. The same applies for the trunk and front trunk (“frunk”) lighting which I find hardly useable especially during the dead of night when I pull into a dimly lit destination charging location, and fumble my way through a mix of bags full of mystery items that my wife and kids packed, makeshift trash bags, and other roadtrip related goodies, before finally locating the correct overnight bags. And even then, I’m able to find the right items simply because I unearthed everything else from frunk and located it via process of elimination. True story by the way. (Times 10)
#FirstWorldProblems
That said, please don’t get me wrong, Tesla’s factory ambient lights adds a nice accent point to the footwell and interior door panels, however there’s also been times where I wish I could have more visible light when entering or exiting the car, but without turning on the overhead light. Why? Well, for one, the interior dome lights are bright, especially inside a glass bubble that is the Model X front cockpit. Turning on the interior lighting in essence illuminates my entire face and the faces of all family members traveling with me for neighboring fellows and passersby to see. Call me self-conscious or protective Dad – the X alone solicits enough eyeballs – but more often than not I’m thinking, man, everyone can see us. It’s either too bright or too dark – I need an in-between.
That’s when I reached out to Abstract Ocean who I knew made an Ultra-Bright LED lighting kit for the Model S, but unsure if they had a similar kit for the Model X. Rob had previously reviewed the Ultra-Brights on his Model S and absolutely loved it so I figured I’d give it a shot as well, assuming they had ones that fit the X and it will serve my purpose of only lighting up the lower half of the car.
I contact Pete from Abstract Ocean and ask him if I can “try out a set” for the Model X. He tells me he’s unsure if they’ll fit but there’s a good chance they will given that the Model S and Model X share a lot of the same interior components. I somehow convince Pete that I would be the perfect person to help him do some test fitting if he were to send me a set. (I had a long roadtrip coming up and the sheer thought of me glowing inside the Model X cockpit like a goldfish inside an aquarium with dome lights overhead, and fumbling through darkness while searching for belongings packed into the frunk, struck fear in me.)
“They’re sold out, but we should be getting a new shipment in three weeks”, says Pete. What! Uh, OK, didn’t realize they were this popular, I’m thinking. I later find out that it’s one of Abstract Ocean’s best sellers, and rightfully so.
A month passes by and a bubble-lined padded envelope appears at the office, and inside is – you guessed it – Ultra-Bright LEDs!
Ultra-Bright LED Lighting Kit for Tesla Model X
I’ll cut straight to the chase. The Model S and Model X LED interior light assemblies are identical. The Model X has 11 rectangular white LEDs (seen in the photo above) positioned across the doors, trunk, frunk and footwells. 2 LEDs are red with each one located on the outer edge of the front door. The level of difficult to install them varies ranging from a quick and easy direct pop-out that takes no longer than 2 minutes, to more difficult light assemblies that are hard pressed into rigid plastic.
Model S and Model X LED interior light assemblies are identical
Instead of going into detail on how to install these lights, since they’re truly just plug-n-play and self explanatory to install, I’ll just highlight a few tips for each area along with my perception of the result. Also note that I will not provide before and after photos. Just after. It was near impossible to get a great nighttime before shot since, well, it’s nighttime and photos don’t capture well in darkness. Using flash would have defeated the purpose and not give a true depiction of the area pre-Ultra-Bright LED.
Where are the interior Model X LEDs located?
As mentioned earlier, the Model X has a total of 11 rectangular shaped white LEDs not including the 2 red ones on the outer edge of the front doors.
Frunk – QTY: 2
The frunk has 2 LEDs on the side closest to the hood latch. These lights are one of the easiest to install and should be attempted first as the “practice run”. The entire process can be completed in less than 4 minutes since the light assembly itself simply presses into the carpet lining and easily removable without the use of tools. Once the assembly is dislodged, the connectors can be easily disconnected from the assembly and plugged directly into the replacement Ultra-Bright LED. This same procedure will apply to all subsequent lights being installed.
The results are drastic as the Ultra-Bright LEDs are significantly brighter than the factory LEDs. Of all of the lights I installed into the car, these provide the most useful value.
Front Dash (footwell) – Qty: 2
The lights rest beneath the front dashboard and on each side of the driver and passenger footwell. The light assembly is pressed into the thin plastic covering that lines the bottom of the dashboard.
Removing the LED assembly takes a little more strength to remove and requires that you use either a spudger tool or a thin pry tool that you can wedge in-between the plastic lining and LED assembly. Once you’re able to gently pry the assembly away from the plastic trim, you can use 2 fingers to firmly grip and pull the assembly from the trim. Because of the location of the light, I found the easiest way to access it is by laying on your back while looking up at the light assembly.
The lighting effect is stunning especially when combined with the lighting upgrade beneath the second row seating. It’s just bright enough to provide useful lighting for ease of entry and exit, but not bright enough to cast light anywhere above the seat. No goldfish effect.
Front Seat (underneath) – Qty: 2
Below each of the front seats is an LED attached to a plastic LED housing secured to a thin mesh cloth. Popping the LED out was simple and can be done without the use of tools. The most difficult part about this 5 min install is being able to access the light nestled deep beneath each seat.
Abstract Ocean Tesla Model X-Ultra-Bright LED Footwell
These lights provide the most dramatic effect. With falcon wing doors up and the self-presenting doors open, the entire car looks and feels like a majestic spacecraft.
Front Door (puddle lights) – Qty: 2
Beneath each of the front doors is a puddle light that illuminates the area directly below each door. Applying the same techniques used on the other areas, gently pry the light assembly from the plastic door panel using a spudger or other pry tool of choice – just enough so you can get a firm grip on each corner of the light with your fingers. Pull the assembly away from the door, disconnect the connector, and plug it into the new Ultra-Bright LED.
The power of these bulbs and the direction in which it’s pointed creates a bright cloud of white beneath each front door making for a great look. The puddle lights also serve as very useful lighting especially in darker areas where one might not be able to see where they might be walking.
Note that each door also has a red LED which I chose not to replace. I personally don’t see a need to make these brighter.
Trunk – Qty: 2
This is by far the most difficult install of them all. I’m not sure if it was isolated to my particular Model X or all, but the light assembly mounted to the rear hatch is extremely difficult to dislodge from the plastic panel.
It’s a tight fit and the assembly is wedged so tightly into the plastic that prying with a spudger tool will only break the tip of the tool. I ended up using a tiny flathead screwdriver to pry my way around the light assembly, but even with that it took many attempts, and a lot of accidental scraping against the plastic trim before I was able to muscle the assembly out of the rear hatch.
It also helps if you fold the third row seats down and sit inside the trunk while facing outwards. This will give you a better view and access to the hatch-mounted LED assembly. The other LED in the trunk can’t be easier to remove since it’s simply pressed into the carpet lining on the right of the trunk.
I’d have to say that the upgraded trunk lighting did not have as significant of an impact on overall usefulness than the frunk lighting had. This is primarily because there’s only one LED mounted to the right of the trunk. The painfully difficult to install hatch light provides little value in my opinion due to the angle in which the light shines, and also the LED’s distance from the surface of the trunk.
Glove Box – Qty: 1
Last but not least, there’s the single LED inside the top of the glovebox. Given that I rarely use the glovebox and the level of difficulty to access this light, I decided to skip it. Plus, with items stowed inside a glovebox and occupying most of the glovebox space, there’s really no value to have a brighter light within such a confined area.
How much, where and why?
Abstract Ocean markets its Ultra-Bright LEDs as being 16x brighter than Tesla’s factory interior LED lights, but from a non-scientific and just eyeballin’ it perspective, it looks as if it’s half of that, and thankfully so. Anymore and it might as well illuminate the entire car. Again, non-scientific, but the lighting from the LEDS are drastic enough that it makes for a huge improvement in useable light.
I upgraded a total of 10 white LED bulbs (though there are 11) on the Model X which can be obtained for $45.99 for a pack of 4 via Amazon, it’s a small price to pay for better useable lighting when getting into and exiting the car. And of course the reassurance that you’ll be able to finally see what you’re really taking out of the frunk and trunk.
Updated: Here’s a good video showing the installation of the Ultra-Brights on a Model X.As part of the London Open House weekend, there will be tours of four Crossrail sites to see the work that is converting them into future Elizabeth line stations.
Tours need to be prebooked, and tickets are being released today at lunchtime.
All tours take place on the Saturday (16th Sept) only.
Please read the Key Information about each tour when booking.
Farringdon (10am – 4pm)
Two tours will held at Farringdon – a self guided tour of western ticket hall and a guided tour underground:
Ticket hall tour – A view of the new western ticket hall apse ceiling and ongoing works. Timed entry every 30 mins.
Platform tour – A view of the platforms and escalator spaces below ground. Timed tours every hour.
Liverpool Street (10am – 5pm)
Presentation in our site office then guided tour of the Broadgate ticket hall. Timed tours every hour.
Whitechapel (9am – 1pm)
Guided tour of the new station concourse sitting atop the London Overground and London Underground. Timed tours every 30 minutes.
Canary Wharf (1pm – 4pm)
Self guided tour of the station entrance, ticket hall and platform — and the first chance to see the newly installed platform screen doors. Timed entry every 30 minutes.Stock photo distributors must be squirming in fear. Researchers from Google have developed an algorithm that completely removes watermarks from images in a matter of seconds – and it works entirely automatically.
Photography professionals will often slap watermarks on their images to protect their copyrights and prevent people from using them without their permission. However, the researchers were able to identify a glaring error in this approach and exploit it to negate the visibility of watermarks altogether.
The method – which has been documented in more detail in a paper titled On the Effectiveness of Visible Watermarks [PDF] – essentially takes advantage of the fact that watermarks, by design, are applied to photos in the exact same manner.
While this makes it easier for stock photography markets to establish their brand, Googlers were able to leverage this consistency in order to develop a computer algorithm that is capable of autonomously editing out signature marks out of images.
The technique is explained more extensively in the video below:
The outcome is pretty impressive. For comparison, while manually wiping watermarks from photos could take several minutes even for Photoshop pros, the researchers were able to train a model to perform the same task much quicker – and without any intervention from humans.
The Googlers explain that the trick was to teach the computer how to accurately identify the repeating watermark structures and then fine-tune it how to replace them convincingly.
“If a similar watermark is embedded in many images, the watermark becomes the signal in the collection and the images become the noise, and simple image operations can be used to pull out a rough estimation of the watermark pattern,” Tali Dekel and Michael Rubinstein reveal.
Here is how this looks in action:
Fortunately for stock photo vendors, the researchers also took the initiative to come up with a more robust way to |
original After Burner is turned up to 11 with eye-popping visuals, pumping remixed music, and the Matrix-like Climax Mode which slows down time. The game was later ported to mobile phones.
95 (TIE): Seaman (1999)
Dreamcast
When game designer Yoot Saito unleashed this bizarre title to the SEGA Dreamcast, most people just chuckled at the name. But those who played it found a surprisingly deep and addictive game. While the voice recognition wasn’t perfect, for the time it was revolutionary. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to feed my seaman.
96: MadWorld (2009)
Wii
This over the top hack and slash from Platinum Games was not the type of software would would expect on Nintendo’s family friendly Wii, and that’s why we loved it. Presented in black, white and red the game combined a post apocalyptic setting with reality television to create a truly unique game. Platinum attempted to revive the series with 2012’s Anarchy Reigns, but SEGA didn’t seem to care enough about their investment to market it.
97: Sonic Spinball (1993)
Mega Drive/Genesis
After experiencing Sonic 2’s Casino Night Zone, gamers were left wondering what a full-on Sonic pinball game would be like. They didn’t have to wait long, as SEGA answered that question with Sonic Spinball. The game doesn’t perfectly recreate Sonic 2’s physics, but it does offer up great graphics, catchy music and addicting pinball gameplay. The game was later ported to Game Gear and Master System.
98: Wonder Boy In Monster Land (1987)
Arcade, Master System
Westone Bit’s second Wonder Boy game changed the genre to action RPG, playing similarly to other home console RPGs of the time. What made Wonder Boy unique was that it attempted to fuse arcade and home console RPG elements, and the game itself released to arcades and soon after to the SEGA Master System. In 2008, game designer Hideki Kamiya (Director of Bayonetta) listed Wonder Boy in Monster Land among his favorite games, citing it as one of the games that influenced his work.
99: Sonic Heroes (2003)
GameCube, Xbox, PS2
Some fans may scoff at the fact that Sonic Heroes made the list, but consider these points: the game was the first and only Sonic game to feature a dozen playable characters, the first multi-platform Sonic game and the best-selling 3D Sonic game to date. Also, Big the Cat made his triumphant return to gaming.
100: Fantasy Zone 2 (1987)
Master System
Fantasy Zone was originally a game released exclusively for the Master System, but later got remade as a hypothetical arcade version called Fantasy Zone II W. The game plays like the first Fantasy Zone, but introduces the concept of warps. In the Master System version you warped between areas, while in the arcade version you can optionally warp between the Light World and Dark World, the latter being more difficult but also more rewarding. The game was later remade for System 16 hardware by M2 in 2008, and this version was later released to the Nintendo 3DS by way of the 3D Classics Collection.
Analysis
Top 100 games by platform
The Genesis/Mega Drive, Arcade, Saturn and Dreamcast made up nearly half of the list, with the Genesis/Mega Drive being the clear favorite era of games. Interestingly, despite the Dreamcast’s popularity, the console was just barely beaten out by the Saturn. Arcade ranked second, and the large percentage makes sense given that for the sake of this list we did not differentiate arcade boards or eras, considering arcade as a platform of its own. It’s pretty amazing that PS3 managed to beat out PC when for the sake of this list PC, like arcade, is a broad platform.
Top 100 games by release year
SEGA’s first party era as a hardware maker and game developer lasted 17 years, 8 months and 16 days, and the third party era will match this duration on December 16, 2018. While SEGA’s output has lessened since the discontinuation of the Dreamcast, it says something of their quality since going third party when the list is nearly 40% post-2001 era games. SEGA hardware not represented on the list include the SG-1000, 32X and Pico, though it could be argued that Space Harrier on 32X could count. 1993 is clearly the most popular year for favorite games, and it makes sense given both the quality of SEGA’s output at that time and the amount of hardware that was being supported simultaneously. There almost appears to be a rise and fall in the 90s, with 1993 being the peak. A decline in favorites occurs between 2001 and 2003, with a drought between 2004 and 2005. Despite Sonic’s performance that year, 2006 saw several favorites across multiple platforms. 2010 and 2012 are clearly SEGA’s most popular years in the third party era. It will be interesting to see how 2002 through 2015 will be viewed in another ten years, as often nostalgia can give a boost to favorite video games. 2017, not represented on this list, is already looking like SEGA’s best year for games since 2012.
Top 10 games by release year
As far as the top 10 games, nearly every era (aside from modern consoles) and nearly every major SEGA home console (aside from the Master System) sees representation, though there is a clear favorite. The Dreamcast sees five games cracking the top 10, while the Genesis sees three games and the Saturn sees one. Shenmue II gives the Xbox representation on the top 10, with the only other third party era game being 2008’s Valkyria Chronicles for the PS3 at number 10. This is pretty big news for fans of the series, as it is the only SEGA developed franchise born out of the third party era to even make the top 25, though the Platinum Games developed Bayonetta did place 17th and several sequels and franchise crossovers from the third party era did make the top 25. It would be interesting to see how the Yakuza series is seen in another few years, given the resurgence that took place this past year.
There are lots of numbers to pour over, including several games that did not make the top 100. Expect more franchise exclusive lists in the coming weeks as well as additional analysis. In the meantime, discuss the list in the comments below, on our forums or the SEGAbits Discord chat!ISACA has written a report of the recent US legislation on cyber security.The report summarises the key points and provides expert industry commentary. The report can be downloaded at http://www.isaca.org/cyber/Pages/cybersecuritylegislation.aspx?cid=pr_1105907&appeal=pr
The following release also provides additional information.
Sydney, Australia (30 April 2015)—Global IT association ISACA has added a new CSX Special Report to its Cybersecurity Legislation Watch center as part of its Cybersecurity Nexus (CSX). The report explains the details underlying two cybersecurity information sharing bills—the Protecting Cyber Networks Act (PCNA) and National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement (NCPA) Act—recently passed by the US House of Representatives.
The new seven-page CSX Special Report: U.S. House Passes Cybersecurity Information Sharing Legislation provides insights on cyber threats as defined in the PCNA and NCPA Act. The report details cybersecurity information sharing between private entities and the federal government as well as the impact the legislation will have on businesses. These acts were passed after US President Obama’s recent declaration of cybercrime as a national emergency and his executive order authorising new sanctions against cyber attackers.
Recently, ISACA and RSA Conference conducted a global survey, the State of Cybersecurity: Implications for 2015, of 649 cybersecurity and IT managers or practitioners. The survey shows that 77 per cent of respondents experienced an increase in cyber attacks from 2013 to 2014 and 82 per cent of organisations expect a cyber attack in 2015.
The NCPA Act authorises information sharing with the US Department of Homeland Security, while the PCNA provides companies the choice to share cyber threat indicators or defensive measures with a number of different government agencies.
“Cyber security is a critical, evolving issue, and ISACA works to keep professionals updated and aware of developments,” said Robert E Stroud, CGEIT, CRISC, international president of ISACA and vice president of strategy and innovation at CA Technologies. “Creating and sharing special reports like this helps professionals become more cyber aware and understand progress being made that can affect them and their enterprises.”
CSX offers extensive resources to address the cybersecurity skills gap through training, performance-based credentials and applied research. In October 2015, ISACA will host the first CSX conference in Washington DC to bring together global thought leaders in cybersecurity. Recently, ISACA introduced skills-based training with performance based exams and seven new CSX certifications to help professionals build and evolve their careers in cyber.
ISACA’s Cybersecurity Legislation Watch center will continue to provide periodic updates on cybersecurity legislation and reports. To view the special report on the Cybersecurity Legislation Watch center, visit www.isaca.org/cybersecurity-legislation.To learn about the guidance and resources offered in ISACA’s CSX, visit www.isaca.org/cyber.
About ISACA
A global association of 140,000 professionals in 180 countries, ISACA® (www.isaca.org) helps business and IT leaders build trust in, and value from, information and information systems. Established in 1969, ISACA is the trusted source of knowledge, standards, networking, and career development for information systems audit, assurance, security, risk, privacy and governance professionals.
Follow ISACA on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ISACANews
Join ISACA on LinkedIn: ISACA (Official), http://linkd.in/ISACAOfficial
Like ISACA on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ISACAHQ
Participate in the ISACA Knowledge Center: www.isaca.org/knowledge-centerWASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Sunday it was likely that former Illinois Atty. Gen. Roland Burris would be seated as the state's newest senator this week after a legal review of new paperwork regarding the Senate appointment.
The review Monday by Senate legal counsel marks the latest twist in the on-again, off-again seating of Burris, who was appointed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich three weeks after the now-impeached Illinois governor was arrested on federal corruption charges that include allegations he attempted to sell the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. While it appeared the Senate was closer Sunday to seating Burris, there are potential hitches.
Senate Democrats spent about 30 minutes discussing Burris' situation in a closed-door meeting Sunday that resulted in Obama's chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, cooling his heels in a Senate hallway waiting to discuss the president-elect's economic recovery package.
"This thing changes by the day," Durbin said, explaining why he and his colleagues spent such a long time discussing the matter.
Durbin, who ranks second in Democratic leadership, told the Tribune that a decision by the Senate legal counsel was expected Monday and that Burris, the first African-American elected to statewide office in Illinois, likely would be seated this week.
At issue are documents obtained Friday by Burris from Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White's office. One document is a letter signed by Blagojevich announcing the Dec. 30 appointment of Burris, which was filed with the secretary of state's office. The other is a certificate signed by White and stamped with the state seal attesting that the accompanying Blagojevich appointment letter is a "true and accurate copy" of what was registered by the secretary of state.
Senate Democrats had maintained that without an appointment certified by the signatures of Blagojevich and White, Burris could not take the Senate seat under a rule dating to 1884. White's refusal to sign the Blagojevich appointment was the prime reason given by senators when they had Burris turned away Tuesday as he tried to enter the chamber and take the oath of office.
Senate Democrats had originally staked out a position against seating any appointee from Blagojevch following his Dec. 9 arrest on corruption charges that included allegations he sought a Cabinet post, an ambassadorship or a high-paying private sector job in exchange for naming a candidate preferred by Obama. Blagojevich has said he is innocent.
Obama initially sided with Senate Democrats and urged Blagojevich's resignation, but he later urged senators to settle the Burris issue, which had become a distraction when lawmakers should focus on his economic stimulus plans. In addition, the Senate Democratic caucus has splintered over the Burris issue. Some are concerned that Burris should not be turned away for a seat previously held by Obama, who had been the chamber's only black senator, and others did not want to be involved in a parochial Illinois matter.
At the same time, Blagojevich's impeachment by the Illinois House on Friday, which could lead to the governor's removal from office, also caused some senators to rethink their position on quickly seating Burris, said a Democratic source who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak about the situation.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Durbin, in a meeting with Burris last week, told the appointee he would need to testify before a special Illinois House panel that ultimately recommended Blagojevich's impeachment and that he would need White's signature to certify Blagojevich's appointment.
Burris testified at the panel last week and denied any quid pro quo was involved in Blagojevich naming him to the Senate. But the Illinois Supreme Court rejected Burris' attempts to force White to sign the certification, saying the secretary of state had complied with what was required of him. The justices, however, suggested the alternative paperwork Burris submitted to Senate Democratic leaders.
Senate Democrats had initially sought to stall Burris' appointment, tying it up in hopes that Illinois lawmakers would move quickly to remove Blagojevich from office so Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn could name a new senator.
But Durbin said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that it was "point-blank" wrong to think the Senate would await Blagojevich's removal to keep Burris from being seated.
"To wait until Gov. Blagojevich is removed could be a matter of weeks," Durbin said. "I think Roland Burris' future and fate will be decided before then."
Burris also appeared on the show and reiterated that the appointment was legal.
In Chicago, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, who chairs the state's Democratic Party, said he believed Burris would become the state's junior senator, though he would not say whether Burris should be the new senator.
Madigan, who initially called lawmakers into session after Blagojevich's arrest to advance legislation for a special election to fill the Senate seat, defended the failure of Democrats to move such a bill. Though Blagojevich had said he would sign special election legislation, Madigan said the governor, whom he labeled "delusional," couldn't be trusted.Dolphins defensive end Dion Jordan is expected to practice Wednesday for the first time in nearly two years.
Jordan, who has been on the non-football injury list all season with a knee injury, has been cleared to practice, although it’s not clear how much he will do.
In the few times Jordan has been around reporters during his four-month knee rehabilitation stint, he has not looked 100 percent. Jordan has had two procedures on the same knee since the summer.
Still, it’s a huge step forward for a player who was out of football for all of 2015 after multiple failed drug tests. The Dolphins had to decide by this week whether to allow Jordan to practice or keep him on NFI for the rest of the season. Now, they have three additional weeks to evaluate the defensive end and decide if he can play this season.
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The timing is actually pretty good for the Dolphins, who will be without Jason Jones for the next two weeks. Jones is serving a two-game suspenion for violating the NFL Policy and Program for Substances of Abuse. Jones was arrested during the offseason on a charge of operating while intoxicated.
Jordan, meanwhile, has not played since Dec. 28, 2014, when he started and recorded four tackles in a loss to the Jets.By Michael Crick
BBC Newsnight
Documents uncovered by Newsnight in the British National Archives show how, in 1958, Britain agreed to sell Israel 20 tonnes of heavy water, a vital ingredient for the production of plutonium at Israel's top secret Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev desert.
Robert McNamara, President John F Kennedy's defence secretary, has told Newsnight he is "astonished" at the revelation that Britain kept this secret from America.
One of the documents uncovered at the British National Archives
Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader.
In Wednesday's programme, Newsnight reveals how British officials decided it would be "over-zealous" to impose safeguards on the Israelis, and chose not to insist that Israel use the heavy water only for peaceful purposes.
Earlier the Americans had refused to supply heavy water to Israel without such safeguards.
Making money
The documents unearthed by Newsnight also show British officials decided not to tell Washington about it.
They seemed to have no idea of the implications of what they were doing
Lord Gilmour
Former Defence and Foreign Office minister
"I think it is quite extraordinary," says the former Conservative Defence and Foreign Office minister Lord Gilmour. "Whether the civil servants who were involved knew what they were doing, or whether they didn't, I don't know." He thinks they put Britain's economic interests first.
"One must assume they must have known... And what's more they seemed to have no idea of the political or indeed even the technical and foreign-policy implications of what they were doing. They just seemed to be concerned with making a bit of money."
Escaping criticism
Until now both France and Norway have been criticised for helping the Israelis develop the bomb, but Britain has escaped criticism.
It's very surprising to me that we weren't told
Robert McNamara
JFK's defence secretary, pictured in 1961
"Heavy water was crucial for Israel," he says. "Therefore it was a significant part of their nuclear programme."
More extraordinary, the archives suggest that the decision to sell heavy water was taken simply by civil servants, mainly in the Foreign Office and the UK Atomic Energy Authority.
Newsnight has found no evidence that ministers in the Macmillan Government were ever consulted about the sale, or even told about it.
Surplus
The papers show how officials presented the sale internally as a straight sale from Norway to Israel
The papers in the National Archives in London show how officials presented the sale internally as a straight sale from Norway to Israel. But the minutes reveal that the heavy water was shipped from a British port in Israeli ships - half in June 1959 and half a year later.
In 1960 the Daily Express first exposed the Israelis' work at Dimona and the fact that Israel was probably making a bomb.
When Israel asked Britain for a further five tonnes of heavy water in 1961 the Foreign Office decided against a second transaction.
"I am quite sure we should not agree to this sale," advised Sir Hugh Stephenson of the Foreign Office. "The Israeli project is much too live an issue for us to get mixed up in it again," he wrote.
Mr McNamara, who became President Kennedy's defence secretary in 1961, has expressed his surprise to Newsnight that Britain didn't inform the Americans it had sold heavy water to Israel: "The fact that Israel was trying to develop a nuclear bomb should not have come as any surprise... But that Britain should have supplied it with heavy water was indeed a surprise to me.
"It's very surprising to me that we weren't told because we shared information about the nuclear bomb very closely with the British."
Michael Crick's report can be seen on Newsnight on Wednesday, 3 August at 10.30pm on BBC2.The Oregon Ducks looked battered all season. They got run roughshod on opening night by the LSU Tigers. Their once unstoppable offense sputtered for quarter after quarter against middling opponents. LaMichael James, Kenjon Barner, Josh Huff, Darron Thomas all took their turns on the injury table. It looked as if when the Stanford Cardinal came onto their plate, there was a good chance they could finally be swept aside.
Fat chance. When it mattered the most, everything clicked back into place.
It started with James, who had one of his signature runs to put Oregon well ahead and keep them well ahead. James slipped all over the crappy turf in Stanford Stadium, but he maintained his balance, managed to slip through defenders reaching at him, and race toward the end zone untouched. It was another big-time performance by Big Game James, who proved once again why he's been the MVP of the conference three years running.
For the second year in a row, the Oregon QB outplayed Andrew Luck. Thomas managed the game, dinked and dunked for most of the evening, then hit Lavasier Tuinei rolling out for the first score, De'Anthony Thomas on the brilliantly designed 4th and 7 playcall from Chip Kelly for the 41 yard touchdown, and Josh Huff waiting in the flat for the 59 yard score. Three TDs, no INTs, and 100 out of 155 passing yards on two plays! Thomas didn't need to do much, but what he did was essential.
The up-tempo game again proved deadly. Oregon didn't need any more than six plays or two and a half minutes against Stanford on any of their first five scoring drives. They exploited the mismatches of speed on the outside and untested Cardinal defenders got burned again and again. Everytime it looked as if Stanford was working its way back into the game, Oregon answered with another quick score to make the Cardinal have to do it all over again.
And ultimately it was the Ducks defense that blew things open. The conventional Stanford offense worked its way down the field a number of times, but it never fazed Nick Aliotti's squad. Disguised blitzes finally flustered a Cardinal offensive line that had held stout much of the season. The Cardinal managed only a modest 3.7 yards on the ground, as Stepfan Taylor and Tyler Gaffney couldn't really pound out huge gains. And the turnovers made all the difference between competitive game and Oregon rout. Whether it be picks on Luck throwing into bracketed coverage or fumbles by Duck defenders ripping out the ball from behind, Oregon made the mistake-free Cardinal lurch at the worst possible times, as they turned five Stanford turnovers into 21 points.
The Ducks have defied all normal conventions in college football, making a habit of using their speed to rack off big play after big play after big play, whether it be offense or defense. And the Cardinal wilted under the heat and the pressure of the relentless Oregon attack, succumbing to critical mistake after critical mistake. Oregon was happy to capitalize over and over again to race to victory on Saturday.
Oregon has played bridesmaid most of this season to the unstoppable Stanford juggernaut, but tonight they proved why they were a team to be reckoned with coming into this year, and why the Pac-12 is still nowhere closer to figuring out the deadly one-two combo of Kelly's offense and Aliotti's defense. And they've made it work to the astounding cue of a 24-1 conference record in three seasons.
No one in any other major conference in the country can touch that sustained level of success that Chip Kelly has brought to Eugene. Eventually (because this is how things usually will work in sports), someone might have the defense necessary to combat Oregon's team speed on offense and the power and complexity to bruise them on defense, and the Pac-12 will transition into the next era. I'm sure eleven other teams in this conference are looking forward to that switch.
Not this year though. This conference is still ruled by the Mighty Ducks.A report from the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel said the German World Cup bid committee had a slush fund of 10.3 million Swiss francs ($10.8 million) that was used to secure the votes of four Asian delegates at the deciding vote at football's governing body FIFA in 2000.
"These are very serious allegations," the governing body said, adding that they would be examined as part of ongoing, independent, internal investigations.
Beckenbauer and Niersbach alleged to be complicit
The Spiegel report alleged that money came from then-Adidas boss Robert Louis-Dreyfus and that bid committee chief Franz Beckenbauer and German football federation president Wolfgang Niersbach were aware of it - the latter at least since 2005. The magazine did not identify its sources for the allegations.
The Spiegel report alleges that the money never appeared in any budget for the bid and organizing committee, and that Louis-Dreyfus reportedly wanted the sum back in 2005.
The funds were sent to FIFA, officially for a planned but later canceled opening gala on the eve of the tournament, and was later to be returned to Louis-Dreyfus, Der Spiegel said.
DFB dismisses claims, FIFA launches investigation
The German football federation DFB squarely dismissed allegations of irregularities and vote-buying in connection with the country's hosting of the 2006 World Cup but did not rule out that a payment from 2005 might have been improperly used by FIFA. That payment referred to the amount demanded by Louis-Dreyfus.
"After thorough examination and auditing, the DFB have found no evidence of any irregularities," its statement said.
The 2006 World Cup in Germany was hailed as a'summer tale' but recent allegations may taint its memory
"Furthermore, there is no evidence that any of the delegates' votes were won illegally at any stage in the application process. Through the investigations, DFB became aware that a 6.7-million-euro payment, which was paid to FIFA in April 2005 by the organizational committee of the 2006 World Cup, may not have been used for its intended purpose (the FIFA culture program). This payment was in no way linked to the awarding of the 2006 World Cup, which had been decided five years previously." FIFA said it had handed the issue to its audit and compliance commission to investigate while Der Spiegel alleged the money was part of a slush fund to land the 2006 World Cup. The DFB also said that it was also looking into "any issues pertaining to DFB's claim to any potential repayment."
Germany's Justice Minister Heiko Maas told the Bild newspaper: "These allegations must be clarified uncompromisingly. Football fans deserve the right."
The DFB meanwhile released a separate statement in which it said that it reserved the right to take legal steps against Der Spiegel.
Probes into South Africa, Russia and Qatar
Germany narrowly beat South Africa with 12 to 11 votes, securing the World Cup for 2006. South Africa later got the World Cup for 2010. The 2010 World Cup in South Africa has also been the subject of speculation amid corruption allegations swirling around FIFA. An official investigation into bribery was launched recently.
US authorities have been investigating the transfer of $10 million paid by FIFA on behalf of the South African organizers. South African Sports Minister Fikile Mbalulahas has denied the payment was a bribe.
FIFA is already involved in US and Swiss investigations into allegations of high-level corruption involving the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar. Swiss authorities also began their own investigation and last month opened criminal proceedings against outgoing FIFA president Sepp Blatter for criminal mismanagement.
ss/jm (AP, Reuters, SID, dpa)The CFL has acknowledged its officials blew two separate calls on a key play in Sunday’s game between the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Ottawa Redblacks.
With just under five minutes to play in the fourth quarter and Ottawa leading by six, Ticat defensive back Brandon Stewart intercepted Redblacks’ quarterback Henry Burris and returned it for a touchdown. But officials called two penalties, an illegal block on Hamilton linebacker Simoni Lawrence and unnecessary roughness on defensive back Craig Butler.
So instead of 13-12 lead, the Ticats were forced to scrimmage at their own 45 yard line. They ultimately lost 12-6.
CFL vice-president of officiating Glen Johnson says he’s reviewed the play and determined that neither flag should have been thrown.
“Both of the penalties on that play were incorrect,” Johnson said. “Both of those calls don’t meet the standard that we define for those types of penalties.”
Butler was penalized for a “tourist hit,” or contact on a player that is not involved in the play. But Johnson said the receiver in question was still chasing Stewart when he was levelled by Butler with a legal block.
“A player that gets hit needs to have stopped playing and put themselves in a position where they shouldn’t expect to be hit,” Johnson said. “In this case, the man continued to play and he was pursuing the ball carrier.”
Lawrence was penalized for blocking an Ottawa player below the waist, something which is illegal after a turnover has occurred.
“The official had a bad angle on the play and assumed something happened based on the way the play finished,” Johnson said. “But it clearly wasn’t contact below the waist.”
The officials who threw the flags, umpire Patrick MacArthur and field judge Bryan Taylor, will see their ratings affected by the missed calls and that could impact playoff assignments, Johnson said.
“We had guys on that crew who ranked at or near the top for their position because we knew it had playoff implications,” Johnson said. “Both guys are disappointed in themselves and they are good, solid officials who had an error in judgment.”
Ticat CEO Scott Mitchell wouldn’t address the specific calls from Sunday’s game but said he remains convinced that expanded replay is something the league should be considering.
“Overall, I think the officiating in this league is very good but we’re always focussed on how we can make the game better,” Mitchell said. “Our position would be to continue use technology and replay to help the officials make accurate calls.”
The CFL expanded replay before this season to include pass interference and Mitchell said that’s a trend that should continue.
“Despite the fact that we’ve added the number of things available for replay review, the length of games has actually gone down this year,” Mitchell said. “There are ways that you can increase the amount of football that’s challengeable and we think it’s better for everyone if we allow the officials to be as accurate as possible.”
Johnson didn’t want to speculate on whether expanded replay would have helped in this particular case but said the play will be a talking point in the off-season.
“The rules committee process has just begun for 2016 and on that docket is how do we expand the use of replay to help in situations like this,” Johnson said. “We’ll use this play and others from throughout the season to see whether replay could have helped.”
There is, however, no recourse for the Ticats, who must now beat the Redblacks by six points or more in next Saturday’s rematch in Ottawa to win first place in the East Division.
Notes: Johnson also clarified that the first quarter hit by Lawrence on Burris that sparked so much controversy was indeed within the rulebook. “That was a legal hit by the standard we have for roughing the passer,” Johnson said. “When the passer is on the run and is not in the passing position he can be tackled low. We treat him just like we would any other ball carrier.”… the CFL has also reviewed the fourth quarter hit by Ottawa linebacker David Hinds on Ticat quarterback Jeff Mathews and determined there will be no supplementary discipline. Hinds was flagged for roughing the passer on the play, which left Mathews with a concussion and will force him to miss Saturday’s re-match in Ottawa… after watching the ball from his first pro touchdown pass sail into the stands on Oct. 9 – courtesy of an over-exuberant Luke Tasker – Ticat quarterback Jeff Mathews got it back on Wednesday. Lifelong Ticat fan Tonya Ness, who caught the ball, returned it to Tasker in exchange for another game ball signed by several players and other Ticat gear. “I knew it was important to him so it was the right thing to do to give it back,” Ness said.It’s been five months since the most recent election, and the Democratic campaign to unseat U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman in the next one already has begun.
In an exclusive interview with The Denver Post, attorney Jason Crow on Monday announced plans to run for Congress in 2018 against Coffman, the fifth-term Republican who repeatedly has cruised to comfortable victories in Colorado’s 6th District despite its Democrat-friendly demographics.
An Army veteran, the 38-year-old Crow served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, first as a paratrooper and then as a Ranger, before returning to Colorado for law school. Today, he’s a partner at the Denver law firm Holland and Hart, where he advises businesses on compliance issues involving government regulations.
Calling the country’s politics broken, Crow said he wants to focus on the issues that matter to working families and to break through the divisive partisanship that increasingly has come to define Congress and Washington.
Recalling the people he served with in the military, Crow said, “I can’t tell you to this day what the political affiliations of most of those people are — and it doesn’t matter. We served together. We were Americans first.”
It’ll be Crow’s first bid at elected office, although he’s dabbled in political advocacy in the past. He spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2012 and led a veterans committee that helped secure funding for the Denver Veterans Medical Center in Aurora — a facility that has since been beset with delays and cost overruns.
As a representative of the Truman National Security Project — a group of post-9/11 veterans — he also stumped in support of the Iranian nuclear deal in 2015, something that Republicans seized on Tuesday in an attempt to cast him as a partisan Democrat.
Crow doesn’t live in the district — his family lives five blocks from it, he said in the interview — but he said they plan to move inside the district’s boundaries, which includes Aurora, and parts of Adams and Douglas counties.
In his campaign kickoff, he offered few specific policy proposals but hinted at how he hopes to defeat the formidable Coffman — tying him to President Donald Trump, who lost to Hillary Clinton by a wide margin among the district’s voters.
“(Coffman) told the people in this district in one of his top TV commercials that he was going to stand up to Trump,” Crow said. “And since that time, he’s voted 96 percent in favor of Paul Ryan and Trump’s agenda.
“There is not much that Donald Trump has done and proposed to do that I agree with. Actually there’s been nothing,” he added.
Crow singled out Coffman’s vote for the Republican health care plan for particular criticism and pledged repeatedly to listen to his constituents — a pointed swipe at Coffman leaving a town hall meeting this year before it was scheduled to end. On the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, Crow called it a “good foundation” but said he wanted to listen to voters before outlining specific plans to change the nation’s health care system.
“There is nobody who’s an expert on all issues,” he said. “But the main job of an elected official is to have an open door, to welcome people, to listen to the people who you represent and to have an ongoing conversation.”
Republicans greeted his candidacy on Tuesday with statements characterizing Crow as a “predictable partisan.”
“(House Democratic Leader) Nancy Pelosi has an unhealthy obsession with beating Mike Coffman — but give her this much credit, she always raises a lot of money and Pelosi always recruits a quality challenger,” said Tyler Sandberg, a Coffman campaign adviser, who said Crow showed “conspicuously bad judgment” in his support of the Iran nuclear deal.
Democrats have long viewed the 6th District seat as the one that got away. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in the district, and both Clinton and Barack Obama won there.
But in practice, Coffman has proven to have wide crossover appeal with both Democrats and independents, shrugging off consecutive, well-funded challenges by former Senate President Morgan Carroll and former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff by about 9 percentage points each.
Democrats’ best chance may lie not in a particular candidate, but in national factors. Voter backlash is common when one political party rules both branches of Congress and the presidency, as Republicans do now. And Trump has energized liberals in a way not seen in years.
But Kyle Saunders, an associate professor of political science at Colorado State University, said the conventional wisdom on a backlash against an unpopular president is bumping up against another trend in recent years — Republicans have been turning out in bigger numbers than Democrats in midterm elections.
“The down-ballot effect of a Trump approval rating in the high 30s — usually we would say that’s not good for the candidates of that party,” Saunders said. “But I don’t think we know in this kind of new era that we’re in how much that down ballot effect is actually going to manifest itself.”The 6 Games That Made Me A Completionist
I’m not much of a completionist in games. Collectibles don’t interest me all that much, I’m not typically compelled to take part in side missions unless I really love the game or they lend something interesting to the overall narrative, and I’m not one to aimlessly explore worlds unless I have a strong incentive to do so. Most of the time, all I’m interested in is completing the story.
But every once in a while, a game comes along that hooks me in such a way that I can’t help but see everything in it completed entirely. These are the six games that managed to do so.
inFamous
I’ve found that a great game has the same sort of addictive quality as a good book; you’re continually drawn back to it time and time again, and simply can’t get enough of it and everything it has to offer. To me, inFamous is this kind of game. No matter how large and extensive my backlog is, I cannot find a good enough reason to not go back to Empire City and take on side missions each time I sit down to play.
Even though it does tend to cycle through the same missions, I still love to sit down with the game and run around collecting blast shards, finding Dead Drops, healing citizens, and completing the odd side mission to free up medical centers or make areas of the map safer. I care about the city, and I have a genuine interest in helping rebuild it and make it a safe place for myself and the citizens that live in it. And being that I’m not |
by no means giving up on their quest for a bigger slice of India’s defence market, Kerry is bringing along with him Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of the US Pacific Command, located in Hawaii.
Locklear cannot, of course, procure defence contracts for American companies, but he can do much by way of preparing the ground which makes US supply offers look attractive to the Indian military establishment.
The admiral, for instance, is expected to make an offer in New Delhi that the Indian military establishment cannot turn down. This involves letting Indian forces use on a trial basis American equipment that is normally not given to non-treaty partners.
The expectation in Washington is that once the Indian military tries out these state-of-the-art weapons systems and technology, they will get so hooked on them that India will consider the US defence supply chain as a priority.
The Pentagon and US defence manufacturers are aware that India’s men in uniform were solidly behind a decision by the civilian leadership of the defence ministry to favour non-American bidders for the 126 combat planes.
What went against the Americans in the medium multi-role combat aircraft deal was mainly their unwillingness to give India up-to-date technology because of US laws restricting such technology for countries like India.
If next week’s strategic dialogue pulls off the initiative that Locklear is likely to offer, it will mark a refreshing change in US attitudes to weapons supplies. The Americans have often looked at their military sales as favours for friends and allies even when those friends and allies are buyers paying for every bit of equipment.
Americans have mastered the art of making their needs look like an obligation on the part of buyers of armaments. India is probably America’s first weapons customer to turn down US equipment on the ground that they do not meet the bar set by a buyer’s military in terms of standards and quality.
Washington is frustrated and annoyed that, additionally, such a stand has got political backing here in the government’s refusal to sign several “foundational” agreements with Washington which may restrict an arms buyer’s autonomy in the use of equipment.
The Obama administration was initially surprised by this position, conveyed by defence minister A.K. Antony to his US counterparts, but its need to sell to India and create jobs back home has prompted out-of-the-box thinking in Washington.
It is not clear how much of what Locklear tells his interlocutors here in the next two days will be made public because of fears that it may run foul of the US Congress. Under American laws, foreign military sales have to be notified to the US Congress and there are other mandatory procedures that are cumbersome and very bureaucratic.
The innovative offer to let India test US weapons systems without actually placing orders is the outcome of year-long discussions between deputy defence secretary Ashton Carter and national security adviser Shivshankar Menon on overcoming hindrances in American legislation that prevented India from buying state-of-the-art weapons and technology from the US.
Carter was mandated by former defence secretary Leon Panetta to address reasons why India was reluctant to buy more American weapons and find ways to overcome such reluctance.
It is understood that Carter has told his Indian interlocutors that the Americans are now ready to co-produce with India Hawk missiles, 117mm guns, vertical mines and multi-role naval helicopters as a confidence-building measure in transfer of technology on which the US has been tight-fisted.
At one stage of the preparations for the strategic dialogue, the idea of incorporating such progress in bilateral defence cooperation was considered. But it was then abandoned as too risky in view of the publicity stakes for the Americans.The number of illegal migrants reaching Europe’s border has jumped sharply in the first four months of this year, suggesting this year’s total could be on track to overtake the 140,000 refugees who arrived during the 2011 Arab Spring, according to new figures.
Frontex, the European Union border agency, said 42,000 illegal immigrants reached the EU between January and April this year, a four-fold increase on the same period last year.
Additionally, Italian authorities have reported that so far during May a further 14,000 migrants have arrived in the country’s territory - through key central Mediterranean routes for illegal immigration - bringing the total so far this year to at least 55,000.
Patterns of illegal immigration over at least the last 20 years have demonstrated that unknown numbers will attempt to reach Britain by crossing the continent and using Calais as a staging post. Just last week, the French authorities demolished two squatter camps near the Channel.
The figures from Frontex raise serious questions about how the British authorities will deal with a potential surge in asylum claims and illegal entry, as immigration shapes up to be a key battleground in next year’s general election.
Ewa Moncure, a spokeswoman for Frontex, said: “By the end of April the number of illegal border crossings was close to 42,000, including 25,500 through Italy.
“The Italians gave a new figure a couple of days ago of over 39,000 so far this year, so the overall total will have grown significantly.
“If we look at the number of migrants who have arrived in Italy last year compared with the number who have arrived in the first five months of this year, the total has already been exceeded. It was 40,000 or so for the whole of 2013 and it seems like we have nearly reached that point by the end of May.”
The figures have soared even before the traditional peak months for illegal immigration.
Miss Moncure said: “There have historically been more arrivals in the summer because of the weather and particularly because the sea is less treacherous for boat crossings from Africa.”
Illegal migration has an enormous human cost, with hundreds drowned each year in sea crossings aboard overcrowded and sub-standard vessels.
Frontex reported an increase in the use of rubber boats, mostly by people from sub-Saharan countries, on what it described as the “perilous” journey to reach the Canary Islands or cross the Mediterranean.
“Compared to fishing boats, rubber boats put migrants’ lives at even greater risk, but offer the cheaper sailing option,” said Frontex’s annual report.
It also showed the whole of 2013 saw a 48 per cent rise in illegal migration compared with the previous year, from 72,437 to 107,365.
Syrians accounted for almost a quarter of last year’s total - 25,546 - with Eritreans (11,298), Afghans (9,021) and Albanians (9,500) making up the main other nationalities.
Detections of Nigerians (3,386), Malians (2,887), Gambians (2,817) and Senegalese (1,643) all quadrupled last year, it added.
The ad hoc totals provided by Frontex for the first few months of this year means the 2014 total could eclipse the 141,000 who arrived at the European border in the year of the Arab Spring.
Gil Arias Fernandez, Frontex’s deputy executive director, warned that large numbers of Syrian and Eritrean refugees are waiting in Libya to be illegally smuggled to the European Union.
It comes after Salah Mazek, the Libyan interior minister, said earlier this year that it would consider helping migrants reach Europe unless countries agreed to help his nation.
“I’m warning the world and Europe in particular – if they do not assume their responsibilities, Libya could facilitate the transit of this flood,” he warned.
Experts said the latest numbers followed relatively low levels of migration in the early months of 2013.
“The main route through Libya was closed for so long that people in sub-Saharan countries have been waiting for a couple of years,” said Franck Duvell, associate professor at the Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society at the University of Oxford.
“So the numbers have been building up and people were waiting for the very first opportunity to move.
“I’m not sure this implies that we are going to see ever-more people arriving in the EU over the next couple of months. We’ve got to wait and see.”TRENTON -- New Jersey high schoolers in public, private or charter schools would be subjected to a substance use screening every year under a new drug-prevention bill pitched by the chairman of the state Senate's Health Committee.
Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex) on Monday called for written or verbal screenings by a certified student assistance coordinator, school nurse, counselor, social worker or psychologist.
The assessments could identify, reduce, and prevent problematic drug use and dependence on alcohol and illicit drugs, he said. Addictions often begin before age 18, he added.
"Screening for risk factors or red flags during the high school years will provide an opportunity for early intervention and might help to prevent addiction before it even begins," Vitale said.
The proposal would require schools to provide parents with written notification of the screenings, and parents would have the option to decline participation. Anything said during the screening would be confidential.
Vitale's plan comes two weeks after Gov. Chris Christie pledged to spend the final year of his term tackling the state's drug addiction crisis.
Christie also looked to bolster schools' roles in fighting drug addition by developing a new curriculum on opioids and bringing minimum security prisoners to middle schools and high schools to explain how drug abuse landed them behind bars.
Adam Clark may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Canadians wanting to join in on the Amazon Echo fun in the United States have been given a sliver of hope, thanks to new job postings surfacing online from the retail giant.
Amazon.com Inc has posted 12 new positions for its Toronto, Ont. offices since May 11, mainly looking for Amazon Alexa developers and managers for an entire Alexa unit.
These new Canadian job postings come just two months after Amazon partnered with Toronto-based Connected Lab for a weekend-long hackathon in the city, where more than a dozen teams worked on developing new “skills” for Alexa.
“Echo and Alexa are only available in the U.S.,” Amazon told the Financial Post in a statement. “We have nothing to share at this time regarding availability in Canada.”
The company added that teams in the Toronto offices work on “various Amazon businesses” and there are people working on Alexa development “around the world.”
The speculation of a wider Echo launch follows this week’s announcement from Google about the release of its own voice-activated product for the home, called Google Home. Using the power of Google Search, it will be a heavy-hitting competitor for the Echo and no doubt expedites any timeline Amazon had for a wider rollout (if it has one at all).
Amazon Echo has been a hit for the company since it became widely available in the U.S. last year. The hands-free speaker is powered by Amazon’s Alexa, a Siri-like system that the user can speak with to ask for information, order products and even issue commands to control devices in their home.
While Amazon won’t release specific sales numbers, a report by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners in April estimated the company had already sold 3 million Echo units.
The Amazon Echo retails for US$180.
[email protected]
Twitter.com/JoshMcConnellLeicester Tigers will play a combined American team in Philadelphia
Leicester Tigers are to help launch a professional rugby union league in the US by playing in a historic match.
Richard Cockerill's side will play a combined American team - the Rough Riders - in Philadelphia on 8 August.
The Independence Cup will be the first elite rugby match played in the States by a professional US team.
It will help launch the National Rugby Football League - the first American professional rugby championship - which begins in 2016.
Leicester, the 10-time English champions, will face a team made up of former National Football League (NFL) athletes, college American football players and collegiate, club and international rugby players.
The match takes place at Lincoln Financial Field, home of American football franchise, the Philadelphia Eagles.
Eagles president Don Smolenski said: "This match kicks off the first rugby game for an elite US team against a historic rugby stalwart, the Leicester Tigers."
The match offers a chance for Leicester to raise the profile of the English Premiership in a potentially lucrative market.
"Rugby is making massive strides there and the fixture will provide an excellent platform for the home-based players, and also for our squad as they prepare for a new season," Tigers chief executive Simon Cohen added.US Warns Iran Not To Fight Back Against Israeli Attack
US warship remains in Strait Of Hormuz amidst simmering tensions
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, February 3, 2012
The USS Abraham Lincoln warship has remained stationed in the Strait of Hormuz despite an Iranian threat that no more aircraft carriers should transit the sensitive oil choke point as tensions in the Persian Gulf continue to simmer with Washington warning Tehran it will join an Israeli attack if Iran dares to fight back in any way.
Stratfor’s latest naval update map shows that the USS Lincoln has not moved from its position having transited the Strait almost two weeks ago. Similarly, the USS Carl Vinson has also remained in its position, suggesting US Naval officials are satisfied with the strategic position of the two warships as Israel prepares to launch an attack on Iran in which the US could quickly become embroiled.
Click for enlargement.
US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta “believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June,” reports the Washington Post, adding that Panetta was likely told of the timing when Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak postponed a a planned U.S.-Israel military exercise that had been scheduled for May.
It now appears that the United States has almost finalized getting all its ducks in a row in preparation for Israel’s assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Washington Post article makes it clear that the Obama administration will stand by while Tel Aviv leads the attack. The US will only become overtly involved if “Iran hits U.S. assets” or if “Israel’s population centers were hit”.
In other words, if Iran attempts to fight back in any way, which is all but inevitable, the US will join the attack. The Obama administration will then think itself justified in telling the American people that the US acted in self-defense, when in reality such a series of coordinated events is absurdly obvious.
“I can’t say clearly enough that what the U.S. has signaled in Ignatius’ report is that if Iran is attacked, it may not strike back against its attacker,” writes Richard Silverstein. “If it does, the U.S. will rain down hellfire and damnation on it. This is frightening beyond measure. I’ve never known the U.S. to lay down such a principle which virtually assures our joining in a war against Iran. Israeli policymakers will be delighted to read these words.”
Both Washington and Tel Aviv are hoping for a repeat of Operation Orchard, Israel’s attack on a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007 that prompted no significant retaliation from Assad’s regime. However, Iran’s Air Force is second only to Israel’s in the region and Tehran’s surface to air missile capability is far superior.
A third US aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, is set to add even more firepower in the 5th Fleet region after it completes a training exercise in the Atlantic Ocean. British and French warships are also in place to provide further back-up.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
It has also been revealed that the nuclear submarine USS Annapolis and the destroyer USS Momsen are likely to heading towards the Persian Gulf in the build up to a possible attack on Iran.
The United States has sent both the Lincoln and the Vinson sailing through the Strait in recent weeks despite Iran’s warning that any more US warships transiting the narrow passageway would not be tolerated. Tehran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, an act that would cause chaos on global oil markets, has been described as a “red line” by the United States.
The US is currently conducting its biggest naval exercises in over a decade. The Bold Alligator joint Navy and Marine Corps exercise, taking place off the coast of Virginia and North Carolina, is clearly geared towards simulating a naval conflict with Iranian forces despite official claims to the contrary.
According to Israeli intelligence outfit Debka File, the United States has placed 50,000 troops to be ready for “any contingency” by March, with another 50,000 on the way, on two two strategic islands at the southern exit of the Strait of Hormuz. In addition, 15,000 troops are also on standby in Kuwait.
Tehran is set to conduct more naval exercises in the Strait later this month. Experts estimate that around 1,000 mines would be required to block the 55km wide passage and that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have already stockpiled 2,000 mines for that very purpose.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/us-warns-iran-not-to-fight-back-against-israeli-attack.htmlOver the past year, unionized restaurant workers across numerous fast-food chains but mostly at McDonalds, expressed their dissatisfaction with compensation levels by striking at increasingly more frequent intervals - a sentiment that has been facilitated by the president himself and his ever more frequent appeals for a raise in the minimum wage. Unfortunately, as we have pointed out previously, in the context of corporations that have given up on growing the top line (as virtually all free cash goes into stock buybacks and dividends and none into growth capex), and in pursuit of a rising bottom line, employee wages are the one variable cost that corporations will touch last of all. But what's worse, these same unionized employees have zero negotiating leverage.
Perhaps nowhere is this more visible than in the recent strategy of smoothie retailer Jamba Juice, which in order to battle a 4% drop in Q3 same store sales has decided to radically transform its entire retailing strategy by getting rid of labor, cheap, part-time or otherwise, altogether. Presenting the biggest threat to minimum-wage restaurant workers everywhere: the JambaGo self-serve machine that just made the vast majority of Jamba's employees obsolete. Coming soon to a fast-food retailer near you.
Why did Jamba just make its retail sales force obsolete? Part of the problem is heightened competition: McDonald’s has entered the smoothie market, and others like Dairy Queen and Panera spent the summer promoting their rival drinks. Which means even less top-line growth potential. It also means that in order to push more of the top line straight to earnings, and bypass variable costs, a problem that will be faced by increasingly more corporations, Jamba's corner office had no choice but to unleash JambaGo.
Bloomberg reports:
The smoothie chain is hoping to see improvement from something it calls “JambaGo,” a self-serve machine that can be installed in cafeterias, schools, and convenience stores. Jamba Juice makes money by selling the prepackaged, pre-blended smoothie ingredients to JambaGo vendors, like a soda maker selling syrup to the owner of a soda fountain. The advantages: Jamba doesn’t need to build a store and the labor costs are much lower compared with hiring staff to concoct made-to-order drinks. The company expects this model to help expand its brand more quickly and cheaply. Last quarter, however, revenue from the JambaGo program amounted to just about $400,000. But having recently landed a deal with Target (TGT) to put JambaGo machines in 1,000 Target Cafés, the company will soon have installed more than 1,800 machines (up from only 404 at the start of 2013). By contrast, there are currently about 850 Jamba Juice stores. Based on a goal of $2,000 in annual revenue per JambaGo, the rough math for 1,800 machines is $3.6 million—a decent boost for a company that took in $228.8 million in revenue last year. Another 1,000 are planned for 2014, which would bring in another $2 million in annual revenue.
Here's what happens next: Jamba will do what every other company does to demonstrate that its radical strategy is successful - fudge the numbers and beat EPS for several quarters. This will happen even if JambaGo is ultimately yet another loss leader. However, its peers will watch closely and soon decide to roll out their own version of just this: a self-contained dispenser of a la carte prepared fast-food food, either liquid or solid, and in the process let go tens of thousands of their own minimum-wage employees, also known to shareholders as "costs."
What happens after that should be clear to everyone: more unemployment, lower wages for the remaining employees, worse worker morale, but even higher profits to holders of capital. And so on. Because in a world in which technology makes the unqualified worker utterely irrelevant, this is what is known as "progress."CAIRO — The Egyptian Museum in Cairo on Thursday began putting on display the country's oldest papyruses, which date back 4,500 years, detailing the daily life of the pyramid-builders.
The items are from the 4th Dynasty of King Khufu, also known as Cheops, for whom the Great Pyramid of Giza was built as a tomb.
Egypt's Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Anany told reporters as the exhibition was unveiled that the papyruses were discovered in 2013 by an Egyptian-French mission inside caves in the port of Wadi el-Jarf. The ancient port is located 119 kilometers (74 miles) from the city of Suez.
El-Anany said, the items display are "the oldest" papyruses in Egypt. Museum chief Tarek Tawfiq said the papyruses depict the daily routine of the workers, who also transferred building material from the Red Sea port to Giza.
On display are a total of six out of the 30 discovered papyruses, according to Hussein Abdel-Bassir, another ministry official. "These show the administrative power and the central nature of the state at the time of Khufu," he said.
One of the papyruses belonged to a senior employee named Marr who played a role in the building of the pyramid and it covered a period of three months of his job, providing information about his duties — including transporting rocks through the River Nile and its canals, Abdel-Bassir said.
A second ministry official, Sabah Abdel-Razek, told the state-news agency MENA that other papyruses showed the distribution of food portions for workers, including one showing in clear Egyptian hieroglyphs the number of sheep brought in.
The discovery, according to el-Anany, also signaled that Egypt has a treasure of antiquities that are still being discovered.(RSPCA newspaper advertisement published at beginning of Victorian duck hunting season.)
An avocet does not look much like a duck.
Australasian grebe (source Wikipedia.)
Australian coot (source Wikipedia)
Shooter points gun at bird rescuer, McDonald Swamp, northwest Victoria, on the opening of the 2005 duck shooting season. (Photo: Noah Hannibal.)
(Source: Victorian DPI website.)
AN avocet doesn’t look like a duck, nor does it quack like one. It’s an elegant, strikingly patterned black and white bird, with a reddish head, long, long legs (for wading in shallows) and a long, upturned needle for a bill. swan looks quite a bit more like a duck. It has a similarly flattened bill and, unlike an avocet, it prefers to swim rather than wade. But it’s bigger than a duck – much, much bigger – and besides, our swans, unique for being black, are among the best-known birds in Australia.So it’s doubtful that identification issues were the problem for the 150 or so shooters that slaughtered these birds and many others on the opening weekend of duck season at a private property near Boort. If it were just endangered freckled ducks they’d shot (up to 200 of them) a cross-eyed shooter may have had that defence available — well, at least it’s a duck.But the scale of the slaughter – and the collaterel damage – suggests otherwise, and points to the abysmal failure of self-regulation in this supposedly highly regulated pastime. Grebes and coots were blasted off the surface of the water. (So they were sitting ducks, at least.) The swans were probably obstructing the view of the ducks. The avocets? Well, who knows.Exactly how many birds were killed? We don’t and won’t know the final answer, but the Departments of Environment and Primary Industries, and the police, pulled a staggering 915 waterfowl from this one wetland a couple of days after the opening weekend. Many would have taken a long time to die.You could speculate that twice as many perished overall, but what no one is disputing is that this scandal – for it is a scandal – actually occurred.It’s a significant embarrassment for Victorian deputy National Party leader Peter Walsh, himself born and bred in Boort, and in whose electorate this abomination occurred. Had it happened under the Bracks or Brumby governments, it’s entirely possible that the season would have been halted pending the results of an inquiry, and duck shooting in Victoria would certainly have been in grave peril. The pressure from Labor’s left would have been intolerable.Walsh, however, is all but locked in. This State government has made much of the “tradition” of game hunting, emphasising that a couple of years of good rainfall has replenished waterholes and created ideal breeding conditions for waterfowl. Most contentiously, it has extended the season to 12 weeks.Walsh has already promised that the hunt will go on, claiming that “the overwhelming majority of duck hunters” have done the right thing. That may be so; the problem is they have been discredited, fairly or otherwise, by the obnoxious behaviour of their kin.At this point, it’s worth rehashing the three key aspects to ethical hunting, printed on the DPI website. The three aspects are knowing and respecting the game; obeying the law; and 'behaving in the right manner'.
Let’s deal with each of them in turn.
The hunters at Box Flat knew the game – at least, one would expect that they could reasonably distinguish a swan from a grebe from an avocet from a duck – but they certainly didn’t respect it. Leaving an injured bird to perish where it plummeted speaks to that.
Nor did they obey the law. Killing protected wildlife, exceeding bag limits, leaving behind waste — all these are criminal offences, punishable by heavy fines.
Laurie Levy with angry shooter, 1988, northwest Victoria. (Source CADS.)[/caption]
'Behaving in the right manner' is the most interesting one.
It says this:
Hunter behaviour has a direct impact on public opinion; remember your actions may impact upon the future of duck hunting.
If an event such as this does not immediately call into question duck hunting’s future in Victoria, then the quaint notion of behaving “ethically” while killing wild birds may as well be struck out now, exposed as an absurdity and an oxymoron.This was not a hunt. This was a free-for-all.(Andrew Stafford is an author, blogger and birder. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @staffo_sez.)This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia LicenseBob Marley once said of music: “When it hits you, you feel no pain.”
Obviously the reggae legend wasn’t thinking of the eardrums of several Londoners who spoke out at city hall Tuesday against the introduction of amplified music and dancing on all bar/restaurant patios citywide.
“Our street’s really quite until 10 or 11 at night,” said AnnaMaria Valastro, who lives downtown. “Then we have Uber drivers, people laughing and screaming.
“It (patio music) just increases hyper activity.”
So, yes, there was resistance Tuesday. But a quarter-century after London banned amplified music on future patios, council’s planning committee voted to repeal that restriction, letting all patios finally hit ‘play.’
“(This) will lighten things up a little bit around here,” Coun. Maureen Cassidy said.
In 1993, council banned amplified music, but patios in existence before then were exempt from the rule. City staff now argue that’s created “zoning inconsistency” and recommended ending the ban. Politicians voted unanimously to endorse that change.
It comes as London promotes a broader effort to enliven its cultural scene as a so-called music city.
Tuesday’s vote came 24 hours after council’s community and protective services committee endorsed a flexible framework for amplified patio music – for example, the music can be no louder than 70 decibels and can’t play any later than midnight.
Both those matters go to council for final approval next week.
Valastro pledged to appeal the Tuesday night zoning change to the Ontario Municipal Board. She also plans a legal challenge against the framework endorsed by politicians Monday.
While city officials received 27 letters and emails of objection, there was also clear support – including 18 letters encouraging the change.
Jim McCormick, a lifelong Londoner and member of the local music community, urged the politicians to take the wraps off all patios, despite resistance.
“I don’t think the music community is going to trample over (neighbours). There is a fair balance to be had here,” he said. “This is an opportunity to make a statement and make London a music city.”
[email protected]
twitter.com/patatLFPressAt 194 feet wide and 1,312 feet long, the Matz Maersk Triple E is the largest ship ever built. It can carry 18,000 20-foot containers; its propellers weigh 70 tons apiece; it is too big for the Panama Canal, though it can shimmy through the Suez. All this is to say: This is a ship of daunting proportions.
Alastair Philip Wiper captured the grandeur of the Triple E with a single camera, tripod and shutter cable for the September issue of WIRED UK. The Copenhagen-based photographer travels light, even when shooting some of the world’s most intimidating industrial spaces. In recent years, he’s photographed the complicated interiors of CERN, the spiky anechoic chamber at Denmark's Technical University and the shimmering Mont-Louise Solar Furnace nestled in the French Pyrenees. For this shoot, Wiper traveled to the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering factory in the South Korean port of Opko.
On his blog, Wiper explains that Daewoo is one of the “big three” shipyards in South Korea, right behind Hyundai and Samsung’s yards. Right now, the shipyard is in the process of making eight more Triple Es, all in various stages of completion.
“The shipyard, about an hour from Busan in the south of the country, employs about 46,000 people, and could reasonably be described as the worlds biggest Legoland. Smiling workers cycle around the huge shipyard as massive, abstractly over proportioned chunks of ships are craned around and set into place: the Triple E is just one small part of the output of the shipyard, as around 100 other vessels including oil rigs are in various stages of completion at the any time.”
A technician working the steel blaster, which polishes metal before it's painted. ALASTAIR PHILIP WIPER
Wiper had unprecedented access to the ship and shipyard, where he spent three days documenting the construction of the massive vessels. “I was expecting a tour of the ship from someone who knew it inside and out—instead I was just told, 'Here it is—off you go!'" he writes. Upon asking if there was a map of the ship, he recalls being told, “No. The engine is that way, the bridge is that way. Have fun, and make sure you aren’t on board in 5 hours because the ship will be leaving for Russia.”
So Wiper set out on a self-guided tour, making photos of whatever caught his eye. In the photos you see a glimmering engine room that looks like something aboard a ship on its way to Oz and an absolutely cavernous cargo hold. He also documented the workday of shipworkers and the pleasing geometric shape of the hull.
By now Wiper knows what he’s looking for (strong lines) and how he’ll go about shooting it (usually straight-on). He’s gotten good at pinpointing the main systems of a space, which are the key to capturing the symmetry (and thus attractiveness) of large-scale industrial machines. Like much of Wiper’s work, the photo essay acknowledges the often overlooked beauty of industrial spaces. Through Wiper’s lens, tubes, bolts and hunks of metal transform into arresting graphical portraits. Presented with this massive feat of engineering, it’s possible that we’d miss the perspective that Wiper’s camera grants us; we might marvel at the sheer mass of the ship and miss the bits and pieces that and that, he says, is the whole point of his photography. “I’m trying to find these things that aren’t meant to be beautiful but are.”Of the re-reviews I’ve done recently, I would say this is one of the most recent. Here’s the link for it’s first review, #858. Cakalang is also known as Skipjack tuna.
Finished (click to enlarge). I added some sweet onion, a fried egg with some Krazy Mixed Up Salt and Dua Belibis chili sauce. This stuff packs from heat! The noodles are your standard Indomie – nice texture and spring. The broth is spicy and has a nice tuna flavor along. There was a packet of garnish, which was dried tuna bits and was quite tasty. I like this a lot! 4.5 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 08968604302.
This is about Indonesian musical intruments – very cool!
Here’s what happens when you have musicians playing!
47.810652 -122.377355Romanians Cosmin Andron and Cristina Pogacean have made the first ascent of Ghandarbha Chuli, a snow and ice peak on the eastern rim of the Annapurna Sanctuary.
Ghandarbha Chuli (a.k.a Gandharva, and formerly the Gabelhorn, 6,248m) lies on the ridge connecting Annapurna III (7,553m) to Macchapuchhare (6,993m), nearer to the latter. There have been no previous official attempts.
Ghandarbha Chuli is on the permitted list as a peak that can only be attempted by foreign team if it forms a joint expedition with Nepalis. Including cooks and helpers the two Romanians had eight Nepalis on their expedition.
The team set up base camp on the 2nd May at 3,857m (GPS), at the confluence of the Modi Khola and the river that runs north from Singu Chuli (Fluted Peak).
Next day, with the help of some of their Nepalese companions, they made an advanced base below the glacier at 4,448m, and the following morning left before 4:00am, climbing moderate mixed ground, over unconsolidated snow and loose rock, up the left flank of a southwest-facing spur.
At 2:00pm they were hit by an electrical storm that produced heavy snowfall, but they continued to make upward progress, eventually spending an uncomfortable night in a half-erected tent at 5,438m, more or less on the crest of the spur.
It snowed overnight and next morning they left at 10:00am with the aim of finding a better campsite a little higher up the southwest spur.
After four-five pitches, but well below the point where the spur meets the west ridge at a triangular rock buttress, they were able to dig a proper ledge for the tent (5,586m GPS) and spend a day appraising the situation, while avalanches crashed down gullies to either side.
The weather cleared during the night, allowing the two to leave at 3:30am on the 6th. They avoided the triangular rock buttress on the right via a difficult traverse on unconsolidated snow overlying hard ice.
Reaching the west ridge, which proved quite sharp in places, Andron and Pogacean progressed to a large cornice formation, which gave a steep snow pitch (75° at the exit) to its flat top.
From there, the final section to the summit took an unreasonable amount of time given the distance, the pair slowed considerably by spindrift in an increasing wind.
They stopped just below the highest point, making a conscious decision not to stand on top.
Just to the south, Macchapuchhare is one of Nepal's most famous sacred summits, and is completely off-limits to climbers. A base camp discussion between the expedition Sirdar and locals had confirmed that the latter were rather unhappy about the Romanians climbing Ghandarbha Chuli, associating it strongly with its higher, spectacular neighbour.
As a sign of respect for local community beliefs, at 4:00pm Andron and Pogacean stamped out a small platform one body length below the top, where they left Nepali and Romanain flags attached to a snow stake. The GPS recorded 6,302m.
The pair regained their tent at 10:00pm, and after a tedious yet uneventful descent were back in advanced base the following evening.
On their return to base camp they found that locals were certainly not thrilled on hearing the news, but remained reserved rather than hostile. The Romanians felt they had made the best compromise.
The pair's rapid ascent from base camp is partially due to having been guiding in the Sanctuary immediately prior to their attempt, thus gaining valuable acclimatization. Andron was at university in the UK and later worked in China before becoming a mountain guide in his home country. Pogacean is a civil engineer.
« BackBy Chris Emma–
CHICAGO (CBS) — It was a year ago this time that Anthony Rizzo came out with what seemed to be a perplexing prediction.
Speaking at the annual Cubs Convention, Rizzo didn’t shy away from being bold. He went on record and said his team would win the NL Central. While the Cubs didn’t take the crown, they went on to win 97 games, eliminating the Pirates in the one-game wild card and knocking out the Cardinals in the NLDS.
Confidence is again riding high for a Cubs team that went all the way to the NLCS last season. Meeting with reporters at Joe Maddon’s “Thanksmas” event at the Chicago Help Initiative, outfielder/catcher Kyle Schwarber went on record with the same prediction Rizzo made a year ago, if not is such grandiose fashion.
“I feel like we’re going to win the division,” Schwarber said. “We showed what we can do when we’re all in it for the |
.
We took evidence from, among many others, psychologists who told us about the mental health impact that a lack a time limit has; from the Chief Inspector of Prisons who told us that the lack of a time limit leads to poor caseworking by Home Office officials; and from detainees who told us that whereas prisoners count their days down, in immigration detention people count their days up.
We are publishing our report today and our key recommendation is that the next government should introduced a time limit of 28 days. To do this, lessons should be learnt from countries such as Sweden who detain far few people and for far less time by actively engaging with people in the community early on in the immigration process, rather than relying on expensive enforcement processes.
Not only are community-based alternatives more humane, they are also considerably cheaper. The majority of detainees who are held for longer than 3 months end up not being removed from the country and independent research by Matrix Evidence concluded that £75 million per year could be saved if asylum seekers who cannot be deported were released in a timely manner.
Lib Dems were at the forefront of the battle to prevent the last Labour Government from detaining terror suspects for 90 days without charge. We should now be at the forefront of ending the illiberal practice of detaining people for immigration purposes for indefinite periods. It’s time for a time limit.
* Julian Huppert was the Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge from 2010-15CME to launch bitcoin futures contract
With digital vehicle up 500% this year, trader interest rising, but viability as true currency remains in doubt
With the price of bitcoin soaring, the CME Group announced plans Tuesday to launch a futures contract on the digital currency by year’s end, offering a trading platform for investors — and perhaps some legitimacy for skeptics.
The new contract, pending regulatory approval, will be based on the daily bitcoin reference rate, which topped $6,400 Tuesday and is up 500 percent for the year, drawing increasing interest from traders, according to Chicago-based CME, the world’s leading derivatives marketplace.
“CME Group is the natural home for this new ve- hicle that will provide investors with transparency, price discovery and risk transfer capabilities,” CME Chairman and CEO Ter- ry Duffy said in a news release.
While the bitcoin contract could provide a robust trading platform for investors, it may not do much to turn the arcane digital concept — birthed less than a decade ago by anonymous computer developers — into a widely used currency, experts say.
“It makes complete sense from the perspective of the pricing game. It’s a traders’ game right now,” said Aswath Damodaran, finance professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. “It does absolutely nothing in advancing bitcoin’s cause as a digital currency.”
Created in 2009, bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital payment network with no central bank. Bitcoins are created by “mining,” where individuals are rewarded for their services to their network. Over time, a maximum of 21 million bitcoins will be put into circulation.
The “artificial scarcity” model is great for trading but not so much for adoption as a global currency, Damodaran said.
“What they saw when they originally created bitcoin was gold for the millennials,” he said. “You can’t create a currency that’s a crisis currency for paranoid geeks and expect it to become a widely used currency for transactions.”
In November 2016, the CME and London-based Crypto Facilities introduced the bitcoin reference rate, which aggregates trading from major bitcoin spot exchanges to calculate a daily price. This year, bitcoin pricing has risen from less than $1,000 to a new intraday high Tuesday of $6,415.
The bitcoin market capitalization has grown to more than $100 billion.
“The reference rate as part of a futures contract … allows people to manage their risk as the bitcoin market develops,” said Laurie Bischel, a CME spokeswoman.
Given the pricing volatility of bitcoin, the futures contract will offer an opportunity for traders to speculate on continued appreciation.
In July, Ronnie Moas, founder of Standpoint Research, set a $50,000 price target on bitcoin by 2027.
“That’s my conservative target,” Moas said. “I think you could hit $100,000 by five years from now.”
Moas predicted bitcoin and cryptocurrency will replace the traditional banking system and supplant gold as an investment vehicle.
Moas said the CME futures contract is “a stamp of approval” that will open the door to other trading platforms such as an exchange traded fund, which he said would encourage broader investment in bitcoin.
“The floodgates will open,” Moas said. “The price of bitcoin will double overnight when that happens. It is not easy for the average person to buy bitcoin right now.”
Others are not so bullish, including legendary investor Warren Buffett, who recently called bitcoin a “real bubble.”
The same volatility that makes bitcoin attractive to investors may be scaring away some businesses contemplating its use as actual currency, NYU’s Damo- daran said.
“What makes it so attractive as a speculative investment makes it awful as a currency,” he said. “If you’re a shopkeeper, you don’t want to put your prices up in bitcoin — you’ll have to keep changing those prices a dozen times every day.”
Damodaran said bitcoin will have to stabilize and become more “boring” to gain widespread adoption. He also expressed misgivings about bitcoin as an investment alternative to gold.
“At least if you trade gold, you end up with something shiny at the end that you can hold on to,” Damo- daran said. “If bitcoin doesn’t become a currency, what the heck do you have five years from now?”
[email protected]: An Iraqi migrant brutally raped a 10-year-old boy in Vienna and told the authorities that it was a'sexual emergency' because he hadn't had sex in months.
The rape took place in a swimming pool cubicle.
It was so brutal that the boy had to be hospitalised for his injuries.
After the crime, the Iraqi was seen entertaining himself by jumping off a diving board at the pool.
A lifeguard who spotted the boy in tears called an ambulance to take him to hospital.
Police arrested the accused on the spot, and during interrogation, he told police that it was a'sexual emergency', the MailOnline reported.
The Iraqi migrant, has a wife and a daughter in Iraq, had been working as a taxi driver in Vienna.
According to the authorities, the Iraqi man had entered the country through the Balkans on September 5.The most tweeted peer-reviewed articles published between 2010 and 2012, and the trends associated with their social media success, have been identified by Stefanie Haustein at the University of Montreal's School of Library and Information Science. She and her colleagues from the US, UK and Germany took 1.4 million articles held in the PubMed and Web of Science databases and determined how many times they appeared on Twitter. "Being based on 1.4 million documents, this is the largest Twitter study of scholarly articles so far," Haustein said. The top two were articles on the effect of radiation on humans, and the top 15 includes articles on acne in teenage athletes, penile fracture, and the links between physical activity and mortality rates. Number 12 was in fact an article on autism by Laurent Mottron, a professor at the University of Montreal. The findings were published in the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST).
The study looked at tweets that were directly related to the peer-reviewed article in question. The tweets either contained a link directly to the article in a scientific database or contained highly specific bibliographic information that would enable anyone to find the study immediately (such as DOI or PMID numbers).
The analysis shows that a high number of tweets does not correspond to a high number of citations in peer-reviewed journals - a method of measuring impact that is generally accepted by the scientific community. As a result, the number one article on the list of researchers, dealing with an altered gene during radiation exposure, was tweeted 963 times but only received nine academic citations. An article on a similar topic, in the wake of the Fukushima explosion, had 30 citations compared to its 639 tweets. "The most popular scientific articles on Twitter stress health implications or have a humourous or surprising component. This suggests that articles having the broadest scientific impact do not have the widest distribution," Haustein said.
The study was supervised and co-authored by University of Montreal Professor Vincent Larivière, holder of the Canada Research Chair on the Transformation of Academic Communication. "For the time being, Twitter cannot be considered a good marker of scientific impact - but it could indicate a certain social impact. When we look at the top articles, many have a surprising or humourous character. Articles are often tweeted anecdotally," Larivière said.
The traditional way of calculating the impact of a scientific article is based on the number of citations it has received in other scientific articles - it reflects impact on the scholarly community of citing authors. Peer review ensures a certain level of quality. "In the case of social networks, anyone can mention an article to anyone, there is no quality control," Haustein said.
Nonetheless, even if two-thirds of the tweeted articles were mentioned only once, Twitter is increasingly used to disseminate scientific articles. Over the three years studied, there was an increase in the proportion of articles cited on the network, reaching 20.4% in 2012. And despite the general finding regarding the number of citations, many of the articles most mentioned on Twitter are from journals such as PNAS, Science, Nature, The Lancet, and New England Journal of Medicine. The journal that received the most tweets was Nature, with 13,430 mentions of 1,083 papers (42%).
The researchers point out that the recent evolution of social networks offers new prospects for scientific communication. "The fact that more and more articles are tweeted is good news because it helps scientific communication. Regardless of whether non-scientists are sending this information, it proves that science is an aspect of general culture," Larivière said. Barely 15% of university graduates in Quebec are active on Twitter. The researchers would like to question scientists' resistance to the social network as a tool for communications. "Considering the correlations revealed from our sample [...], we assume that the number of mentions on the Twitter network is not a good indicator of an article's impact. This could be due to many factors, including the fact that Twitter is not yet very popular among researchers and that the viability of Twitter as a tool for scientific communication remains underestimated," the authors wrote.
###
The Twitter Top 15 Peer-Reviewed Studies
1. Hess et al. (2011). Gain of chromosome band 7q11 in papillary thyroid carcinomas of young patients is associated with exposure to low-dose irradiation Hess is affiliated with German Research Center for Environmental Health.
2. Yasunari et al. (2011). Cesium-137 deposition and contamination of Japanese soils due to the Fukushima nuclear accident. Yasunari is affiliated with the Universities Space Research Association, Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research
3. Sparrow et al. (2011). Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips. Sparrow is is affiliated with Columbia University.
4. Onuma et al. (2011). Rebirth of a Dead Belousov-Zhabotinsky Oscillator. Onuma is affiliated with Mito Dai-ni Senior High School.
5. Silverberg (2012). Whey protein precipitating moderate to severe acne flares in 5 teenaged athletes. Silverberg is affiliated with St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center.
6. Wen et al. (2011). Minimum amount of physical activity for reduced mortality and extended life expectancy: a prospective cohort study. Wen is affiliated with National Health Research Institutes (Taiwan).
7. Kramer (2011). Penile Fracture Seems More Likely During Sex Under Stressful Situations. Kramer is affiliated with the University of Maryland School of Medicine
8. Newman & Feldman (2011). Copyright and Open Access at the Bedside. Newman and Feldman are affiliated with the University of California San Francisco and University of California Hastings College of the Law, respectively.
9. Reaves et al. (2012). Absence of Detectable Arsenate in DNA from Arsenate-Grown GFAJ-1 Cells. Reaves is affiliated with Princeton University.
10. Bravo et al. (2011). Ingestion of Lactobacillus strain regulates emotional behavior and central GABA receptor expression in a mouse via the vagus nerve. Bravo is affiliated with University College Cork.
11. Park et al. (2012). Penetration of the Oral Mucosa by Parasite-Like Sperm Bags of Squid: A Case Report in a Korean Woman. Park is affiliated with the Kwandong University College of Medicine.
12. Mottron (2011). Changing perceptions: The power of autism. Mottron is affiliated with Université de Montréal.
13. Villeda et al. (2012). The ageing systemic milieu negatively regulates neurogenesis and cognitive function. Villeda is affiliated with Stanford University School of Medicine.
14. Merchant et al. (2011). Integrating Social Media into Emergency-Preparedness Efforts. Merchant is affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania.
15. Ho et al. (2011). A Low Carbohydrate, High Protein Diet Slows Tumor Growth and Prevents Cancer Initiation. Ho is affiliated with the BC Cancer Agency.
This document is a translation of a text originally produced in French. The University of Montreal is officially known as Université de Montréal. Isabella Peters of Heinrich Heine University, Dusseldorf (Germany), Cassidy R. Sugimoto of the University of Indiana Bloomington (United States), and Mike Thelwall of the University of Wolverhampton (United Kingdom) also contributed to this research. The following acknowledgement appeared in the article: This research was part of the international Digging into Data program (funded by AHRC/ESRC/JISC (UK), SSHRC (Canada), and the National Science Foundation (US; grant #1208804). Vincent Larivière acknowledges funding from the Canada Research Chair program.Colleen Schmidt, CTV Calgary
A new multicultural shopping mall is being planned right across the street from CrossIron Mills in Balzac.
According to the developers, the New Horizon Mall will feature about 500 stores ranging in size from 285 to 855 square feet.
The new mall is called a "retail condominium" so business owners buy their store, rather than lease it.
Developers hope the new centre will bring a new shopping experience to the city’s northeast neighbourhoods and the goal is to create a multipurpose facility for families of all cultures.
Pre-sales on the project began on Thursday and so far 50 businesses have reserved a store.
The actual units go on sale on October 26th and the mall is expected to open in 2016.
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Fox Presents Danny Hart Fort William Helmet Cam Run May 2010
During round 2 of the Halo British Downhill Series Danny Hart was fitted with a helmet cam, this video shows Danny Hart completing the UCI world cup track. This track will be used in 4 weeks time for round 2 of the UCI world cup. Edited by www.britishdownhillseries.comQuote# 110848When my father died i was young, i was his only son. My mom never married anyone else, she loved my father. In my mind, women were pure like my mom. When i got to college, it was a break in my reality, it was my red pill. A bitch broke my heart, betrayed my feelings. She friendzoned me and had sex with a friend of mine.Now, i cant stand with women, i just want to rape them, i hate them all. I want to make them suffer. I want to torture them.Most of incels are like me, they were raised in a lovely family, them, they woke up the matrix.The irony is that after going full misogynist, women started to show sexual interest in me. But now, i just hate them. I lost my virginity with prostitutes, i just cant stand women, i keep dreaming in killing women, in torture them.psycl0n, Reddit /r/PhilosophyOfRape 53 Comments [7/16/2015 1:56:08 PM]Fundie Index: 38Submitted By: ChrisThirty years after the debut of the NES, Nintendo still finds themselves as a leader in the video game industry. That's an unprecedented position to be in, as all Nintendo's rivals have fallen to their might, and stranger still, Nintendo persists in being the "model" example of many of the best practices of the industry.
DLC has been a huge topic of debate for years now in the industry, with players constantly feeling overcharged or ripped off for content they expected to be in the game in the first place. Nintendo resisted putting DLC in their games at all for years, but now that they have, they've shown everyone else what substantive, fairly-priced DLC should look like. Their packs for Mario Kart 8 and Hyrule Warriors are incredibly well-made and offer a huge host of maps, characters, items and more for a below-average price of around $12. Only Nintendo could take a first crack at something like DLC, and end up knocking it out of the park.
Past that, I recently wrote an article detailing the persistent problem that Microsoft and Sony are both having to deal with in this current console generation. Both the Xbox One and the PS4 have a distinct lack of good exclusive games. The piece was inspired by the recent lackluster release of The Order: 1886 on PS4, but the trend has continued since launch, and includes Xbox One as well. The two systems have precious few worthwhile exclusives, with all their best games being third party releases. Of course, Nintendo is the exception once again, as it dominated 2014 in terms of high quality exclusives from Mario Kart 8 to Super Smash Bros. Wii U to Bayonetta 2. In an age where Sony and Microsoft are losing their footing when it comes to first party hits, Nintendo is as strong as ever.
And lastly, yesterday I published a lengthy piece detailing the struggle to get AAA game pricing down to $40 for shorter games like multiplayer-only Evolve and single player-only The Order. I said that right now that $40 price point doesn't really exist, and then I was promptly corrected when readers reminded me that Nintendo prices some console games at $40, and most of their 3DS games are that price as well. Nintendo even has mastered nuances of the industry I didn't even know about.
All this is to say that Nintendo has the potential to be in a dominating position in the market, and yet as we all know, they're lagging far behind. They constantly miss their sales projections, and now the Wii U is officially the slowest selling major Nintendo console of all time. With so much going for them, the world would seem to be Nintendo's, but what's preventing them from taking the crown?
If I had to sum up Nintendo's central problem in one idea, it's that they are failing to modernize. That manifests itself in a few different ways, all of which are bringing the company down as a whole.
Many of the minor ways Nintendo resists modernization are evident recently, like how a lack of a unified account system makes transferring games between systems cumbersome for Nintendo fans. Or how Nintendo's apparent fear and misunderstanding of YouTube has caused them to try and negotiate a contract with video content creators that's far more controlling and overreaching than any other in the industry.
But above all else, Nintendo's failure to modernize comes down to a much more tangible problem, their hardware. It's why the Wii U has struggled so much as of late, and before that, why the Wii burned so many bridges, despite being a worldwide phenomenon among non-gamers.
Though Nintendo has never relied much on multiplatform third party support for games, and have been content to let their own games be their brightest sales stars, times have changed. Though Nintendo still makes great games, so do third party publishers. The problem is that Nintendo has now gotten to a point where they practically have no third party support at all. After anemic sales on the Wii and then the Wii U, many of the biggest developers have abandoned Nintendo entirely. Worldwide hits like Activision's Call of Duty and EA's Madden are no longer released for the Wii U. Ubisoft, after disappointments like ZombiU and hardships like the Wii U port of Watch Dogs, has announced that they will no longer make "adult" games for the system. That was demonstrated this year as they released both a new-gen Assassin's Creed (Unity) and a last-gen one (Rogue) and somehow neither came out for the Wii U.
All the biggest third party hits of 2014 were nowhere to be found on the Wii U, from Dragon Age to Far Cry to Mordor to Destiny. Sony and Microsoft may not have produced more than one memorable exclusive each during the year, but both of them had the distinct advantage of having all these games in their roster while Nintendo had none.
All of this comes down to their hardware, both in terms of power and concept. Nintendo has struggle painfully getting their hardware to match whatever the current standard is set by their console rivals. They previously bemoaned trying to make the leap to HD in an era where their competitors had crossed that bridge years earlier. The result was the Wii with last-gen capabilities in the era of the Xbox 360 and PS3, and now we have Nintendo finally catching up to those systems, but now once again the industry have moved on to the Xbox One and PS4.
Every time this issues comes up, fans will bemoan the fact that "better graphics don't make better games." That's largely true, and yet that isn't the issue here at all. By designing a system without the capability to play these modern games that use more powerful engines, Nintendo is slamming the door in the faces of countless hit titles. Combine that with Nintendo's recent need to have some sort of gameplay gimmick as a core part of their new systems, either the Wiimote waggle or now the Gamepad's second screen, and developing for them is just too exhausting to bother with. Many developers learned that the hard way for the Wii, a huge-selling console, and now they're far less motivated to even try for the Wii U, which has only sold a fraction of the amount of its predecessor.
But this is what's so frustrating about the situation. If Nintendo could field a truly modern console, they could run the table on the Xbox One and PS4. They have far and away the best first party exclusive line-up out there, including 2-4 of the best games of the year in any given year. They would be an absolute powerhouse if they had access to the other seven games that make up yearly top ten lists. And yet, their inability or lack of desire to keep up technologically with their competition has made them fall far behind instead.
So what to do? Ignoring the much-hated suggestion of Nintendo getting out of hardware entirely and focusing on games, they need to produce a console that catches up or surpasses the current generation in terms of power, during that generation, not afterward. They need to allow their games to be played with a normal controller, and not invent a new gimmick as the focal point of the system, only to end up rarely using it at all.
Though this would have been great advice four years ago, I have to wonder if it's even possible now. It does seem likely that Nintendo will be the next of the big three to come out with new console hardware, given that the Wii U is older than the other two and Nintendo has already admitted they're working on something new. And yet, it's hard to know if A) they're up to the challenge of making the kind of system they need to and B) if a mid-generation release would be a hit or a disaster.
For a decade now, Nintendo has shown that they just do not have the capacity to match the technical capabilities of their competition for whatever reason. It's hard to understand how at this point they could just flip some magic switch and produce a console to rival the PS4/One. If they do, it seems like it would take long enough to develop that by the time it does come out, the cycle has begun again.
Secondly, if Nintendo did release a new console, a powerful one, in the next three years or so, how would it sell? Existing Wii U owners may be dismayed they have to upgrade to another Nintendo system already, and current Xbox One and PS4 owners will have already made their choice for the console generation, as only a fraction of the market owns more than one major console given their high cost. Nintendo would be debuting a new console in the middle of a generation that's already saturated with consoles, and years out, would probably have lower price points to boot compared to a brand new Nintendo system.
But if Nintendo is to stay in the hardware game, this seems like the only plausible way forward for them. Despite Zelda and Starfox supposedly coming in the next year or two, the biggest games of any Nintendo generation, Mario Kart and Smash Bros, have already come and gone. The Wii U will continue to feel more and more dated as time goes on, and it's hard to imagine a resurgence for it. Recently Nintendo executive have said that "one great game" could save the system, pointing to how Pokémon extended the life of the Game Boy for years, but it's hard to bank on Nintendo pulling that same rabbit out of the hate twice. Ironically, the only game I can see doing that would be a fully-fledged console Pokémon RPG, something Nintendo seems determined never to make for reasons that forever elude me.
It's a frustrating situation because Nintendo does so much right in the industry right now, and it's maddening to see that their biggest problem is their inability to make a modern console that can play the kind of third party games that Nintendo needs to bolster their roster and better their market position. But all the solutions seem like hard, if not impossible answers. Nintendo has survived a good long while now, but their decisions about what comes next for them are going to be incredibly important if they want to remain a fixture in the industry for decades to come.
Follow me on Twitter, like my page on Facebook, and pick up a copy of my sci-fi novel, The Last Exodus, and its sequel, The Exiled Earthborn, along with my new Forbes book, Fanboy Wars.
Watch below to see when Call of Duty may return to World War II:Spider-Man: Homecoming managed to set up some things for future films, but did it also happen to include the introduction of Black Cat?
Spoilers incoming for Spider-Man: Homecoming, so you've been warned.
Early on in the film, Peter (Tom Holland) and Ned (Jacob Batalon ) are walking down the halls of their high school talking. There are several scenes like this throughout the movie, but this one includes a young lady walking in the pack behind them with long white hair in a black outfit. That is an obvious reference of course to Felicia Hardy, aka the Black Cat. Felicia Hardy has been a longtime fan-favorite in the Spider-Man books, drifting between ally, villain, and love interest throughout the years.
This also bears mentioning because Sony has already announced their Silver and Black project that will bring Black Cat together with Silver Sable in a spinoff film. Now, that most likely was still in early development when Homecoming was already off and running, so this might be just a nice nod to the Black Cat fans rather than a formal introduction, as the character doesn't say anything and only shows up that one time. Still, they could always use that seed to build off of in the character's full introduction, depending on how they decide to develop her origin.
Felicia Hardy is one of the most talented thieves out there, able to call on her supreme athletic and combat skills when in a jam. She also has luck on her side, but most of it's bad. That works to her benefit though, as she can somewhat control who it affects. In the books, she is currently running a successful wing of organized crime, which could explain her pairing with Silver Sable in the spinoff, but that remains to be seen. Spider-Man: Homecoming currently enjoys a 4.12 out of 5 on ComicBook.com's anticipation rankings.Paju, South Korea (CNN) North Korea outlined an ultimatum Friday to its southern neighbor: Stop the "provocations" and "psychological warfare" or pay the price.
"If South Korea does not respond to our ultimatum," North Korean U.N. ambassador An Myong Hun told reporters, "our military counteraction will be inevitable and that counteraction will be very strong."
North Korea's regime, known for being both thin-skinned and fond of saber rattling, has made plenty of threats before. In fact, articulating derogatory and intimidating words about South Korea and the United States has been more the norm than not for years.
What makes this case different, though, is that two South Korean soldiers have been seriously wounded (by landmines August 4 in the Demilitarized Zone) and that there's been firing back-and-forth since then. An said Friday that "all the (North Korean) frontline large combined units (have) entered into a wartime state... fully armed to launch any surprise operations and finish their preparations for action."
Specifically, this threat is tied to cross-border propaganda loudspeakers that South Korea resumed using last week for the first time in a decade. Pyongyang is demanding they be turned off by Saturday evening.
"The situation of the country is now inching closer to the brink of war," Ji Jae Ryong, North Korean ambassador to China, told journalists in Beijing on Friday.
U.S., South Korea exercises resume
South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo accused North Korea of pushing the tensions "to the utmost level."
"North Korea's offensive action is a despicable crime that breaks a ceasefire agreement and the non-aggression treaty between North and South," Han said Friday in an address broadcast on South Korean television.
"If North Korea continues on provoking, our military -- as we have already warned -- will respond sternly, and end the evil provocations of North Korea," he said, adding the country is working closely with the United States.
As the verbal sniping continued, the South's President, Park Geun-hye, visited troops at a base south of Seoul, receiving a briefing from military officials on the latest situation, her office said.
One ongoing point of contention is South Korea's joint military exercises with the United States -- a regular training event that An contends aims to "occupy Pyongyang."
Those exercises were suspended Thursday amid the war of words, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense David Shear told reporters. But they're now back on.
"We suspended part of the exercise temporarily in order to allow our side to coordinate with the ROK (Republic of Korea) side on the subject of the exchange fire across the DMZ," Shear said "And the exercise is being conducted now according to plan."
North Korea calls broadcasts 'an open act of war'
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have been escalating since the two South Korean soldiers were wounded early this month. South Korea and the U.S.-led U.N. Command in Korea concluded North Korea planted the mines on a patrol route in the southern part of the zone.
North Korea has denied responsibility and refused South Korean demands for an apology.
"It is a bad habit (for) South Korea to groundlessly link whatever events occur in South Korea with the DPRK," An said, with the DPRK equating to his country. "They seek sinister purposes whenever they orchestrate ridiculous plots."
Seoul has since resumed its cross-border propaganda broadcasts, which North Korea called "an open act of war" and spurred it to threaten to blow up the speakers.
Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meets with North Korea's first female fighter jet pilots in this undated photo released by the country's state media on Monday, June 22. He called the women "heroes of Korea" and "flowers of the sky." Hide Caption 1 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military Kim stands on the snow-covered top of Mount Paektu in North Korea in a photo taken by North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun on April 18 and released the next day by South Korean news agency Yonhap. Kim scaled the country's highest mountain, North Korean state-run media reported, arriving at the summit to tell soldiers that the hike provides mental energy more powerful than nuclear weapons. Hide Caption 2 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military Kim Jong Un, center, poses with soldiers on the snow-covered top of Mount Paektu in an April 18 photo released by South Korean news agency Yonhap. Hide Caption 3 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military Kim visits the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang, North Korea, on April 15 to celebrate the 103rd birth anniversary of his grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung. Hide Caption 4 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military Kim inspects a drill for seizing an island at an undisclosed location in North Korea in an undated picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on February 21. Hide Caption 5 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military Kim speaks during a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released February 19 by the state-run Korean Central News Agency. Hide Caption 6 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military A picture released by the North Korean Central News Agency shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appearing without his cane at an event with military commanders in Pyongyang on Tuesday, November 4. Kim, who recently disappeared from public view for about six weeks, had a cyst removed from his right ankle, a lawmaker told CNN. Hide Caption 7 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military Kim is seen walking with a cane in this image released Thursday, October 30, by the state-run Korean Central News Agency. Hide Caption 8 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military Kim sits in the pilot's seat of a fighter jet during the inspection. Hide Caption 9 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military This undated photo, released Tuesday, October 14, by the KCNA, shows Kim inspecting a housing complex in Pyongyang, North Korea. International speculation about Kim went into overdrive after he failed to attend events on Friday, October 10, the 65th anniversary of the Workers' Party. He hadn't been seen in public since he reportedly attended a concert with his wife on September 3. Hide Caption 10 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military A picture released by the KCNA shows Kim and his wife watching a performance by the Moranbong Band on Wednesday, September 3, in Pyongyang. Hide Caption 11 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military Kim tours a front-line military unit in this image released Wednesday, July 16, by the KCNA. Hide Caption 12 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military Kim poses for a photo as he oversees a tactical rocket-firing drill in June. Hide Caption 13 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military Kim watches a tactical rocket-firing drill in June. Hide Caption 14 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military A North Korean soldier patrols the bank of the Yalu River, which separates the North Korean town of Sinuiju from the Chinese border town of Dandong, on Saturday, April 26. Hide Caption 15 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military In this photo released Thursday, April 24, by the Korean Central News Agency, Kim smiles with female soldiers after inspecting a rocket-launching drill at an undisclosed location. Hide Caption 16 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military A picture released Tuesday, March 18, by the KCNA shows Kim attending a shooting practice at a military academy in Pyongyang. Hide Caption 17 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military A North Korean soldier uses binoculars on Thursday, February 6, to look at South Korea from the border village of Panmunjom, which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War. Hide Caption 18 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military A North Korean soldier kicks a pole along the banks of the Yalu River on Tuesday, February 4. Hide Caption 19 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military A photo released by the KCNA on Thursday, January 23, shows the North Korean leader inspecting an army unit during a winter drill. Hide Caption 20 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military Kim inspects the command of an army unit in this undated photo released Sunday, January 12, by the KCNA. Hide Caption 21 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military Kim visits an army unit in this undated photo. Hide Caption 22 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military Kim inspects a military factory in this undated picture released by the KCNA in May 2013. Hide Caption 23 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military Kim visits the Ministry of People's Security in 2013 as part of the country's May Day celebrations. Hide Caption 24 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military A North Korean soldier, near Sinuiju, gestures to stop photographers from taking photos in April 2013. Hide Caption 25 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military North Korean soldiers patrol near the Yalu River in April 2013. Hide Caption 26 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military Kim is briefed by his generals in this undated photo. On the wall is a map titled "Plan for the strategic forces to target mainland U.S." Hide Caption 27 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military Kim works during a briefing in this undated photo. Hide Caption 28 of 55 Photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military In |
and EPSCs following stimulation with muscarine (n = 14) or telenzepine followed by muscarine (n = 6). (D) Schematic and representative electrophysiology traces from DsRed+ interneurons in the mPFC of Sst-Cre/AAV2M1shRNA mice following application of muscarine alone or telenzepine followed by muscarine. (E) Proportion of DsRed+ interneurons that exhibited inward current and EPSCs after stimulation with muscarine (n = 6) or telenzepine followed by muscarine (n = 3).
To confirm neuron subtype-specific knockdown of M1-AChR, SST interneurons from Sst-Cre/AAV2M1shRNA mice were recorded (Figure 6D). DsRed+ SST interneurons in these mice had resting membrane potentials equal to –77.3 ± 2.8 mV, comparable to SST-tdTomato interneurons shown above. In Sst-Cre/AAV2M1shRNA mice, a minimal muscarine-induced inward current was observed in 1 out of 6 (17%) interneurons tested. Muscarine-induced EPSCs were observed in 5 out of 6 (83%) interneurons tested (Figure 6E), indicating that synaptic inputs onto SST interneurons were not affected in Sst-Cre/AAV2M1shRNA mice. These EPSCs were blocked when telenzepine was applied prior to muscarine (Figure 6E). Collectively, these data show that cholinergic stimulation of SST interneurons in the mPFC is mediated by M1-AChR and that AAV2M1shRNA effectively blocked muscarinic stimulation of SST interneurons. Knockdown of M1-AChR was confirmed by immunolabeling studies, which showed that infusion of AAV2M1shRNA into Sst-Cre mice significantly reduced M1-AChR immunolabeling compared with that of Sst-Cre mice infused with a scrambled shRNA control (AAV2SCR) (P < 0.02, Supplemental Figure 2).
Knockdown of M1-AChR in SST, but not PV, interneurons prevents the antidepressant-like effects of scopolamine. To determine the GABAergic interneuron subtype that mediates the behavioral responses to scopolamine, WT, Sst-Cre, and PV-Cre mice received bilateral infusion of AAV2M1shRNA into the mPFC and were analyzed 3 weeks later (Figure 7A). Infusion of AAV2M1shRNA into the mPFC of Sst-Cre mice resulted in recombination in a subset of neurons, shown by expression of only DsRed (Figure 7, B and C). AAV2M1shRNA infusion in Sst-Cre mice produced no significant changes in baseline behavior other than a small increase in preswim immobility compared with that of WT mice (P < 0.003; Supplemental Figure 5, B–D). In littermate WT/AAV2M1shRNA mice, scopolamine reduced immobility in the FST as expected, but this effect was completely absent in Sst-Cre/AAV2M1shRNA mice (interaction, F 1,27 = 7.95, P < 0.009; Figure 7E). In the NSFT, scopolamine decreased latency to feed in WT/AAV2M1shRNA mice, but had no effect in Sst-Cre/AAV2M1shRNA mice (interaction, F 1,26 = 3.75, P = 0.06, Figure 7F). In PV-Cre mice, infusion of AAV2M1shRNA resulted in recombination in a subset of neurons, shown by expression of DsRed only (Figure 7D). M1-AChR knockdown in PV-Cre mice caused no baseline behavioral effects in either the open field test or FST (Supplemental Figure 5, E–G) and had no effect on the antidepressant-like actions of scopolamine in the FST (main effect, F 1,23 = 22.35, P < 0.0001, Figure 7G) or NSFT (main effect, F 1,24 = 13.12, P < 0.001, Figure 7H). Following behavioral testing, studies were conducted to determine whether M1-AChR knockdown in SST interneurons blocks scopolamine induction of FosB. In WT/AAV2M1shRNA mice, scopolamine increased FosB+ staining in the mPFC, but there were no significant differences in Sst-Cre/AAV2M1shRNA mice (Figure 8A). Scopolamine increased the number of FosB+ neurons in both the prelimbic (interaction, F 1,14 = 21.64, P < 0.004; Figure 8B) and infralimbic (interaction, F 1,14 = 7.68, P < 0.01; Figure 8C) cortices of WT/AAV2M1shRNA mice, but there were no significant effects in Sst-Cre/AAV2M1shRNA mice (Figure 8, B and C).
Figure 7 Infusion of AAV2M1shRNA in mPFC of Sst-Cre mice blocked the antidepressant effects of scopolamine. WT or Sst-Cre mice received bilateral infusion of AAV2M1shRNA in the mPFC. After 3 weeks, mice were tested for baseline behavioral changes, then received saline or scopolamine, followed by additional behavioral tests. (A) Schematic showing experimental approach and time line. A subset of mice were perfused, and brains were processed for histology. (B) Representative image of AAV2M1shRNA in prelimbic mPFC of WT mouse. Inset shows all neurons have colocalization of EGFP (green) and DsRed (red) fluorescence. Scale bars: 100 μm; 10 μm (inset). (C and D) Representative image of AAV2M1shRNA in prelimbic mPFC of (C) Sst-Cre or (D) PV-Cre mouse. Insets show that many neurons have colocalization of EGFP (green) and DsRed (red) fluorescence, while some have only DsRed (red) fluorescence. Scale bar: 100 μm; 10 μm (insets). Following repeated doses of scopolamine, Sst-Cre or PV-Cre mice with corresponding WT littermates were tested in FST and NSFT. Time spent immobile in the FST (E and G) and latency to feed in NSFT are shown (F and H). Bars represent the mean ± SEM, n = 6–8/group. *P < 0.05; #P = 0.06, means significantly different from respective saline group. Numbers in the bars represent the total sample size for each group.
Figure 8 M1-AChR knockdown in Sst-Cre mice decreased FosB activation following scopolamine treatment. WT or Sst-Cre mice received bilateral infusion of AAV2M1shRNA in the mPFC. Following behavioral tests, mice received an acute scopolamine injection (25 μg/kg) and were perfused 1 hour later. Brains were collected and processed for immunohistology. (A) Representative images of FosB labeling in the prelimbic mPFC of WT/AAV2M1shRNA and Sst-Cre/AAV2M1shRNA mice treated with saline or scopolamine. Scale bar: 100 μm. Quantification of FosB+ neurons in the (B) prelimbic or (C) infralimbic mPFC. Bars represent the mean ± SEM, n = 4–5/group. *P < 0.05, means significantly different from respective saline group based on ANOVA.
To test the possibility that the effects of AAV2M1shRNA knockdown might occur via nonspecific actions of shRNA expression, we examined the effects of a scrambled shRNA control (AAV2SCR) in the mPFC of Sst-Cre mice. Immunohistology showed that M1-AChR knockdown occurred in Sst-Cre/AAV2M1shRNA mice (P < 0.003, Supplemental Figure 2). Similarly to what occurred in prior studies (Figure 7, E and F), Sst-Cre/AAV2M1shRNA mice showed no antidepressant-like response in the FST following scopolamine treatment (Figure 9, A–C). In contrast, Sst-Cre/AAV2SCR mice showed antidepressant-like responses comparable to those of WT/AAV2M1shRNA mice, with significant reductions in FST immobility (interaction, F 2,27 = 5.15, P < 0.01, Figure 9B). In the NSFT, no significant interaction was observed; however, there was a trend for an effect of scopolamine across groups (main effect, F 1,27 = 3.29, P = 0.08, Supplemental Figure 6). Ad hoc analyses showed that WT/AAV2M1shRNA and Sst-Cre/AAV2SCR mice treated with scopolamine exhibited a decrease in latency to feed (P < 0.02 for both, Supplemental Figure 6).
Figure 9 Infusion of AAV2M1shRNA in mPFC of Sst-Cre mice blocked the antidepressant-like effects of scopolamine compared with scrambled control. Sst-Cre mice received bilateral infusion of AAV2M1shRNA or AAV2SCR in the mPFC. After 3 weeks, mice were tested for baseline behavioral changes, then received saline or scopolamine, followed by additional behavioral tests. (A) Schematic showing experimental approach and time line. Following repeated doses of scopolamine, Sst-Cre mice were tested in FST, FUST, and NSFT. Time spent immobile in the FST (B) and interaction time in FUST (C) are shown. Bars represent the mean ± SEM, n = 5–6/group. *P < 0.05, means significantly different from respective saline group. Numbers in the bars represent the total sample size for each group.Farm on the fast lane is not the result of motorway planners’ revenge on a greedy farmer after all
The farm in the middle of the M62 has been the subject of numerous urban myths since the motorway opened in the 1970s.
Ken Wild, who owned Stott Hall farm, was holding on for more compensation, but lost out when the planners decided to go around rather than through the property, according to one theory.
Sadly, the truth is somewhat less dramatic. A newly unearthed documentary made for Yorkshire Television in 1983 revealed the real reason. Presenter Michael Clegg told viewers: “A geological fault beneath the farmhouse meant it was more practical for engineers to leave it rather than blast through and destroy it.”
Wild said: “It looked like we would have to move, but they found out that they couldn’t get all six lanes together.”
As a result, the carriageways were built around the farm, which Wild’s father had first leased in 1934. The land, which is 1,100ft above sea level, has been farmed since 1737.
The episode of Clegg’s People has been released by the British Film Institute as part of its Britain on Film collection.
Although the motorway avoided the farm, he told Clegg that some 70 acres of land were lost to the construction.
Engineers had to build underpasses to allow the farmer to access the part of his land that was not sandwiched between the six lanes of traffic.
Wild died in 2004 and the farm is now run by Paul and Jill Thorp, who were not put off by the constant roar of traffic outside their house.
Paul Thorp told the BBC that Stott Hall had become something of an unofficial services on what is the UK’s highest motorway: “People running out of petrol; coming and wanting to buy petrol and diesel; wanting to borrow spanners and jacks... If I’ve got some petrol I’ll sell them some. I’ll try to help anybody out. It’s just not a nice spot to be, at the side of the road, especially if it’s rough weather. I can’t afford to give the petrol away though.”
The 107-mile motorway, which links Liverpool and Manchester to Leeds and Hull, was opened in stages between 1971 and 1976.Convertible and multimode car seats have front adjust harnesses. Rear facing only car seats have two different types of harness adjusters — rear adjust or front adjust. This feature can be crucial because one is much easier to use than the other!
The harness on a front adjust car seat is simple and straightforward to use — just pull the strap at the front of the seat to tighten the harness. Push the button between the child’s legs and pull at the shoulders to loosen the harness on most seats.
Rear adjust harnesses are increasingly hard to find, and we’re pretty happy about that! They have two straps on the back of the seat that must be tightened individually. They are a bit cumbersome and can make it difficult to properly tighten the harness.
As the child grows, the harness needs to move up the car seat’s shell. There are two types of harness adjusters.
No Rethread Harness This type of harness adjuster uses some type of button or tab on the headrest to raise the harness to the correct position in relation to a child’s shoulders and the direction they are riding in the vehicle.
Rethread HarnessOZY takes you to the nations and individuals leading the fight to save the planet. This OZY series takes you to the nations and individuals driving innovative solutions at the New Climate Change Frontiers.
The entrance to Smart Recycling’s warehouse is flanked by two huge plastic vats, both filled with dark brown, slightly viscous liquid. One vat contains leftover vegetable oil that, 30 years ago, would have been trash. The other contains that oil’s more valuable future self: biodiesel. This building, on the outskirts of Puebla, Mexico, is the new home of the biodiesel plant run by 28-year-old Moisés Flores.
In January, Mexico was hit by protests more numerous, violent and vehement than those against its neighbor’s new president. Government-owned oil company Pemex had hiked its prices by 20 percent, in a move known as gazolinazo, making many of the country’s most important products, including food and water, more expensive. Major cities were swarmed with protesters. Children in their mothers’ arms bore signs calling for President Peña Nieto to resign. Nuns and priests chanted, “Christ is calling for freedom … the church is fighting for you.” Months later, even while prices have more or less returned to where they were in 2016, signs reading “No al gasolinazo” still speckle cars and homes.
Now, people are looking for alternative energy sources. Of the five or six Mexican companies producing biodiesel, Smart Recycling is emerging as one of the most important. Flores reports that production has grown by more than 150 percent since January; it now produces upwards of 400 gallons a day. His was the first biodiesel company in Puebla, the fourth-largest city in Mexico, and is the closest to Mexico City. Before biodiesel, Flores’ father, Victor, ran the company as a recycling business — today, biodiesel is the company’s chief focus, but those years of energy and waste-industry contacts have simplified procuring raw materials, one of the main challenges in the Mexican biodiesel industry.
Until 2013, companies like Smart Recycling were illegal in Mexico: For the previous 73 years, Pemex was a government-enforced monopoly. Pemex never traded in biodiesel, a broad term encompassing any fuel made from natural products such as cooking oil, soybean oil or animal fats. But any producer of that fuel would have been viewed as a competitor, and therefore illegal.
Bound by no such regulations, the U.S. began experimenting with biodiesel fuel as early as the 1970s amid its own fuel crises. Still, Kaleb Little, the senior communications manager of the National Biodiesel Board, says the first commercial gallon wasn’t sold in America until the 1990s. The soybean industry initially financially supported research, hoping to profit from its excess oil. The companies selling and producing, explains Little, were small and independent at first, much like those now sprouting up in Mexico. Many of those small fry have remained the leaders in the American biodiesel industry — a market that’s grown from 25 million gallons in the early 2000s to 2.8 billion gallons last year.
Procuring raw materials will be one of Smart Recycling’s biggest challenges.
Now, Flores has a chance to turn Smart Recycling from a small experiment into a permanent industry leader. He’s doing so with family by his side: His two younger brothers assist with physical production, and his father, previously Wal-Mart’s regional director for Mexico, started Smart Recycling while Moisés was in college and remains heavily involved. “He does the numbers, and I do the production,” says the younger Flores of his dad, who quickly counters, “He works, and I watch him.” When asked to take a picture together, the former Wal-Mart executive protests, insisting that the spotlight should be on his son alone.
Moisés began working on biodiesel almost immediately after the Pemex monopoly was lifted. It took six months to perfect the first machine, and he says he “learned a lot more online than [he] did in school” about how to make it, despite his degree in chemical engineering from Mexico’s prestigious Ibero-American University.
The work is a natural fit for the tinkerer: “I was always doing these little experiments,” Flores recalls of his childhood growing up in Puebla. Every time he got a new toy, “I’d break it open to see what was inside or combine [it with] old toys to make new ones.” In more devious moods, he enjoyed redirecting the controls of the house remotes or delaying class by tampering with the classroom lights. Now, Flores thinks of his work with biodiesel as similarly rebellious, though he presents as a good-boy business prodigy in his clean, wrinkle-free outfit.
Unfortunately, even as both production and prices have gone up for the Flores family, profits have remained mostly flat (they won’t specify numbers), because gasolinazo has increased the prices of their sources. Flores says he’s keen to keep his prices below Pemex’s to keep their customers, aware that the appeal of going green isn’t incentive enough.
Procuring raw materials will be one of Smart Recycling’s biggest challenges, says Alfredo Martínez Jimenez, a senior researcher at the Biotechnology Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who focuses on renewable energy. Algae, Flores says, “is probably the future of all this” — but water isn’t plentiful in Puebla. “In Mexico,” Martínez Jimenez explains, “for cultural and financial reasons, people cook a lot in their homes … and don’t often fry their food” — meaning there’s less excess oil than, for example, in America. Luis Felipe Barahona, principal researcher at the Yucatán Center of Scientific Investigation, claims that “the biodiesel industry needs the support of the government,” including regulations on pricing and quality.
But another kind of pressure is on the minds of the father-son duo. Perched above the plant in their small office, one wall acting as a blackboard marked up with the calculations used to create their first machine, the two mourn the time when they could see snow on the nearby mountains. “The world isn’t going to last much longer if we keep consuming it at this rate,” says the younger Flores.Whereabouts
An important part of USADA’s testing program is the ability to test athletes without any advance notice in an out-of-competition setting. Athletes are subject to testing 365 days a year and do not have “off-seasons” or cutoff periods in which testing does not occur.
Taking the time to submit whereabouts information can feel inconvenient, but the details athletes provide help USADA ensure that U.S. athletes have the best anti-doping program possible and that their right to compete on a clean and level playing field is protected. Athletes in the USADA Registered Testing Pool (RTP) submit whereabouts information quarterly and update any whereabouts changes to USADA through a number of methods. Failing to properly file whereabouts information or to be available for testing, can result in an athlete receiving what is known as a whereabouts failure.
Under the 2015 World Anti-Doping Code, any combination of three whereabouts failures, which include filing failures or missed tests within a rolling 12-month period may result in an anti-doping rule violation and lead to a loss of funding, medals, prizes and other money, as well as losing the chance to compete.
This is a change from the previous Code in which an anti-doping rule violation resulted from three failures in an 18-month period.
If you are an athlete who has NOT been notified or educated by USADA regarding your inclusion into the USADA RTP, then you do NOT need to file whereabouts information.British Columbia's NDP government has set aside more than $260,000 a year in public money to maintain a power-sharing agreement that is keeping it alive in the minority legislature.
The governing New Democrats have already faced criticism for hiring staff to manage the party's alliance with the third-place Greens, and the Opposition Liberals say the budget for those efforts, revealed in documents released through Freedom of Information legislation, is inappropriate.
The news comes as the NDP is also under fire for hiring dozens of political appointees with party ties; an issue that had been met in previous legislatures with outrage from then opposition members of the party.
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The New Democrats took power over the summer after signing a deal with the Greens, who committed to support the government in confidence votes in exchange for a list of policy commitments.
To keep the deal together, the new government set up a confidence and supply-agreement secretariat within the Premier's office, appointing Donna Sanford – the sister of senior campaign official Glen Sanford – as executive director. The secretariat's role is to ensure the Greens are properly consulted on policies and legislation.
Ms. Sanford's salary is $100,000 a year and she's been given the green light to hire two staff members, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail. They include a policy analyst with a salary of $90,000 and an executive assistant with a salary of $53,000, although the government says those two positions have not yet been filled. The policy analyst position was initially slated to pay between $72,400 and $82,900 a year, but Ms. Sanford requested that be changed to $90,000, the documents show.
The secretariat also has an annual travel budget of $20,000.
"They need to be up front with British Columbians about the fact that it is costing taxpayer money, potentially up to a million dollars over four years, to manage a political relationship," Liberal finance critic Shirley Bond said in an interview.
"The public service is not in the business of supporting political relationships, that is not their job."
Ms. Bond said the Liberals plan to press their concerns when the legislature reviews the estimates from the recent provincial budget. The NDP government did not make a cabinet minister available for an interview, but Premier John Horgan's spokeswoman, Jen Holmwood, defended the secretariat's budget in an e-mailed statement. Ms. Holmwood said the secretariat was doing "excellent work" and is part of fulfilling the NDP's commitment to work across party lines.
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"This small office is dedicated to co-ordinating consultations with the Green caucus that ensure progress on a range of priorities in the agreement," she said in the statement.
Adam Olsen, one of three Greens elected to the legislature in May, said he could see no problem with the secretariat or the money spent on it. He said the purpose of the agreement, and by extension the secretariat, is to create good public policy.
"Minority governments require levels of communication that other governments haven't engaged in, nor appear to be comfortable engaging in," Mr. Olsen said in an interview.
"The success of this government is about communication and us working together. Rather than tearing this down, we should be celebrating it."
The secretariat's budget is the latest issue prompting criticism from opposition benches in the past week. The New Democrats were also forced to defend a recent string of political appointments.
A number of positions have gone to former campaign staff, constituency workers and others connected to the BC New Democrats, as well as NDP staff from the federal party and other provinces. They also include newly appointed ministerial assistant Kassandra Dycke, who unsuccessfully ran as a New Democrat in the 2013 election.
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The Liberals, who were once on the receiving end of criticism for such appointments, cried hypocrisy.
"That's the key issue here: You say one thing and you do another," Ms. Bond said. "There's a pattern of that emerging."
Mr. Horgan insisted the government has been hiring qualified candidates based on their merits.
"We went through a hiring process, that I was quite proud of, to populate our political positions," Mr. Horgan told reporters on Friday after a speech to the Union of BC Municipalities conference in Vancouver.
"But this notion that there was an airlift of failed candidates is just not true. We hired one individual who was a candidate not in the last election but in the election before that, and on top of that she's eminently qualified. We went thorough a rigorous process. We hired the best people."
While in opposition, the New Democrats repeatedly complained about Liberal patronage appointments.
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"We know that while average British Columbians are still struggling to find work, the B.C. Liberals are making sure their partisan friends are finding soft landing spots," Shane Simpson, who was recently named Social Development Minister, told the legislature in 2014.
"While B.C. remains in last place in private-sector job creation, the premier [Christy Clark] has found more than $1-million a year to pay perks and patronage appointments – $1-million to hire 20 failed candidates and Liberal insiders. No jobs created for British Columbians, but good-paying jobs for their friends."Virtual reality technology is changing, and fast. Soon to hit the market, Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset which is worn like a pair of oversized goggles and, while still being refined, is already available to the public. Made to connect to computers and mobile devices, it gives users a 3D experience and allows them to feel like they’re walking around inside a virtual world.
But this technology isn’t only for gamers. With 3D mapping software, businesses can map out actual places and allow anyone, anywhere to experience a virtual reality walk-through. Using technology tools like an Oculus Rift headset, you could one day virtually visit a museum, explore a theme park, and even take a hike through one of our national parks.
This ability to take virtual trips raises an interesting question: Will VR help or hinder the tourism industry? Further, is it possible to make too much available online? How many will decide not to visit a far-away destination because they have already explored it virtually?
While this technology is still in its early days and likely won’t be ready for mass consumption for several years, the possibilities it presents are endless. When it comes to tourism, imagine what could become accessible online. The Louvre could showcase the Mona Lisa, letting millions see the masterpiece every single day. Anyone could climb the steps to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and enjoy the view. Machu Picchu, the Great Pyramid of Giza or the Mayan Temples? Been there, done that.
The trick will be not to give it all away for free, of course. Tourism destinations are hoping the new technology will act as a lure; by giving a taste of what they have to offer, venues hope to attract new tourists… and their money.
Virtual Reality Videos
One of the first corporations to use virtual reality to promote tourism is Destination BC. With Oculus Rift technology, they created their first video called The Wild Within VR Experience, and a 2D preview of the video is available on their YouTube channel.
The destination marketing video was filmed using a custom rig – built with a 3D printer, no less. Seven specialized HD cameras were mounted around the rig, allowing footage to be filmed by helicopter, by boat, by drone and on foot. The breathtaking views seen in the video were shot throughout the Great Bear Rainforest in beautiful British Columbia, Canada.
But is there value in using the latest virtual reality technology when it comes to marketing a tourism destination? Marsha Walden, CEO of Destination BC explained: “We think virtual reality is a great fit for tourism marketing. It lets our travel trade and media partners experience our destination in a new and unique way that has not been possible before.” The full version of The Wild Within VR Experience should be available to the public sometime this year and Destination BC is hoping it will entice new tourists to come and explore the Canadian province.
Would You Ever Take a Virtual Vacation?
So far, the tourism industry isn’t showing any signs of being harmed by today’s technology. Far from it. Maps and navigation apps only make traveling in unfamiliar cities easier, and Google Translate even offers real-time translating of spoken conversations. However, Oculus Rift could be a game-changer as it could potentially offer a too authentic substitute for the real thing. If it becomes too realistic, tourists may start to spend their money elsewhere: spas, fine dining and luxurious accommodation just don’t translate into a virtual world the way a museum visit might.
New forays into virtual reality aren’t limited to the tourism industry, with several other sectors also exploring the latest technology. The real estate industry is exploring the use of tech like Oculus Rift to promote property listings. Searching for a new home may become much easier in the future, allowing virtual reality tours of homes for rent and even including interactive features like opening closet doors.
But before jumping aboard, businesses need to ask themselves if using virtual reality is a sound marketing strategy. If anyone can experience online what your business has to offer, will they then spend their time and money for the real thing?
Only the future will tell, but travel, hotel accommodation and entrance fees ad up quickly and our vacation days are quite limited. If the virtual reality is too good, why would we trouble ourselves? Visiting virtually means no cramped airplanes and no jetlag; no bugs, no uncomfortable hotel beds and no tipping. All you need is a few minutes and a favorite chair to enjoy a cool new destination – even if it means no pina colada served in a hollowed out coconut.
Amy Fry is a former financial and business adviser who now writes about finance, business, and technology.Photo by NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Seinfeld was a self-described show about nothing in which nothing much ever changed. Between its first and ninth season, the show’s basic setup went unaltered. None of the four leads ever departed, and no new major characters were added. No relationships stuck. Jerry’s apartment and Monk’s Café remained the sitcom’s main settings.
As a result, it can sometimes be hard to place a Seinfeld episode by season when you happen upon a rerun playing on cable. Even a series like Friends, which was similarly static in terms of its characters and sets, is more easily dated by looking for clues in the relationships among the six main characters: If Chandler and Monica are together, you know you’re in Season 4 or later.
But Seinfeld did change over time—it’s just that the changes are subtle. Now that the series is available on Hulu, where viewers can easily watch it in sequence, I decided to look at a few ways the show grew over its 180 episodes. To do so, I downloaded transcripts of every episode from the fan site Seinology.com in order to offer some theories on the evolution of nothingness.
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Pace
In a recent episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s Web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Julia Louis-Dreyfus said that when she received her first Seinfeld script, she thought, “Nothing had ever been written like that before, like it was just a conversation as opposed to a setup, punch line, setup, punch line. And I just remember thinking, ‘This is so nice and relaxed.’ ”
The first season of the series was relaxed—but that didn’t last for long. There is a major change in episode pace between the sedate first season and the frantic final ones. Even casual fans may have noticed this.
Chart by Ben Blatt
In the first season, the typical episode had just 10 scenes. Of these, a couple were normally dedicated to Jerry performing comedy bits on stage. By the final seasons, the typical episode had 20 to 25 scenes, and Jerry’s monologues had been eliminated. The average scene length dropped from more than two minutes to less than 60 seconds. (I excluded episodes 100, 101, 177, 178, 179, and 180 from my analysis as they contain clips of previous shows. The two-part finale has 65 scenes, nine of which are flashbacks.)
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There are a few episodes that are famous outliers in terms of scene count. “The Chinese Restaurant,” from Season 2, never leaves the restaurant except for an opening and closing monologue by Jerry. But if you play with the interactive at the bottom of this article, you’ll see that the exceptions are not the underlying cause of the trend toward a more frenetic pace. The episode with the least number of scenes in Season 8, the fastest-paced season, is “The Van Buren Boys,” with 19. That’s more scenes than any episode in the first two seasons.
Secondary Characters
Along with the quickening pace came intersecting A and B storylines, in which each of the four main characters ventured off from the rest of the group. In the first episode of Seinfeld, Jerry is in every scene. There are no diversions into the lives of Kessler (as Kramer was called in the pilot), Elaine (who was not even in the first episode), or George. The vast majority of the show is, as Dreyfus said, “just a conversation.”
By the final seasons, however, secondary characters were playing a much larger role in the series. In the first three seasons, lines by secondary characters accounted for less than 18 percent of a given script. By the last five seasons, they accounted for between 25 and 35 percent.
Chart by Ben Blatt
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Here, too, there are a few outlier episodes. For instance, there are two episodes in the history of the show in which the four main characters accounted for less than half of all lines. In “The Pen,” in which Jerry refuses to accept a space pen as gift from retiree Jack Klompus, Jerry and Elaine speak less than 40 percent of all lines while Kramer and George do not even appear. In “The Raincoats, Part 2,” the core four combine for just under 50 percent of all lines as Jerry argues with his father and Jack Klompus over the shipment of beltless raincoats.
The Rise of Kramer
When Kramer enters Jerry’s apartment, he does so in one sudden motion. Kramer’s emergence as a full-fledged member of the core four was a more gradual affair.
The interactive below shows the percentage of lines spoken by the core four compared with each other. (In other words, if George accounts for 20 percent of all lines, it means that one-fifth of all lines spoken by either Jerry, George, Elaine, or Kramer are from George.) Jerry hogs a high fraction the script for the first two seasons before mellowing out. George edges down a hair over the run of the series, while Elaine edges up, but the changes are slight.
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In the second episode of the series, Kramer has six lines—mostly about Scrabble. It’s fewer than half the number both Morty and Helen Seinfeld have in the same episode. (Indeed, that episode dedicates more time to discussing the import-export business of Art Vandelay than it does to Kramer.) When Seinfeld began its run, it was almost as if Kramer was trapped in Jerry’s building. It’s not until the fifth episode of the second season that we see him in a scene outside Jerry’s apartment and without Jerry.
Gradually, however, Kramer goes from being a fringe character to one on equal footing with the rest of the cast, doubling his share of lines from the first to the last season. Still, he never quite catches up to the rest of the main characters. In the last season, George still had 20 percent more lines than Kramer. Of course, it’s also the case that, moreso than any other character, Kramer’s contributions came in the form of physical, not verbal, comedy.
Chart by Ben Blatt
And despite Kramer’s slow start, he accumulated 10 times as many lines over the course of the series as any secondary character. George Costanza’s boss, George Steinbrenner, has 2 percent of the amount of lines Kramer does. Steinbrenner places ninth in terms of most lines of a secondary character. That’s just ahead of Kramer’s friend Mickey (10th) and Ovaltine fan Kenny Bania (11th) but behind Puddy (ranked eighth), J. Peterman, Estelle Costanza, Susan (George’s late fiancee), Frank Costanza, and Helen and Morty Seinfeld (ranked third and second, respectively).
Jerry’s parents reeled off an impressive number of lines for characters who only appear intermittently throughout the series’ run. But there is one secondary character who spoke more often. One man who talked more than Jerry’s parents. More than Uncle Leo. More than everyone outside the core four. Who was that man? Newman.Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant (88) talks with tight end Jason Witten (82) during a time out late in the fourth quarter during the Dallas Cowboys vs. the Green Bay Packers NFL football game at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin on Sunday, December 13, 2015. (Louis DeLuca/The Dallas Morning News)
IRVING - The last two months haven't been pleasant for Dez Bryant. The Cowboys receiver has sputtered through the worst seven-game stretch |
os were asked not just to look away as these rights would be withdrawn, but to actively vote for the demolition of someone else's family. We were implored to look at "them" as the unredeemable "aliens" that must be expurgated from our society. And we did.
Once you start the process of taking away other peoples' fundamental rights -- like food and water in a jail cell, or the right to drive and listen to whatever music you like -- you must ask yourself where to draw the line, and who will draw it? What -- and whose -- rights will be next on the chopping block?
As Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere." You'd think that as Latinos, proud and strong and willing to fight for our own rights,- we'd refuse to turn against the "punier kid," wouldn't you?
That we might in fact stand up for that kid, tell the bullies to back off, the same way we told the bullies of racism and "the real America" to take a hike -- and in the process carried Obama to triumph.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Fernando Espuelas.
All About Barack Obama • Immigration • Same-Sex MarriageIn vivo, cannabidiol did not affect motility in control mice, but normalized croton oil-induced hypermotility. The inhibitory effect of cannabidiol was counteracted by the cannabinoid CB 1 receptor antagonist rimonabant, but not by the cannabinoid CB 2 receptor antagonist SR144528 (N-[-1S-endo-1,3,3-trimethyl bicyclo [2.2.1] heptan-2-yl]-5-(4-chloro-3-methylphenyl)-1-(4-methylbenzyl)-pyrazole-3-carboxamide), by the opioid receptor antagonist naloxone or by the α 2 -adrenergic antagonist yohimbine. Cannabidiol did not reduce motility in animals treated with the fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) inhibitor N-arachidonoyl-5-hydroxytryptamine, whereas loperamide was still effective. In vitro, cannabidiol inhibited ACh-induced contractions in the isolated ileum from both control and croton oil-treated mice.
The plant Cannabis sativa contains more than 60 terpenophenolic compounds, named phytocannabinoids. The best-studied phytocannabinoid is Δ 9 -tetrahydrocannabinol, which binds specific G-protein-coupled receptors, named cannabinoid (CB 1 and CB 2 ) receptors ( Mechoulam et al., 2002 ; Russo and Guy, 2006 ; Pertwee, 2007 ; Alexander et al., 2008 ). The well-known psychotropic effects of Δ 9 -tetrahydrocannabinol, which are largely mediated by activation of brain cannabinoid CB 1 receptors, have always raised a number of clinical and ethical problems. Therefore, a valid therapeutic alternative may be the use of non-psychotropic phytocannabinoids, including cannabidiol (CBD). CBD, unlike Δ 9 -tetrahydrocannabinol, has very low affinity for both cannabinoid CB 1 and CB 2 receptors ( McPartland et al., 2007 ), although it has been proposed that CBD may modulate endocannabinoid function through its ability to inhibit the hydrolysis of anandamide and to act as a transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 agonist ( Watanabe et al., 1998 ; Bisogno et al., 2001 ). CBD is a major component of Sativex, a preparation of cannabinoids, which has been approved by Health Canada for the treatment of neuropathic pain in multiple sclerosis.
CBD, rimonabant and SR144528 were dissolved in dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO); AA-5-HT was dissolved in DMSO/Tween 80 (1:4), prostaglandin F 2α in ethanol while the other drugs were dissolved in saline. The drug vehicles (DMSO, 4 μL per mouse; 20 μL of DMSO/Tween 80 per mouse; saline 0.1 mL per mouse; DMSO<0.01% in vitro) had no significant effect on the responses under study, both in vitro and in vivo.
Data are expressed as the mean±s.e.mean of experiments in n mice. To determine statistical significance, Student's t test was used for comparing a single treatment mean with a control mean, and a one-way analysis of variance followed by a Tukey–Kramer multiple comparisons test was used for analysis of multiple treatment means. P-values <0.05 were considered significant. The concentrations of CBD that produced 50% inhibition of ACh-induced contractions (IC 50 ) or maximal inhibitory effect (E max ) were used to characterize its potency and efficacy, respectively. The IC 50 and E max values were calculated by nonlinear regression analysis using the equation for a sigmoid concentration–response curve (GraphPad Prism).
Segments (1–1.5 cm) of the terminal ileum from both control and croton oil-treated mice (killed by asphyxiation with CO 2 ) were removed, flushed free of luminal contents and placed in Krebs' solution (composition in mM: NaCl 119, KCl 4.75, KH 2 PO 4 1.2, NaHCO 3 25, MgSO 4 1.5, CaCl 2 2.5 and glucose 11). The isolated organ was set up to record contractions from the longitudinal axis in an organ bath filled with warm (37 °C) aerated (95% O 2 /5% CO 2 ) Krebs' solution ( Capasso et al., 2006 ). The tissues were connected to an isotonic transducer (load 0.5 g) connected to a ‘Gemini' recording apparatus (Ugo Basile, Comerio, Italy). At the beginning of each experiment, the ileum was stimulated with ACh (1 mM) to obtain a maximal contraction (100% contraction). After at least 1 h for equilibration, the tissues were stimulated with ACh (1 μM) ( Borrelli et al., 2006 ). ACh was added to the bath and left in contact with the tissue for 30 s and then washed out. The interval between each stimulation was 20 min. After at least three stable control contractions, the contractile responses were repeated in the presence of increasing (non-cumulative) concentrations of CBD (0.01–100 μM) added 20 min before ACh (that is, after washing the tissue). Preliminary experiments showed that a 20 min contraction time was sufficient for CBD to achieve the maximal inhibitory response. In some experiments, control tissues were stimulated with prostaglandin F 2α (0.2 μM, added to the bath and left in contact with the tissue for 60 s and then washed out) and the effect of CBD (0.01–100 μM) was evaluated as described above for the contractions evoked by ACh.
CBD (1–10 mg kg −1 ), JWH 015 (2-methyl-1-propyl-1H indol-3-yl)-1-naphthalenymethanone) (10 mg kg −1 ), loperamide (0.075 mg kg −1 ), clonidine (0.075 mg kg −1 ), N-arachidonoyl-5-hydroxytryptamine (AA-5-HT, 7.5 mg kg −1 ) or vehicles were given intraperitoneally 30 min before rhodamine administration to mice with inflammation. In some experiments, naloxone (2 mg kg −1, to block opioid receptors), rimonabant (0.1 mg kg −1, to block cannabinoid CB 1 receptors), SR144528 (1 mg kg −1, to block cannabinoid CB 2 receptors) or yohimbine (1 mg kg −1, to block α 2 -adrenoceptors) were given 10 min before CBD (5 mg kg −1 ) or before the corresponding receptor agonists, that is, loperamide 0.075 mg kg −1, clonidine 0.075 mg kg −1 or JWH 015 10 mg kg −1. In preliminary experiments, CBD (5 and 10 mg kg −1 ) was given 30 min before rhodamine administration to control mice (that is, mice not treated with croton oil). The doses of antagonists used in the present study (that is, rimonabant, SR144528, naloxone, yohimbine) were selected on the basis of previous work ( Capasso et al., 2001, 2008 ); the doses of loperamide and clonidine were selected on the basis of preliminary experiments that showed that these agonists, both at the 0.075 mg kg −1 dose, had an inhibitory effect on motility which was similar to that produced by CBD 5 mg kg −1.
Transit was measured by evaluating the intestinal location of rhodamine-B-labeled dextran ( Capasso et al., 2005, 2008 ). Animals were given fluorescent-labeled dextran (100 μL of 25 mg mL −1 stock solution) via a gastric tube into the stomach. At 20 min after administration, the animals were killed by asphyxiation with CO 2 and the entire small intestine with its content was divided into 10 equal parts. The intestinal contents of each bowel segment were vigorously mixed with 2 mL of saline solution to obtain a supernatant containing the rhodamine. The supernatant was centrifuged at 35 g to precipitate the intestinal chyme. The fluorescence in duplicate aliquots of the cleared supernatant was read in a multi-well fluorescence plate reader (LS55 Luminescence spectrometer, Perkin Elmer Instruments, Waltham, MA, USA; excitation 530±5 nm and emission 590±10 nm) for quantification of the fluorescent signal in each intestinal segment. From the distribution of the fluorescent marker along the intestine, we calculated the geometric centre (GC) of small intestinal transit as follows:
Inflammation was induced as previously described ( Puig and Pol, 1998 ; Borrelli et al., 2006 ). Mice received orally two doses of croton oil (20 μl per mouse) in two consecutive days. Motility was measured 4 days after the first administration of croton oil. This time was selected on the basis of a previous work ( Puig and Pol, 1998 ; Izzo et al., 2001b ), in which maximal inflammatory response occurred 4 days after the first treatment.
All animal procedures and experiments complied with the Principles of Laboratory Animal Care (NIH publication no. 86-23, revised 1985) and the Italian DL no. 116 of 27 January 1992 and associated guidelines in the European Communities Council Directive of 24 November 1986 (86/609/ECC). Male ICR mice (Harlan Italy, S Pietro al Natisone, UD, Italy) (24–26 g) were used after 1 week of acclimation. Food was withheld 6 h before transit measurement and 18 h before the induction of intestinal inflammation.
ACh (1 μM) evoked a contractile response that was 66±5% (in control tissues) or 81±3% (in the ileum from croton oil-treated mice, P<0. 05 vs control, n=7–9) of the contraction produced by ACh 1 mM. This concentration of ACh (1 mM) produced a maximal contractile response in the ileum (100% contraction). CBD (0.01–100 μM) had no effect on the baseline mechanical activity of the intestine, but it significantly and in a concentration-dependent manner, inhibited the contractions induced by ACh ( ). The IC 50 values of CBD were 4.39±1.55 μM in control tissues and 2.66±1.99 μM in inflamed tissues (no significant differences between the two IC 50 values, n=7–9). The E max values were 72±10% in control tissues and 75±14% in the inflamed gut (no significant difference between the two E max values, n=7–9). CBD (0.01–10 μM) also reduced the contractions induced by prostaglandin F 2α (0.2 μM) (data not shown).
shows the effect of CBD (5 mg kg −1 ), loperamide (0.075 mg kg −1 ) or AA-5-HT (7.5 mg kg −1 (administered alone or in combination) in croton oil-treated mice. CBD, loperamide and AA-5-HT significantly reduced motility in croton oil-treated animals; however, the effects of CBD and AA-5-HT were not additive, while the effects of loperamide and AA-5-HT were additive (that is, loperamide (but not CBD) still inhibited motility in animals pretreated with AA-5-HT).
The cannabinoid CB 1 receptor antagonist rimonabant, at a dose (0.1 mg kg −1 ) which per se did not modify intestinal motility in croton oil-treated animals (GC: croton oil 6.58±0.42; croton oil+rimonabant 6.89±0.58, n=8, P>0.2) counteracted the inhibitory effect of CBD (5 mg kg −1 ) but not that of loperamide (0.075 mg kg −1 ) on intestinal transit ( ). However, the inhibitory effect of CBD (5 mg kg −1 ) on motility was not significantly modified by the cannabinoid CB 2 antagonist SR144528 (1 mg kg −1 ), by the opioid receptor antagonist naloxone (2 mg kg −1 ) or by the α 2 -adrenoceptor antagonist yohimbine (1 mg kg −1 ) ( ). At the doses used, these antagonists significantly (P<0.05, n=8–10 for each experimental group) counteracted the inhibitory effect on motility of the corresponding agonists, (that is, SR144528 (1 mg kg −1 ) counteracted the inhibitory effect of JWH 015 10 mg kg −1 (GC values in control 4.91±0.43, croton oil 6.65±0.39, croton oil+JWH 015 5.11±0.36, CO+JWH 015+SR144528 6.60±0.37), naloxone (2 mg kg −1 ) counteracted the inhibitory effect of loperamide 0.075 mg kg −1 (control 4.90±0.44, croton oil 6.65±0.45; croton oil+loperamide 4.55±0.36, croton oil+loperamide+naloxone 6.60±0.44) and yohimbine (1 mg kg −1 ) counteracted the inhibitory effect of clonidine 0.075 mg kg −1 on motility (control 4.98±0.42, croton oil 6.67±0.36, croton oil+clonidine 4.50±0.37, croton oil+clonidine+yohimbine 6.58±0.38). In the absence of any agonist, SR144528, naloxone or yohimbine did not modify significantly motility in croton oil-treated animals (croton oil 6.70±0.52; croton oil+SR144528 6.49±0.62; croton oil+naloxone 6.65±0.49; croton oil+yohimbine 6.79±0.55, n=7–8, P>0.2).
Oral administration of croton oil produced a significant increase in intestinal transit, shown as an increased value of the GC ( ). Intraperitoneal administration of CBD caused a reduction in intestinal motility in croton oil-treated animals, which was statistically significant at doses of 5 and 10 mg kg −1 ( ). However, CBD at these doses (5 and 10 mg kg −1, i.p.) did not modify transit in control mice, that is, in mice not treated with croton oil (GC: control: 5.12±0.24; CBD 5 mg kg −1 4.85±0.28; CBD 10 mg kg −1 5.14±0.30; n=8 for each experimental group, P>0.2).
Discussion
The presence of motility changes in inflammatory diseases of small or large intestine is a well-recognized and clinically accepted phenomenon (Ohama et al., 2007). The croton oil model of intestinal hypermotility has been extensively used to evaluated drugs with clinical or potential clinical use. Intestinal inflammation induced by croton oil is characterized by disruption of the mucosa and an infiltration of lymphocytes into the submucosa associated with an increase of intestinal transit (Pol and Puig, 1997). Motility in the croton oil model of ileitis may be attenuated by a number of drugs, including cannabinoid CB 1 (Izzo et al., 2001b), α 2 -adrenoceptor (Pol et al., 1996) and opioid (Puig and Pol, 1998; Capasso et al., 2008) receptor agonists. In the present study, we have shown that CBD, a non-psychotropic component of the marijuana plant C. sativa, reduced motility in this experimental model of intestinal ileitis. Two points should be considered here: first, our method to evaluate motility does not distinguish between an effect on gastric emptying and transit through the small intestine and, second, we used a liquid non-nutrient meal and thus there is the possibility that our results will not translate to the transit of solid and/or caloric meals. Interestingly, CBD did not affect transit (present results) and defecation (Fride et al., 2005) in control mice, suggesting that this compound is pharmacologically active only when intestinal homoeostasis is perturbed by an inflammatory stimulus. Although we cannot exclude the possibility that in vivo CBD attenuates the systemic inflammatory response to croton oil rather than having direct effects on intestinal transit (see also below) and although there is evidence that rodent data on cannabinoids might not translate to humans (Sanger, 2007), the present results make CBD an attractive compound for possible therapeutic use to reduce motility during inflammation.
To investigate the mechanism of action of CBD-induced delay in motility, we considered the possible involvement of FAAH, that is, the enzyme involved in endocannabinoid degradation, for several reasons. Thus, FAAH mRNA has been detected in the mouse small intestine and its inhibition resulted in increased intestinal anandamide and 2-arachidonoylglycerol levels and reduction of transit along the small intestine in mice (Capasso et al., 2005). Intestinal FAAH activity is increased in the croton oil model of ileitis (Izzo et al., 2001a, 2001b) and, more importantly, CBD has been shown to inhibit anandamide hydrolysis (Watanabe et al., 1998; Bisogno et al., 2001). In the present study, we have shown that CBD, in contrast to loperamide, did not further reduce transit in animals treated with the FAAH inhibitor, AA-5-HT. The fact that the effects of CBD and AA-5-HT were not additive suggests that the mechanism of CBD-induced delay in motility may involve FAAH. Others have shown that FAAH mediates the antitumour activity of CBD in cultured cells (Massi et al., 2008).
It is now well known that activation of enteric cannabinoid CB 1 receptors results in inhibition of intestinal motility in mice in vivo (Izzo et al., 2001a; Carai et al., 2006; Yuece et al., 2007). Previous studies have shown that the inhibitory effect of FAAH inhibitors on gastric and intestinal motility involves, at least in part, indirect activation of cannabinoid CB 1 receptors (via enhanced production of intestinal endocannabinoids) (Capasso et al., 2005; Di Marzo et al., 2008). Indeed, the cannabinoid CB 1 receptor antagonist rimonabant partially reduced the inhibitory effect of the FAAH inhibitor AA-5-HT on gastric (Di Marzo et al., 2008) and intestinal (Capasso et al., 2005) motility. In the present study, we have shown that a dose of rimonabant, ineffective per se, counteracted the inhibitory effect of CBD (but not the effect of the opioid agonist loperamide) on motility in croton oil-treated mice. On the basis of our experimental data and those previously published which showed the inhibitory effect of CBD on anandamide hydrolysis (Watanabe et al., 1998; Bisogno et al., 2001), we hypothesize that CBD may indirectly activate (via FAAH inhibition) enteric cannabinoid CB 1 receptors and thus reduce motility. A direct activation of cannabinoid CB 1 receptors seems unlikely as this Cannabis-derived compound has very little affinity for cannabinoid CB 1 receptors (McPartland et al., 2007). Interestingly, increased intestinal FAAH activity and increased cannabinoid CB 1 receptor expression have been observed in the intestine of croton oil-treated mice (Izzo et al., 2001b). This observation could explain why CBD reduced motility in pathophysiological states, whereas it was without effect in control mice. During the preparation of our paper, others have shown that CBD inhibited FAAH expression in the inflamed—but not in the normal—mouse gut (De Filippis et al., 2008), thus further supporting the involvement of this enzyme in CBD-mediated intestinal effects.
Another possible target of the CBD action is the cannabinoid CB 2 receptor. In the gut, this receptor has been found to be expressed by inflammatory/immune cells and also identified on epithelial cells and neurons (Coutts and Izzo, 2004; Di Marzo and Izzo, 2006; Wright et al., 2008). Thomas et al. (2007) have recently shown that the ability of CBD to behave as a cannabinoid CB 2 inverse agonist may contribute to its anti-inflammatory properties. Our results demonstrate that the cannabinoid CB 2 receptor is functionally active in reducing motility during ileitis, as the selective cannabinoid CB 2 receptor agonist JWH 015 (in a cannabinoid CB 2 antagonist-sensitive manner) reduced motility in mice treated with croton oil (but not in control animals). However, blockade of the cannabinoid CB 2 receptor with the selective antagonist SR144528 did not modify the inhibitory effect of CBD on motility, suggesting that CBD-mediated inhibition of transit is independent of the activation of cannabinoid CB 2 receptors. Nevertheless, the cannabinoid CB 2 -mediated inhibition of intestinal motility, which has been previously documented in the model of intestinal inflammation induced by an endotoxic agent (Mathison et al., 2004), is relevant in the light of the observation that cannabinoid CB 2 receptor agonists are devoid of the characteristic psychotropic effects associated with cannabis use (Izzo, 2007; Wright et al., 2008).
We also investigated other mechanisms as potential contributors of the inhibitory effect of CBD on intestinal motility. Specifically, we investigated the possible involvement of α 2 -adrenoceptors and opioid receptors, because such receptors are upregulated in the intestinal model of ileitis induced by croton oil (Pol et al., 1996, 2001, 2003). Moreover, CBD has been recently shown to be an allosteric modulator at μ- and δ-opioid receptors (Kathmann et al., 2006). However, our experimental data did not support the involvement of α 2 -adrenoceptors or opioid receptors as specific antagonists of these receptors (namely naloxone and yohimbine) did not modify the inhibitory effect of CBD on motility.
Finally, to verify whether or not CBD may affect directly intestinal contractility, that is, to exert actions in the gut independently from possible systemic anti-inflammatory effects, we evaluated the effect of CBD on the contractions evoked by ACh in the isolated ileum. We found that CBD reduced, in a concentration-dependent manner, ACh-induced contractions, both in control and in croton oil-treated animals. The IC 50 values found in our study (2.66–4.39 μM) were in the range of concentrations previously shown to reduce noradrenaline-induced contractions in the vas deferens (Thomas et al., 2004) and to exert neuroprotective (Esposito et al., 2006) and antitumour effects (Ligresti et al., 2006; Vaccani et al., 2006). In contrast to in vivo results, CBD inhibited ACh-induced contractions both in the healthy and in the inflamed intestine (no significant differences in potency or in efficacy were observed, although CBD showed a trend towards a greater potency in the intestine from croton oil-treated mice). Discrepancies between in vitro and in vivo actions of cannabinoids have been previously documented in the digestive tract (Coruzzi et al., 2006). It is very unlikely that the antispasmodic effect of CBD observed here was due to antimuscarinic actions, as CBD also inhibited the contractions induced by prostaglandin F 2α.With the National Restaurant Association show in town this weekend, getting a table in the city will be difficult. So our food reporter says to head southwest to Palos Heights.
That's where a new restaurant at the corner of Harlem and 127th Street is attempting to lure diners with the promise of farm-to-table cuisine. The early response has been overwhelming.
The fact that everything here - from the baked goods to the sausage to the spreads - are all made from scratch, wouldn't be as big a deal in a place like Logan Square or Andersonville. But since the Harvest Room opened its doors a few months ago in Palos Heights, it immediately caused a stir -- mainly due to the kitchen's commitment.
"We specialize in making all of our food - as much as we can - from scratch, as well as using local farmers," said co-owner Carri Sirigas.
Part of that was due to the owners' wish to be near their family, but also because they missed the quality of restaurants they had when they lived in Wicker Park.
"We live close by which was something very important to us because we have family and being with our family we didn't want to spend an hour commuting back and forth like we used to to the city," Sirigas said.
Breakfasts are hearty and satisfying. "The Bake" is an eggy bread pudding, loaded with roasted peppers, fresh goat cheese and homemade sausage.
At lunchtime, a crispy fried chicken sandwich blanketed in melted cheddar features a garlicky, herb mayo, homemade condiments and a mound of handmade french fries. Warm goat cheese fritters serve as flavor bombs in an otherwise straightforward beet salad with peppery arugula and dried cherries, that also happens to include crispy bits of chicken skin.
At dinner, start off with smooth, luxurious smoked trout crostini with apples or homemade chorizo ravioli amped up with a sherry cream. A duo of pork features both a hearty, grilled chop as well as some braised, fork-tender cheeks. Clearly, not the typical plating you see in this part of the 'burbs.
"We also wanted to take it a step farther away from what was already offered here in the Southwest suburbs," she said.
Goat cheese fritters, golden beets and dried fruits; not exactly a salad I would expect to find in the Southwest Suburbs and yet, Harvest Room is hoping there's a lot of demand for salads like this of such high quality.
Harvest Room
7164 W. 127th St., Palos Heights
708-671-8905
http://harvestroomrestaurant.com/No. Title Director[13] Original airdate English airdate
1 "The Strongest Man"
Transcription: " Saikyō no Otoko " (Japanese: 最強の男 ) Shingo Natsume October 4, 2015 ( ) July 16, 2016[10]
Vaccine Man wreaks havoc in a city. But as he is about to kill a young girl, Saitama arrives and saves her. Saitama has been living a boring life, as he has extraordinary strength in which he can defeat enemies in one punch. He recalls three years ago, when he was leaving a job interview, he had saved a boy with a cleft-chin from Crablante. Back at the present time, he faces The Brain and Brawn Brothers, one of whom is a huge giant, and defeats them easily. One night, he has a dream about a subterranean race who invade and pose a challenge, but when he wakes, he finds that the subterraneans are extremely weak.
2 "The Lone Cyborg"
Transcription: " Kokō no Saibōgu " (Japanese: 孤高のサイボーグ ) Shin'ichirō Ushijima October 11, 2015 ( ) July 23, 2016
Mosquito Girl attacks the city with her swarms which suck the blood out of everyone alive. A cyborg named Genos tries to stop her but is having a difficult time. After dealing with a single pesky mosquito, Saitama sees Genos and Mosquito Girl fighting, and defeats Mosquito Girl. Despite Genos's extremely boring explanation of his past, Saitama agrees to make Genos his apprentice. Some monsters from a group called the House of Evolution try to capture Saitama, but fail. Saitama questions Armored Gorilla about what's going on.
3 "The Obsessive Scientist"
Transcription: " Shūnen no Kagakusha " (Japanese: 執念の科学者 ) Yōsuke Hatta October 18, 2015 ( ) July 30, 2016
Armored Gorilla tells the story of Doctor Genus, a brilliant young scientist with plans to artificially evolve humans, but becomes disillusioned with the world. Dr. Genus eventually discovers the secret to immortality and makes himself young again, clones himself multiple times, and then works on animals and humanoids to create the monsters that make up the House of Evolution. Saitama cuts off the narration, at which Armored Gorilla summarizes that Genus just wants to capture Saitama for his experiments. Genos destroys Dr. Genus's eight-floor tower, prompting Dr. Genus to unleash his ultimate creation, Carnage Kabuto, who at first is afraid of Saitama's aura of overwhelming power. Kabuto asks Saitama his secret to his strength, at which Saitama happily tells him, Genos, and Dr. Genus. Kabuto attacks Saitama, but when Saitama realizes that today was supposed to be the big supermarket sale, he quickly punches Kabuto into pieces, and leaves with Genos to rush to the sale. Afterwards, Dr. Genus abandons his research.
4 "The Modern Ninja"
Transcription: " Imadoki no Ninja " (Japanese: 今時の忍者 ) Nobuhiro Mutō October 25, 2015 ( ) August 6, 2016
The hard-headed criminal Hammerhead and his posse of bald villains called the Paradisers are sick of working and demand free goods for the unemployed. They try to destroy the building of Zeniru, a local business magnate, using modified suits that give the Paradisers super-strength. Saitama is offended that the Paradisers are giving bald people a bad reputation. Bicycle hero Mumen Rider tries to stop the Paradisers, but is defeated. The Paradisers reach Zeniru's home, but Zeniru has hired a ninja named Speed-o'-Sound Sonic, who wipes out the Paradisers in seconds and puts a kunai knife into the back of Hammerhead's skull. Hammerhead escapes and runs into Saitama, who provokes Hammerhead to attack with his suit at full power. But Saitama destroys the suit, leaving Hammerhead naked. Sonic fights Saitama, thinking the latter is a Paradiser, but when he accidentally plants his crotch on Saitama's fist, he quivers in agony and retreats. That night, Saitama sulks over his lack of recognition as a hero, when Genos suggests they join the Hero Association.
5 "The Ultimate Master"
Transcription: " Kyūkyoku no Shi " (Japanese: 究極の師 ) Shunichi Yoshizawa November 1, 2015 ( ) August 13, 2016
Saitama and Genos pass an exam for the Heroes Association. While Genos gets a perfect score and is placed in the highest S-Class tier, Saitama is placed in the lowest C-Class tier, having broken every record in the physical portion of the exam, but doing poorly on the non-physical sections. They then attend an orientation seminar from Snakebite Snek, who is annoyed that Saitama does not pay attention to him. Snek tries to teach him a lesson, only to embarrass himself when he is defeated by Saitama who was not even trying. Having received new upgrades, Genos asks Saitama to spar with him and do it seriously. Saitama humors him but as he is about to get serious, he stops his finishing blow and asks him to come get food with him. A-Class Hero Amai Mask meets with Genos to deliver a welcome gift and a warning to take his responsibilities seriously. Genos moves in with Saitama much to the latter's chagrin.
6 "The Terrifying City"
Transcription: " Saikyō no Toshi " (Japanese: 最恐の都市 ) Shin'ichirō Ushijima November 8, 2015 ( ) August 20, 2016
Saitama tries to come up with ideas for mentoring Genos, but when Genos mentions that C-class heroes who are inactive for more than a week are dropped from their registry, he rushes around to look for petty villains around town without much success. Sonic appears to try to settle their alleged rivalry, but Saitama finds him annoying. Tank-Top Tiger reproaches Saitama for his antics and tries to absorb the credit of being a hero when Sonic attacks them and the populace. Saitama realizes Sonic is doing villanous things and swiftly taps him on the back, knocking him out cold, saving the day. Later that day, a mysterious being was seen skulking around frightening the few masses who lived in the desolate Z-City; perturbed at not being sent out to deal with it, Tatsumaki berates the assignment staff. They have already sent out A-Class' Golden Ball and Spring Mustachio out to the scene. In Z-City the two aforementioned heroes are busy patrolling the streets, wondering about a rumor of a pretty dangerous monster who lives in said area. After finding next to nothing on the job, they eventually find signs of said Mysterious Being and chase after it. Running into Kombu Infinity, who also heard rumors of a powerful group of monsters in the city, engaged the duo and easily swats the best efforts of both aside. Realizing they are outmatched, Mustachio dials for reinforcements just before he is swiftly defeated. Upset that his opponents were so weak, Kombu sets out to create the rumor he and his fellow monsters initially heard about; soon after Saitama returns from a market sale, when Kombu notices him as the former relents on not having been able to secure some kombu soup stalk just before the monster attacks him. When next seen, Saitama is just cooking some kombu soup when Genos comes in. Later Tatsumaki is seen berating the assignment staff for not sending her in to fight. In the post-credits, Genos tells Saitama that, while he's in 17th place within the S-class, he's ranked 6th in popularity, much to Saitama's dismay.
7 "The Ultimate Disciple"
Transcription: " Shikō no Deshi " (Japanese: 至高の弟子 ) Yōsuke Hatta November 15, 2015 ( ) August 27, 2016
Scientists and astronomers are busy studying the flight pattern of a meteorite just as it passes over the earth. When its course suddenly changes trajectory and is about to strike City Z. A notice is sent out to all S-Class heroes to intercept the meteor. Only Genos arrives on the scene, followed by an aged S-Class hero Bang. He tells Genos the meteor evacuation protocols have already begun and that he should clear out before it is too late, Bang himself cannot leave the city due to family honor and personal reasons, and before he could formally introduce himself, Genos has already left. Genos theorizes that it is too late to evacuate, seeing the meteor approaching too fast. Another S-Class hero named Metal Knight shows up to test out a new weapon against the meteor but is uninterested in teaming up with Genos. When his new weapon fails, Genos used his own prototype weapon on the meteor. Despite the overwhelming power displayed, he fails. Saitama shows up and destroys the meteor with a single punch, impressing Bang and boosting Genos' admiration. However, the meteor shatters into several meteorites and still manages to destroy the city. The next day, Saitama learns that his rank has jumped from 342nd to 5th. After that Saitama goes out to look for more crisis to boost his own rank. Much of the city is destroyed but despite that, there are zero casualties reported. Tanktop Tiger appears and believes Saitama has stolen credit for the meteor destruction. Tanktop Tiger calls his brother Tanktop Black Hole, who begins to rally up a mob against Saitama, putting all the blame on him for the city's destruction. Tanktop Tiger attacks Saitama, |
happens elsewhere? "If I was there I wouldn't have gone off my head, I would've asked 'what is it about how the girls are dressed that makes them feel uncomfortable'." The well-know educator said when her daughter and friends were looking at sewing machines a woman holding the stall said "in our country young people ask for help". "My daughter was born at King Edward, so this person thinking she comes from another country just shows ignorance," she said. "These are young people who feel on the outside, who were made to feel isolated, yet they should be embraced by our society.
"What does this do to a young person's self-esteem, self-worth and confidence?" "I'm not interested in making a complaint with the centre or following it up with the staff; it just shows we need more dialogue and more education. "Like I said, I'm not angry, I'm saddened." Islamophobia Register Australia President, Mariam Veiszadeh, told WAtoday she was "very disappointed to hear about the incident." "Time and time again, we come across examples of ignorant prejudice in which every day people conflate the faith of 1.6 plus billion Muslims worldwide with that of the murderous acts of a group who hold themselves out to be Muslims.
"Women often bear the brunt of Islamophobia and a rather alarming number of incidents take place in the presence of children.
"There has been very little research done into the impact of Islamophobia on young people and the inevitable impact it would have on their sense of identify and self-worth." The prominent lawyer and Daily Life 2016 Woman of the Year said there was "little doubt" that young people, continually exposed to acts of Islamphobia, would lead to feelings of alienation and disenfranchisement. "In the coming months we will launch a comprehensive, first of its kind report on Islamophobia in Australia which will critically analyse verified incidents of Islamophobia reported to the Islamophobia Register Australia during the period 2014/2015," she said. A spokesperson for PCEC said the centre did not condone discrimination of any kind. "All staff are aware of this as a condition of employment," he said.
"After an internal investigation, the centre does not believe any of the PCEC's staff were involved in such an event." Careers Expo has been contacted for comment.The comments came as Mr Marciano entered a crisis meeting at the presidential palace to discuss the issue with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, and the returned Indonesian ambassador to Australia. Indonesia Chief State Intelligence Agency Marciano Norman speaks to journalists before a meeting with Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the Palace in Jakarta. Credit:AP "It has the potential to disturb the bilateral relationship. There should be a commitment made for the future from our intelligence partner in Australia to evaluate and to fix [the situation] together. They [have to] fix [the damage] so that in the future such sensitive things which very much affect the unitary state of Indonesia [won't happen again]. None of us is willing to be treated like that." Earlier on Wednesday Indonesia had officially "downgraded" its relationship with Australia in the wake of spying allegations, according to reports of comments made by Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa. ‘‘The downgrading in the level of the Indonesian-Australian relationship has been done,’’ AAP reported Dr Natalegawa as saying.
‘‘We have taken measured steps in accordance with their response and attitude.’’ Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Credit:Getty Images Dr Natalegawa was due to appear on ABC's 7.30 program on Wednesday night but withdrew from the interview at short notice on Wednesday afternoon. Dr Natalegawa has been vocal in his criticism of Tony Abbott since the Prime Minister refused to apologise after allegations emerged that Australian spies had monitored the mobile phone calls of Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his family. Jakarta is demanding an explanation and an official response from Mr Abbott.
Dr Natalegawa reportedly made his latest comments about the downgrading of the Australian relationship on his way into the Indonesian foreign ministry in Jakarta for a meeting with the country’s ambassador to Australia, Nadjib Kesoema. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had summoned the ambassador to the Presidential palace. ‘‘We have already adjusted various forms of co-operation,’’ Dr Natalegawa reportedly said. ‘‘We are turning off the tap by degrees.’’ The downgrade comes as the feud between Australian and Indonesia escalates with Indonesian authorities saying they are ready to end co-operation with Australia on several issues such as people smuggling.
Greens Leader Christine Milne said this was ''a test of Tony Abbott’s leadership'' and he should personally call the Indonesian President. ''Tony Abbott should pick up the phone to President Yudhoyono and have a personal discussion. We’re now looking at a serious escalation where Indonesia may look at withdrawing co-operation on policing and a whole range of measures and that would be a tragedy for Australia.'' She said Australia was an Asian nation and Indonesia a very important country to us. She called on Mr Abbott to stop ''chest-beating'' and show that ''he’s capable of leading this nation and not just playing political games for his own benefit here in Australia but to the long-term detriment of the country''. Hikmahanto Juwana, Professor of International Law at the University of Indonesia, repeated on Wednesday morning his calls for Australian diplomats in Indonesia to be expelled. President Yudhoyono is under pressure from hardliners in his own governing coalition, and also from the public, to expel Australian diplomats over the spying issue.
However, expelling the ambassador would be an extremely serious diplomatic step which the cautious president is unlikely to take. Foreign minister Marty Natalegawa has suggested that removing some officers from the Australian embassy is an option on the table. Loading He has said he would consider how many people in the Australian embassy are involved in defence, intelligence and police work compared to the number in Indonesia's embassy in Canberra, and seek "reciprocity" in the numbers.Reports indicate that the Detroit Pistons and free agent Josh Smith have agreed on a 4 year $56 million contract. The unrestricted free agent played last season with the Atlanta Hawks.
The 27 year old Smith averaged 17.5 points, 8.4 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.8 blocks and 1.2 steals a game last season. Over his career he averages of 15.3 points, 8.3 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 2.1 blocks and 1.3 steals.
The 6’9″ power forward joins an impressive front line with the Pistons. Smith should join with Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond to make the Pistons extremely good in the paint next season. The move signals that Joe Dumars has really accelerated the Pistons rebuild, and the team is hoping to make big strides in the Eastern Conference this season. The 29-53 Pistons finished in a tie for 11th in the conference last season.
The question facing the Pistons will be whether or not to play Monroe, Drummond and Smith all together, with Smith manning the small forward spot… or if they bring Monroe off the bench.
Smith had spent his entire 9 year NBA career with the Hawks after being drafted 17th in the 2004 NBA draft.
The Hawks agreed on a deal with Paul Millsap earlier in the day, effectively admitting that they would not be able to retain Smith.
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Sep. 26, 2015, 10:49 PM GMT / Updated Sep. 26, 2015, 10:51 PM GMT By The Associated Press
Iran on Saturday vowed to take international legal action against Saudi Arabia's rulers over the crush of Muslim pilgrims at this year's hajj, which killed at least 769 people, including 136 Iranians, and has led to an escalation of tensions between the regional archrivals.
The pilgrims suffocated or were trampled to death Thursday when two massive crowds converged on a narrow street, in the worst disaster to occur during the annual pilgrimage in a quarter-century. Shiite Iran has accused Sunni Saudi Arabia of mismanaging the pilgrimage, which annually draws some 2 million people from 180 countries.
RELATED: Death Toll From Hajj Stampede Rises to 769
Iranians comprise the largest group of casualties identified so far. Iranian state TV says a former ambassador to Lebanon, as well as two Iranian state TV reporters and a prominent political analyst are among those still missing. The semi-official Fars news agency said a former ambassador to Slovenia was among the dead.
"Under international law, this incident is absolutely subject to prosecution. The Al-Saud must be responsive," Iran's State Prosecutor Ebrahim Raisi told state TV, referring to Saudi Arabia's ruling family.Behind the Badge: The science and detail behind an LFC player's nutrition
Whenever an item of food or drink passes a Liverpool player’s lips during the club’s upcoming trip to Hong Kong, it will mark the culmination of months of work from Mona Nemmer and her team.
Preparations for the 2017-18 campaign will step up this weekend as the Reds’ senior squad jet out to Asia in order to contest friendly fixtures against two of their Premier League rivals.
And, while they are out there, it up to the club’s head of nutrition to ensure that Jürgen Klopp’s charges are sufficiently fuelled to lay the foundations for a successful season.
It is an undertaking that requires substantial planning and remarkable attention to detail.
Nemmer explains: “We start quite early planning these things. As soon as we got the confirmation of where we were going, which was three to four months ago, we started thinking about approaching it.
“This year, it’s really special going to Hong Kong, which is a totally different culture from a food point of view,” she adds.
“There are so many healthy things we can include in our players’ nutrition, which makes it really interesting for them as well.
“Also, we have little things we like to pay attention to - like different countries have different habits, we try to focus on every details to avoid any inconvenience and to provide the same standard.”
The benefits of this extra preparation are evident in the detail of the menu the squad will pick from, with an emphasis on variety and meals themed on local cuisine ensuring eating the right foods isn’t a chore for the players.
Thankfully, this year Nemmer has been afforded the necessary time to lay down her strategy for a pre-season period that will also see the Reds travel to Germany and Ireland.
With so much to think about before the season even starts, Nemmer could be forgiven for dreading the big kick-off in August.
But, much like her compatriot Klopp, she brims with enthusiasm for the challenges that lay ahead, particularly the tight turnaround involved between games should Champions League qualification be secured.
“I’m so, so excited and I’m so happy that I have the chance to [be at] Liverpool and be responsible for the nutrition department here,” she says.
“You feel there is so much positive energy around and so much development in all different departments, and playing in Europe this year will be a fantastic thing and another great experience for all of us.
“I’m sure we’re going to handle all these little challenges that are coming up like short recoveries, I think we will be really good in these things as a team.”
What’s more, Nemmer’s happiness stretches beyond her professional life – she could not feel more at ease in Liverpool.
“It was funny, at the end of the summer break, I really had the feeling I would like to come back home,” she laughs. “[Liverpool has] really become home.
“From the first moment I’ve felt so comfortable here, there are no issues. There are so many friendly people are here at the club and it has felt really good.”
‘Behind the Badge’ is a regular feature on Liverpoolfc.com which aims to tell the individual stories of the numerous men and women who work tirelessly away from the spotlight in an attempt to make Liverpool FC successful.
We speak to various members of staff across the first-team, Academy and Ladies set-ups who dedicate their lives to the club each and every day, covering a variety of different roles that make a vital contribution in preparing the Reds for action.MUSIQUE NOMADE + NIKAMOWIN
Musique nomade (MN) est un organisme à but non lucratif de production et de promotion de musiciens autochtones traditionnels et contemporains. L'organisme soutient la relève artistique, revendique une représentation culturelle au sein de l’industrie musicale et contribue à la mémoire numérique des langues et des musiques traditionnelles autochtones.
NIKAMOWIN est la plateforme d’écoute développée par MN pour rassembler les musiques et les profils d’artistes de son réseau et d’ailleurs. Le projet vise à démontrer la force et la diversité des musiques et des cultures autochtones ainsi qu’à en faciliter l'accès au public et aux diffuseurs en les rassemblant sous un même outil d’écoute et de découverte. Les artistes du réseau MN et d’ailleurs peuvent ainsi promouvoir leurs projets via NIKAMOWIN, sans aucune barrière de territoire ou de genre.
MN SUR LA ROUTE
L’équipe de Musique nomade se déplace à travers le territoire pour aller à la rencontre des auteurs-compositeurs et des musiciens autochtones en communautés ou en ville. L'organisme offre des services gratuits d’enregistrement musical et de captation vidéo, et développe divers projets en collaboration avec ces artistes. Véritable tremplin vers une carrière musicale, de nombreux artistes ont fait leurs premiers pas en musique en collaboration avec le studio MN.
Par ses ateliers d'enregistrement et de perfectionnement, MN a tissé des liens précieux et a développé un réseau d'artistes dont les musiques de tous genres forment aujourd'hui un répertoire des plus complets au pays, disponible sur NIKAMOWIN. Groupes de drummers traditionnels, chanteurs folk, pop ou rock, rappeur, DJ, musiciens classiques ou jazz… la diversité de ce répertoire est à l'image des cultures autochtones.
NIKAMOTAN MTL
MN est producteur et collaborateur de spectacles et d’événements mettant en vedette plusieurs artistes de son réseau, soutenant une représentativité culturelle autochtone. Le grand concert de Musique nomade NIKAMOTAN MTL est le principal événement présenté par l'organisme chaque été dans le cadre du festival Présence autochtone sur la place des Festivals à Montréal. Ce spectacle annuel met de l’avant la crème de la relève musicale autochtone traditionnelle et indie. Une bulle musicale éclatée qui rassemble en un même souffle des artistes de différents background culturels et musicaux. La troisième édition, NIKAMOTAN MTL – nicto, aura lieu en août 2019.
À PROPOS
Musique nomade est un organisme à but non lucratif fondé en 2006 par Manon Barbeau, cinéaste et fondatrice du Wapikoni mobile. L’organisme a pour mission de soutenir la relève autochtone tout en favorisant les rencontres interculturelles entre artistes de tous horizons.
Pour les auteurs-compositeurs-interprètes autochtones désirant développer une carrière musicale, MN est un partenaire de production qui développe des outils adaptés grâce à son équipe d’enregistrement professionnelle se déplaçant dans tout le territoire et son expertise en promotion et diffusion musicales.
Pour les entreprises, organismes ou diffuseurs soucieux de faire découvrir les cultures autochtones du Québec et du Canada et d’ailleurs, Musique nomade est un partenaire d’importance grâce à son rare répertoire de musiques autochtones traditionnelles et émergentes varié et son réseau de contacts privilégiés à travers tout le territoire. Quelques partenaires d’événements : Productions Menuentakuan, Présence autochtone, Coup de cœur francophone, Festival de musique émergente, La Noce, Innu Nikamu, ArtsNB, Metepenagiag Heritage Park, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, La Fabrique culturelle, Wapikoni mobile et plusieurs autres.
PARTENAIRES
Musique nomade est un organisme à but non lucratif soutenu par différents partenaires de financement, dont la Fondation Abe & Ruth Feigelson, au cœur des activités MN depuis plusieurs années. Également : Sirius XM, Musicaction, Conseil des arts de Montréal, Conseil des Arts du Nouveau-Brunswick. Un merci chaleureux à tous ceux qui soutiennent les artistes de la relève autochtones à travers les activités MN. Il est également possible de faire un don à Musique nomade.
Toutes redevances découlant des projets musicaux sont partagées entre les artistes et MN. Les revenus de l’organisme sont réinvestis dans les activités d’enregistrement en communauté, afin d’assurer une continuité de l’émergence musicale et le développement de nouveaux talents.Hyderabad: A private school in Hyderabad locked about 20 students in a room for nearly 2 hours after their parents failed to pay fees that was arbitrarily hiked.
The children were even barred from writing their annual examination.
After a parent filed a complaint, police reached the school and rescued all the children.
In February 2017, Saritha Vidya Niketan in Hayathnagar issued notification hiking fee up to Rs 11,000.
In the police complaint given by a parent, he said, "I have two children studying in Class 9 and class 7. I already paid Rs 20,000 to school. They say money is still pending and they locked my kids along with others. I want strictest action against the school for humiliating my kids and confining them illegally."
Speaking to CNN-News18, Hayathnagar police said, "We had received complaint and are investigating the case. We reached the school and saw children in a room. After our intervention, school allowed them to sit in annual exam. But the school's rude behaviour was uncalled for. The school said the parents had delayed paying the school fees."
A case has been registered under Section 342, and Section 75 of JJ act against the school management.
CNN-News18 tried contacting the school management for comment but they were unavailable for comment.
Reacting to the incident, Child Rights NGO Balala Hakkula Sangham has also demanded police to register criminal case against the school management.
Earlier too, many schools have gone to the extent of suspending students whose parents refused to pay arbitrary hiked fee or were part of protests against the schools.
Parents have been protesting and demanding TRS government to act against erring schools and ensure schools comply with existing rules and regulations for some time. However, the Hyderabad School Parents Association allege that the ruling state government has completely failed in regulating fee structures in schools.Toy Biz v. United States was a 2003 decision in the United States Court of International Trade that determined that for purposes of tariffs, Toy Biz's action figures were toys, not dolls, because they represented "nonhuman creatures".[1] This decision effectively halved the tariff rate, from 12 percent tax to 6.8 percent.[2]
Background [ edit ]
The Harmonized Tariff Schedule in U.S. law distinguished between two types of action figures for determining tariffs: dolls, which are defined to include human figures, and toys, which include "nonhuman creatures". Because duties on dolls were higher than those on toys, Marvel Comics subsidiary Toy Biz argued before the U.S. Court of International Trade, that their action figures (including the X-Men and Fantastic Four) represented "nonhuman creatures" and were subject to the lower tariff rates for toys instead of the higher ones for dolls. On January 3, 2003, after examining more than 60 action figures, Judge Judith Barzilay ruled in their favor, granting Toy Biz reimbursement for import taxes on previous toys.
Reaction [ edit ]
Because a common theme in Marvel Comics had been the struggle for mutants like the X-Men to prove their humanity, the case shocked numerous fans.[3] Marvel responded to these concerns by claiming "our heroes are living, breathing human beings – but humans who have extraordinary abilities... A decision that the X-Men figures indeed do have 'nonhuman' characteristics further proves our characters have special, out-of-this world powers".[4]
The Harmonized Tariff Schedule was amended to eliminate the distinction between dolls and other toys, which are now in the same category.[5]
See also [ edit ]Pilot: 'We're Going To Be In The Hudson'
Nelson Hsu, Lindsay Mangum, Alyson Hurt and Andrew Prince/NPR
Audio From The FAA The Federal Aviation Administration released audio of the air traffic communications and transcripts between controllers and pilots when US Airways Flight 1549 crash-landed into the Hudson River on Jan. 15. Excerpts From Flight 1549's Radio Communications Controller Communications As US Airways Plane Lands In River Read The Transcript Complete Audio From Air Traffic Control Communication With Flight 1549
Landing In The Hudson Experience, Training Make For Smooth River Landing
The pilot of a US Airways passenger plane tried to direct his crippled jet to two airports Jan. 15 before realizing he would have to ditch the craft in the Hudson River, according to transcripts and audio excerpts of air traffic communications released Thursday by the Federal Aviation Administration.
"We lost thrust in both engines. We're turning back towards LaGuardia," pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger told air traffic controllers shortly before ditching his jet. Investigators believe the jet struck a flock of birds, damaging the engines.
The transcripts indicate Sullenberger first was aware his jet had lost power at 3:27 p.m. ET. "We may end up in the Hudson," Sullenberger radioed less than a minute later.
"OK, what do you need to land?" a controller asked a few moments later.
"I am not sure if we can make any runway. Oh, what's over to our right? Anything in New Jersey? Maybe Teterboro?" Sullenberger responded.
Air traffic controllers worked to clear an emergency landing at the airport in nearby Teterboro, N.J., but less than a minute later, Sullenberger radioed with his assement: "We can't do it."
"OK, which runway would you like at Teterboro?" came the response.
"We're going to be in the Hudson," Sullenberger radioed back. It was the last communication from the pilot.
The plane, with 150 passengers and five crew members aboard, ditched in the Hudson shortly afterward. All 155 were rescued as the plane drifted down the river toward the south edge of Manhattan. Sullenberger, 57, an Air Force veteran with more than 40 years of flying experience, told FAA investigators he glided the plane into the river rather than risk crashing into a densely populated area.I am actually Ignoring the People which post nothing but Hate.Sorry for only hinting that earlier. If I had made it clear it might have helped telling the people I answer that I am not referring to them.After all If I ignored you for example I would not answerYour Free and actually Encouraged to Form your own Opinion Lol.I am just always surprised that People keep claiming that there is no Progress.So far every few Weeks we get Progress Presented from Star Citizen.Sure some of that stuff is only Flashy and has little meaning. At the same time the Really Importand Stuff thanks to not being Flashy and thus being very Boring to most Watchers. Is not being announced and Silently sits in the Patchnotes only to be noticed in the backround.One example being that they Really have Invested some Good Manhours into getting Loading Times down. Current Loading Times are not even 20% of what they in early Stages.The Optimization Required for this sort of thing in the backround is absurd.But hardly anyone NoticesShip Movement and Physics have actually also constantly Improved. Its not so Noticeably because its still too little mass force. But compared to the Rails they had at start. its alot betterYet People talk like since Alpha 1 it did not change at all.Heck I wonder if those People actually bothered ever checking for themselves.U.N. Claims Syrian Regime and Islamic State Used Chemical Weapons
A U.N.-authorized investigation has determined that both the Assad regime and the Islamic State used chemical weapons in Syria in recent years, the first time that the United Nations has officially assigned blame for the use of outlawed weapons in Syria’s five-and-a-half year conflict.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s air force carried out at least two chemical weapons attacks against opposition-controlled towns between 2014 and 2015, while extremists from the Islamic State shelled a Syrian village with mustard gas in the summer of 2015, according to the findings of a joint investigation by the United Nations and the world’s chemical weapons watchdog. A copy of the report, which is confidential, was obtained by Foreign Policy.
The findings by the so-called Leadership Panel will almost certainly spur the United States and its European allies, especially Britain and France, to make the case for imposing sanctions on Syria, or to prosecute those responsible at the Hague-based International Criminal Court. But they will likely face intense resistance from Russia, Syria’s closest ally, and China, which traditionally opposes the use of sanctions.
The three-member panel, headed by Argentine chemical weapons expert Virginia Gamba, was established by the U.N. security council in August 2015 to identify the individuals, armed groups or government agencies that used chemical weapons in Syria. They focused on nine cases where an earlier fact-finding mission established that chemical weapons had been used: eight involved the Syrian government’s alleged use of chlorine gas, and one involved the use of sulfur mustard by the islamic State.
The panel found “sufficient evidence” that a Syrian Air Force helicopter dropped an explosive that released a toxic substance, likely chlorine, on a “concrete block building” in Talmenes on April, 21, 2014. An estimated 200 people were sickened by the toxic gas, which smelled like rotten eggs, and it left at least three dead. It also found “sufficient evidence” to conclude that a Syrian Air Force helicopter dropped a chlorine-filled barrel bomb on a home in Sarmin, releasing a “toxic substance, which match the characteristics of chlorine.” The bomb killed all six occupants of the house, according to the 95-page report.
On August 21, 2015, Islamic State forces shelled the Syrian opposition stronghold of Marea with some 50 shells, including several filled with sulfur mustard. The following day, locals arrived at a local hospital showing “symptoms related to exposure of sulfur mustard,” the panel noted.
The panel said that its investigation was hamstrung by dire security conditions that precluded visits to the sites or interviews with local eyewitnesses, and had sought an additional six months to conclude its work. They only had enough confidence to make definitive judgments in three cases. The team reported varying degrees of certainty about Syrian complicity in the remaining seven cases.
The report “points to the Syrian government’s and ISIS’s responsibility for the sickening, illegal use of chemical weapons in Syria,” said Louis Charbonneau, the U.N.representative for Human Rights Watch, in a statement. “The U.N. Security Council should now ensure that those responsible for these attacks are brought to justice in a court of law.”
Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, welcomed the report and urged the investigators to continue their probe into the seven unresolved cases of alleged Syrian government’s chemical weapons use.
“An independent team of international experts has now confirmed a pattern of use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime that mirrors numerous other confirmed cases of chemical weapons use across Syria,” Power said. “This horrific and continuous use of chemical weapons by Syria represents…an affront to a century’s worth of efforts to create and enforce an international norm against the use of chemical weapons.”
The report’s release adds to mounting international concern over Syria’s chemical weapons program. A separate, secret report by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, raised concerns that Syria may be hiding evidence of undeclared chemical weapons activities.
The cases examined by the panel — managed jointly by the United Nations and the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons — represent a tiny fraction of the total number of alleged chemical weapons attacks undertaken in Syria. While the frequency of such attacks decreased after the joint investigation team was established, the panel estimates that there have been more than 130 alleged chemical- or toxic-chemical weapons attacks, including with sulfur mustard, sarin, VX and chlorine, between December, 2015, and August, 2016.
Photo Credit: JM LOPEZ/AFP/Getty ImagesEncouraging ethical practices is an important way for the State Bar to prevent and discourage attorney misconduct. This is where you’ll find many resources, including ethics opinions, education programs and research tools that can aid attorneys in the course of practicing law.
Ethics Hotline
The Ethics Hotline is a confidential service for attorneys seeking guidance on their professional responsibilities.
Attorneys may request a call by completing the online Ethics Hotline Research Assistance Request Form or by calling the Ethics Hotline at: 800-238-4427 (800-2-ETHICS) within California or 415-538-2150 from outside of California. Your call will be returned in the order your request is received. Our staff will return your call between the hours of 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. (PST), Monday through Friday.
Rules and Statutes on Attorney Conduct
Research and Resources
Client Trust Accounts
The State Bar has plenty of information that can help you manage your client's trust account.Arsene Wenger has revealed the latest team news ahead of Sunday's game against Aston Villa:
on the team news…The squad will be exactly the same as last Sunday. The only uncertainty we have is Alexis Sanchez who has a hamstring concern, and that will be decided on Saturday. He might be out for Sunday. The only [other] difference is that Gabriel is available and we’ll check him how he is physically but he should be alright to be available.
on Danny Welbeck…Welbeck is very close. He is really, really, really nearly there. He will be available for the Tottenham game.
on Wilshere, Arteta, Oxlade-Chamberlain…They are not completely there yet but they are not far. Jack should join in normal training in 10 days. Welbeck on Monday. That’s where we are at the moment. Arteta a bit longer.
ADVERTJames Franco in Cannes (Photo: Ariston Anderson)
There’s a trend in actor-turned-director helmed films at Cannes this year, an impeccable direction of the people on screen. You can tell there’s a sense of trust and cohesive goal to create something great. One of the clearest examples of this is James Franco’s new feature film, As I Lay Dying, based on the great American classic by William Faulkner, the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her family’s quest to honor her wish to be buried in the town of Jefferson.
The vivid characters have come to life on the big screen through Franco’s split-screen filmmaking, led by Tim Blake Nelson as the toothless father Anse, Logan Marshall-Green as the sullen son Jewel, Ahna O’Reilly as the fearsome sister Dewey Dell, Jim Parrack as the never-complaining Cash and Franco himself as the surly Darl. It’s not an easy story to watch, but its characters reveal to us a symphony of American motives and desire, as the family tries to stay afloat against every obstacle thrown their way. Faulkner claimed to write the story in six weeks without changing a word, and the film clearly shows Franco’s similar drive in seeing the narrative blossom from beginning to end.
Franco has been obsessed with making the book into a film since first reading it, along with another directorial project of his, Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God. Wearing a tuxedo and bamboo-detailed Gucci aviators, Franco sat down with us at the Canal Plus tent on the Croisette to share why he decided to pick up the camera in the first place, along with some of the lessons he’s learned and applied to his own filmmaking from working with cinema greats over the years including Danny Boyle, Gus Van Sant, Sam Raimi, Harmony Korine, Robert Altman, and Judd Apatow.
1. Create your own dream job. It’s not going to be handed to you.
I’ve been acting in movies professionally for 16 or 17 years now. I’ve been a movie-lover for longer than that. And I remember when I was only acting people would ask me, “What is your dream role, what movie would you love to do if you could?” And for a long time my answer was I’d love to play a young Tennessee Williams or the poet Hart Crane.
But then it would just sit there. I would sit around and wait for some filmmaker to make those movies and ask me to be in them and nobody ever did. So then I started directing my own films.
2. If you’re looking for a great story, remember the classics.
I have a literature background, and I learned that when I turn to that it did a lot of things for me. It gave me great stories. But it also gave me something else. It showed me that when I work with a source that I love, that’s written by someone that I respect immensely, it makes me work even harder, because I feel a great responsibility to the source.
3. Surround yourself with people that push you to be better.
And I learned that on just doing short films at NYU. I used this poem called “Herbert White” by Frank Bidart. And Frank became a friend of mine. And the fact that he allowed me to use his poem and then that Michael Shannon acted in it, I had these two giants in my world who were doing my project. So I didn’t want to let them down. And it showed me among other things that working with great people, you make better projects, and when you collaborate with great people, you make great things. But also that starting with a great source makes me better.
4. Good directing comes from a great challenge.
What I see in Danny Boyle is somebody who picks subjects that push him, technically and formally, to try new things. So if you look at his body of work, each subject in each film is different. It’s made in a different way, and part of that comes from the subject. So for example, our movie, 127 Hours, how do you film a man isolated in a canyon and make that feel dynamic? He had to discover it. And a lot of it was discovered as we made it.
5. But at its core, directing is about entertaining.
But in addition to trying to be innovative and challenge himself, [Boyle] is also someone that wants to entertain. So he has those two forces in all of his movies and you can see that informing all the decisions in the movies and the subjects he chooses and the way that he makes them.
6. Find your perfect collaborators and let the work come out of it.
With Gus Van Sant, everyone will say, “Oh, Gus has very little to say on set.” But one of the reasons that he doesn’t have to say much is that he is a master at assigning people to the perfect roles and bringing the perfect people together on a project, whether it’s casting the right actors or using Harris Savides (may he rest in peace) for the past decade or so. So that when all these elements come together, he can just stand back and let them naturally coalesce. And every once in a while he’ll come in and make little adjustments, but it doesn’t need to be forceful.
7. Be a director that people want to hang out with, not fear.
The other thing about [Van Sant] — and it sounds like a small thing, but I think it’s a very big thing — is he’s consciously relaxed on set, so that everyone feels that they’re free to try things or contribute.
And that’s something that Sam Raimi is good at in a different way. He deals with the biggest productions possible, but he never loses his cool and is the most fun to be around on a set. And that’s important because if you’re going to work six months on a project, sometimes seven days a week, you want everybody to want to be there, because they’ll continue to give you their best. So you want to be around someone like Sam, and you want to work for Sam because he’s so fun and he brings out the best in everyone.
8. Communication is key, with everyone from your A-List star down to your digital effects artist.
And then also [Raimi] really showed me that there are essentials to filmmaking. Right? You usually have a camera of some sort, performers of some sort, and those departments that run these things. You usually block scenes, or at least have a freeform kind of blocking or whatever, but you have certain things that are very true to a small movie, very true to a big movie.
When you have all these other departments on a large effects movies, they’re just extensions of the essential aspects of filmmaking, and they’re just other departments that you collaborate with as a director. And he really showed me that it’s not a daunting thing. It’s just communicating with more people, more artists, other craftspeople to achieve a different effect.
9. Know your material, 100 times over.
Harmony Korine is a master of research. Harmony is somebody who is not content with the surface level of anything. He is going to find whatever is odd or unusual or weird about a place or a |
likely tied to the presence of long-chain saturated fatty acids present in breast milk that are essential for brain development.
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“Our finding that predominant breastfeeding is positively related to IQ in adulthood also suggests that the amount of milk consumed plays a role,” said lead author Bernardo Lessa Horta, a professor at Federal University of Pelotas in Brazil.
[Science Daily]
Contact us at [email protected] week, HTC will be celebrating the one year anniversary of the release of the HTC Vive VR headset. The system has been a surprising hit for the aging mobile company, which has devoted a surprising amount of resources towards gaining an early foothold on the incredibly young industry.
Over the past year, HTC has continued to put a major emphasis on building out platform services and initiatives. One of the most notable of those, the company’s Viveport VR game subscription service, will be launching this Wednesday. The service will allow PC-powered headset owners the chance to download 5 compatible titles for $6.99 per month. Users are able to download new titles at the beginning of each month or continue playing ones the in their queue that they are already enjoying.
All Vive owners will be receiving a one-month free trial for the service, which will be launching with a limited number of top titles early-on. The library of about 50 titles includes popular hits like Fantastic Contraption, TheBlu, Everest VR and others.
Right now, most Vive owners download games from Valve’s Steam store. Valve is the creator of the SteamVR operating system which the Vive uses. There are about 1600 titles for the HTC Vive available on the store.
HTC introduced the Viveport app store in August as a home for much of the non-gaming content launching for VR. Downloaded content is can be playable across major PC-powered platforms, which, for now, means just the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. Building its own storefront means building a new revenue source outside of hardware in the VR market; HTC will take a 40% cut of all sales through the online store.
Viveport President Rikard Steiber tells me that the goal right now is to hit a quarter million sign-ups for the service, though he admits that might not be a goal that is hit in 2017. HTC has not released headset sales numbers for the Vive, but estimates from the research firm SuperData pins the number of units sold at just under a half million headsets.
On Wednesday, to celebrate its first birthday, HTC will also be giving a temporary $100 discount of the Vive system to new buyers. VR has gained a reputation for being a rather expensive hobby, but other competitors like the Facebook-owned Oculus have been making major strides at increasing its affordability through a $200 discount on the system and its motion controllers and by reducing the minimum hardware specifications of the PCs powering its headset.
HTC will also be giving away a copy one of their newest Vive Studios titles, Arcade Saga, to all Vive owners.Libya has finally begun to move on from the burdens of its past, but what will the post-Qaddafi era bring? The Review talks to Hisham Matar, the acclaimed author, about one nation’s awakening.
One morning in late September, as Libyan rebels launched their final advance on Sirte, Muammar Qaddafi's hometown, Hisham Matar explained to a small, rapt audience at the century-old Chicago Club why the removal of repressive long-time dictators, though great, had not been the most meaningful achievement of the Arab Spring. "Our collective imagination - a whole array of expectations about our governments, our institutions, our dreams - has just shifted," he said. "The horizon has moved much further than even the most audacious of us would have suggested."
Matar speaks softly, but with confidence and precision. "You can see it on people's bodies, in their eyes and their faces, hear it in their voices," he adds during an interview in the lobby of his downtown hotel later that morning. "It's as if these regimes were sitting literally on top of us. There's a new ease, a new optimism, a new sense of ownership of the future. That tiresome record of complaining with resignation at the end of it - that's gone, and it's quite an extraordinary thing to lose so quickly."
***
Little-known outside literary circles before this year, Matar seems to have surfaced at precisely the right moment to herald a new Arab modernity. Born in New York City in 1970, he moved with his family to Tripoli three years later when his father, Jaballa, resigned from a United Nations posting in objection to the Qaddafi regime. In 1979, Jaballa found himself on a Libyan government watch list and again moved the family, this time to Cairo. He wrote articles calling for democracy, and became a leader of the National Front for the Salvation of Libya. In the mid-80s, Matar was sent to boarding school in the UK, where he stayed to study architecture at university.
On the afternoon of March 12, 1990, Jaballa was taken from the family's Cairo home by Egypt's mukhabarat, handed over to the Libyan government and deposited in Abu Salim prison. Two letters, smuggled out by fellow prisoners in 1992 and 1995, relayed stories of interrogation and torture. The family has not heard from Jaballa since. His fate remains unknown.
Matar's twenties fell away in a decade of hate for the Egyptian and Libyan governments. By 2004, he had moved to Paris, met his future wife and begun work on a novel. In the Country of Men, published in 2006, is the story of a sensitive Libyan boy experiencing the quiet panic of a childhood under despotic terror. The book made the Man Booker Prize shortlist and won the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize, honouring a work that evokes "the spirit of a place".
Released early this year, his second novel, Anatomy of a Disappearance, is also narrated by a sensitive Arab youth and has received strong reviews. The story pivots around his father's mysterious abduction and the long-held secrets it reveals. A "chronicle of the dead years", is how the poet and critic Luke Kennard described the book in his February review for this publication. "Moving and impressively concise, what ultimately sets Anatomy of a Disappearance apart and makes it something of a modern classic is not just the universality of loss, but the deep humanity of Matar's prose." Written in English, that prose is simple, declarative, and all the more forceful as a result of his great care.
"Every word we utter betrays us, says a little more than what we think we are saying, reveals more than what we anticipated, exposes us further," Matar said during a recent lecture at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Few better expose the long, dark reach of dictatorship than Matar, which is something of an irony, as Anatomy's publication coincided with the uprisings sweeping the region. Suddenly, Matar was everywhere: writing about Libya and his father in the New York Times, The Guardian and The New Yorker; interpreting the Arab Spring at think-tank discussions and literary festivals; chatting with the BBC, NPR and other news channels.
All at once, and despite spending more than half of his life in the UK, Matar emerged as the new Arab world's unofficial interlocutor to the West. "It's not so much translating or communicating things, but it's dispelling the presumptions that we are quintessentially different," he says of his new role. "I'm very glad to be one of the people in the army of artists that are doing that on both sides. I do think this opportunity is a fantastic moment for anyone interested in culture, to start to define this relationship."
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The Arab Spring did not begin with Tunisian fruit-seller Mohamed Bouazizi. Nor did it begin with Iran's green movement in 2009, or Lebanon's so-called Cedar Revolution of 2005. It began more than a century ago, with scholars, writers and revolutionaries who sounded the region's first modern-day clarion call for unity and self-determination.
Soon after Khayr al-Din, a reformist Circassian legion of the Ottoman Sultan, became prime minister of Tunisia in 1873, he founded Sadiki, a liberal university that taught secularism and emulated European politics. The new college became a breeding ground for the political elite that later built the institutions of an independent Tunisia. Around the same time, Muhammad Abduh, a prize pupil of the bold religious and political thinker Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, gained a pulpit as professor of history at Cairo's Darul Uloom. He denounced unjust rulers, sought harmony among religions and sects and argued that every society should be allowed to choose the form of government best-suited to its era.
And on a June 1880 night in Beirut, a small band of Muslim and Christian men snuck out under cover of darkness and posted placards at street corners and public squares, as co-conspirators did the same in Damascus, Tripoli and Sidon. The message on their poster "rebukes the people of Syria for their lethargy," writes George Antonius in his masterful 1946 history, The Arab Awakening, "incites the people to sink their differences and unite against their tyrants under the inspiration of their 'Arab pride'."
Included were verses from Arise ye Arabs, and Awake! Written by Ibrahim Yazeji, the poem is a call to unity and insurgence that appealed to students and gained a wide following despite being too treasonous to print.
Using the social media of their day, 19th century Arab youth spread the word. "The notion of concerted action to throw off the detested yoke is gradually shaping itself," the French writer Barthelemy Denis de Rivoyre wrote after visiting Beirut in 1883. "An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance."
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The distance was further off than he thought; the nahda sparked several uprisings and an extended surge in Arab nationalism and expression, particularly in Egypt and the Levant, but ultimately fell short of its goals. Word of its demise, however, may have been premature. A century and a quarter on, the Arab Spring seems to have brought the Awakening to fruition. The movement has ousted three leaders and pushed others to the brink- and more than 90 per cent of Tunisia's 4.1m registered voters turned out for the first election of the Arab Spring last week - yet the real coup may have been more social and cultural.
"Regardless of the political outcome in particular countries, this has already heralded a new chapter in Middle East history, one of those epoch-making moments," says Charles Kurzman, sociology professor at the University of North Carolina and co-director for the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations. He is guest-editing a forthcoming issue of the journal Mobilization focused on the region's uprisings. "We've seen this in a variety of ways, particularly in regards to empowerment."
The Arab Spring has shattered the old order. A wealthy Cairene man complained to Matar of a recent outing to buy the newspaper from an old man who'd been selling him the paper for decades. "He drove to the newsstand and said: 'Hey, boy, bring me the paper!'" says Matar. "The old man brought the paper over and said: 'Don't ever talk to me like that again.' That never would have happened before the revolution."
It has unleashed cultural ferment. In 1977, the Qaddafi regime organised a festival of literature - then threw all of the writers who participated in jail. Yet mere months after overthrowing their despots, Egypt and Libya are enjoying an explosion of new periodicals, including 150 new journals and magazines in Benghazi alone. "Most of them aren't very good, but that's alright," says Matar, who is discussing collaborations with Egyptian writers. "It's an exciting time to be an artist in this part of the world."
It has fostered religious and regional unity. In February, the revered Sunni scholar Yusuf al Qaradawi returned to Cairo from Qatar - the first time he'd been in his homeland for 50 years - and delivered a Friday sermon to one million Egyptians of all creeds. He began with: "O Muslims, O Christians," - the second phrase a stunning departure from Islamic tradition, particularly for a conservative imam - and went on to speak in favor of secularism and democracy. Bahrainis recently organised a protest in support of the Syrian opposition. And when Matar arrived in Egypt in August, an immigration official, on learning he was Libyan, told him: "Come on, hurry up. Get rid of that tyrant."
Perhaps most importantly, it has burnished the region's international reputation. Arabs willing to risk their lives for freedom and dignity have gained the moral high ground, particularly on American and Western leaders who colluded with the likes of Qaddafi and Mubarak for decades. For the first time in centuries, the West is looking to Arab nations for lessons on civic responsibility and courage.
Witness the Occupy Wall Street movement. It began in September with a couple of hundred young protesters camping out in Lower Manhattan to protest ineffective governance and the yawning gap between rich and poor but has since swelled to a mini-revolution, inspiring copycats in a hundred other cities worldwide, from Los Angeles to Berlin to Hong Kong. The weak global economy has played a role, as in Arab countries. But the success of uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya has been the spark. "This was absolutely inspired by Tahrir Square, by the Arab Spring movement," Tyler Combelic, a web designer protesting in Lower Manhattan told the New York Times last month.
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but the highest praise probably came from the Swedish Nobel committee in awarding a share of this year's Nobel Peace Prize to 32-year-old Yemeni activist Tawakul Karman. The choice of Karman, a liberal Islamist, highlights how Arab women have asserted themselves socially, politically, like never before - and underlines a key international concern.
"From a Western perspective, there's been much hand-wringing about instability, particularly about an Islamist government, in Egypt, in Libya," says Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division, who joined Matar at the Chicago Club breakfast, which had been organised by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. "This is the wrong question. Our goal is to bring about democratic institutions... but we have to keep in mind it's the right of the people in these countries to shape their futures, so it's also in some sense their right to fail."
For Libya, some degree of political failure seems likely, at least in the short-term. It has no Khayr al-Din or Muhammad Abduh in its past and, unlike Tunisia and Egypt, is woefully short of the building blocks of modern governance. Under Qaddafi, Libya had no political parties, parliament, or civil society. The only government ministry worthy of the name was the state oil company. To make matters worse, Italy's fascist colonisers limited Libyans to a third-grade education until the 1950s. "The first educated generation was my father's," says Matar. "Our institutions are really basic."
Larry Diamond, senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and author of The Spirit of Democracy, estimates Libya might be able to cobble together the rudiments of a democracy in a few years. Libyans returning from abroad, like Ali Tarhouni, who gave up a comfortable economics professorship in Seattle to support the revolution, may help speed the process. Either way, Matar sees the coming period of instability as constructive. "We Libyans need to live through a stage where we don't know what's going to happen," says Matar. "We need to mature through uncertainty. I've always known what I'm supposed to say, supposed to think, and suddenly I don't, and it's very exciting."
Matar has some of the grace often born of suffering and contemplation, and his thoughts echo those of another writer who came to prominence with the overthrow of an oppressive regime. "People have passed through a very dark tunnel at the end of which there was a light of freedom," Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright, said in a 1990 speech in London, months after the Velvet Revolution ousted Czechoslovakia's communist leadership. "Unexpectedly they passed through the prison gates and found themselves in a square. They are now free and they don't know where to go."
After teaching a literature course at Columbia University's Barnard College this autumn, Matar plans to return to Libya for the first time in more than three decades. His first mission is to find his father - though hope has diminished in recent months as rebels have opened most of the country's prisons with no sign of Jaballa. Next up is building a new Libya. For Matar, the revolution and its success could hardly have been more personal: with the help of friends, he set up a communications centre for the uprising in his London apartment; watching demonstrations on TV, he saw protesters holding photos of his father; and in August, his 22-year-old cousin, a rebel named Izz al-Arab Matar, was killed in the assault on Qaddafi's compound in Tripoli. "I want to know what it's like to have a country again," says Matar, envisioning a cultural role for himself. "This will be a new opportunity for me to engage with Libya in a way that is fuller."
Matar, who has begun batting around ideas for a new novel, says he has no interest in politics or public service. Yet in his UCLA lecture he highlighted the balancing acts performed by Andre Malraux and Mario Vargas Llosa, writers who late in their careers embraced public life. Malraux became a French minister of state and cultural affairs, while Llosa ran for the presidency of Peru. "Both were too good and too honest to let this contaminate their art," Matar said. "They were allowed to be both artists and citizens, to be selflessly committed to their craft but also to critically engage the current issues of their time."
Now that Qaddafi is dead, Libyans are moving forward. Anger at the corruption, cronyism and mismanagement of the old regime is widespread. Diamond warns of a "policy of vengeance" in the new Libya. To Matar, the legacy of "brother leader" represents a singular hurdle. "Qaddafi is a real challenge to Libya's conception of itself," he says. "You can't tell me he's been dropped from Mars, and you can't tell me he did this on his own. What does that say about us? What does that say about our history? Without addressing personal responsibility and accountability we are in great danger of replicating elements of the past."
In the years that followed the Velvet Revolution, President Havel's decision not to chase down and prosecute the two and a half million members of the Czechoslovakian communist party helped the country maintain greater stability than some of its neighbours. "It would be very unreasonable to understand the sad legacy of the last 40 years as something alien, which some distant relative bequeathed to us," Havel said just days after assuming the presidency, on New Year's Day, 1990. "On the contrary, we have to accept this legacy as a sin we committed against ourselves. If we accept it as such, we will understand that it is up to us all, and up to us alone, to do something about it."
The task for Libyans is much greater. Tribal divisions remain, caches of thousands of weapons are scattered across the country and the rebellion created a handful of powerful militia commanders, like Abd al-Hakim Belhaj, who may have difficulty laying down their arms. Back in March, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton worried about Libya "becoming a giant Somalia." Just days before Qaddafi's death, Clinton spoke during a surprise visit to Tripoli University. "One of the problems you will face is how to reconcile different people, how you will bring people into a new Libya and not spend your time trying to settle scores from the past," she said.
Recent reports from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have documented armed militias backed by Libya's Transitional National Council arbitrarily detaining, beating and even torturing Qaddafi loyalists. Rebel fighters are reportedly keeping lists of such loyalists, including up to 10,000 from Sirte alone. And indeed, several mobile-phone videos strongly suggest Qaddafi's killing was an act of vengeful passion committed by angry rebels and Libyan citizens. Few understand the need for retribution as well as Matar, who cautions against it.
"Even as the son of someone who has disappeared, who has been tortured, I don't want revenge," he says, pausing in thought. "What I want is accountability: I want the torturer to know what he's done, to know that he understands the magnitude of his actions. And that's not out of the desire to punish him, but out of the desire to try to see - and it's a big risk to the heart - whether it is possible for me and him to come to regard ourselves as brothers. What it provides as a possibility for the future of Libya is bringing these people from the brink of inhumanity, of savagery, back to society in some way - that respects the suffering of the victims, that respects the desire for accountability, but refrains from revenge and from reprisals and from inflicting pain, and is motivated by the desire for brotherhood."
This sense of creativity, unity, ownership and responsibility Matar praises is not irreversible. The killing of two dozen Copts by Egypt's increasingly powerful military leadership during recent clashes in Cairo has sparked renewed religious animosity. Nationalist and Islamist groups have been energised across much of the region, threatening to change the tenor of events and the thrust of governance. In Syria, Yemen and elsewhere, uprisings have stalled in the face of suppression or turned increasingly violent. New governments in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia are likely to disappoint those hoping for mature democracy. That old malaise could creep back.
Towards the end of the breakfast discussion, Matar urged patience. Outside the second-floor windows of the Chicago Club, a shelf of grey clouds loomed over Grant Park and Lake Michigan beyond. "History moves at such a glacial pace much of the time, and moments like this it seems to move at the speed of light," he said. "But we can't expect it to continue to move at that pace. A hundred years might be a good distance to judge whether this has been a good idea. It's going to take that long for these events to reverberate."
David Lepeska is a freelance writer who contributes to The New York Times, Financial Times and Monocle, and previously served as The National's Qatar correspondent. He lives in Chicago.There is something new about the jihadi terrorist violence of the past two decades. Both terrorism and jihad have existed for many years, and forms of “globalised” terror – in which highly symbolic locations or innocent civilians are targeted, with no regard for national borders – go back at least as far as the anarchist movement of the late 19th century. What is unprecedented is the way that terrorists now deliberately pursue their own deaths.
Over the past 20 years – from Khaled Kelkal, a leader of a plot to bomb Paris trains in 1995, to the Bataclan killers of 2015 – nearly every terrorist in France blew themselves up or got themselves killed by the police. Mohamed Merah, who killed a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012, uttered a variant of a famous statement attributed to Osama bin Laden and routinely used by other jihadis: “We love death as you love life.” Now, the terrorist’s death is no longer just a possibility or an unfortunate consequence of his actions; it is a central part of his plan. The same fascination with death is found among the jihadis who join Islamic State. Suicide attacks are perceived as the ultimate goal of their engagement.
This systematic choice of death is a recent development. The perpetrators of terrorist attacks in France in the 1970s and 1980s, whether or not they had any connection with the Middle East, carefully planned their escapes. Muslim tradition, while it recognises the merits of the martyr who dies in combat, does not prize those who strike out in pursuit of their own deaths, because doing so interferes with God’s will. So, why, for the past 20 years, have terrorists regularly chosen to die? What does it say about contemporary Islamic radicalism? And what does it say about our societies today?
The latter question is all the more relevant as this attitude toward death is inextricably linked to the fact that contemporary jihadism, at least in the west – as well as in the Maghreb and in Turkey – is a youth movement that is not only constructed independently of parental religion and culture, but is also rooted in wider youth culture. This aspect of modern-day jihadism is fundamental.
Wherever such generational hatred occurs, it also takes the form of cultural iconoclasm. Not only are human beings destroyed, statues, places of worship and books are too. Memory is annihilated. “Wiping the slate clean,” is a goal common to Mao Zedong’s Red Guards, the Khmer Rouge and Isis fighters. As one British jihadi wrote in a recruitment guide for the organisation: “When we descend on the streets of London, Paris and Washington … not only will we spill your blood, but we will also demolish your statues, erase your history and, most painfully, convert your children who will then go on to champion our name and curse their forefathers.”
How the changing media is changing terrorism | Jason Burke Read more
While all revolutions attract the energy and zeal of young people, most do not attempt to destroy what has gone before. The Bolshevik revolution decided to put the past into museums rather than reduce it to ruins, and the revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iran has never considered blowing up Persepolis.
This self-destructive dimension has nothing to do with the politics of the Middle East. It is even counterproductive as a strategy. Though Isis proclaims its mission to restore the caliphate, its nihilism makes it impossible to reach a political solution, engage in any form of negotiation, or achieve any stable society within recognised borders.
The caliphate is a fantasy. It is the myth of an ideological entity constantly expanding its territory. Its strategic impossibility explains why those who identify with it, instead of devoting themselves to the interests of local Muslims, have chosen to enter a death pact. There is no political perspective, no bright future, not even a place to pray in peace. But while the concept of the caliphate is indeed part of the Muslim religious imagination, the same cannot be said for the pursuit of death.
Additionally, suicide terrorism is not even effective from a military standpoint. While some degree of rationality can be found in “simple” terrorism – in which a few determined individuals inflict considerable damage on a far more powerful enemy – it is entirely absent from suicide attacks. The fact that hardened militants are used only once is not rational. Terrorist attacks do not bring western societies to their knees – they only provoke a counter-reaction. And this kind of terrorism today claims more Muslim than western lives.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest An Islamic State fighter in Raqqa, Syria, 2014. Photograph: Reuters
The systematic association with death is one of the keys to understanding today’s radicalisation: the nihilist dimension is central. What seduces and fascinates is the idea of pure revolt. Violence is not a means. It is an end in itself.
This is not the whole story: it is perfectly conceivable that other, more “rational”, forms of terrorism might soon emerge on the scene. It is also possible that this form of terrorism is merely temporary.
The reasons for the rise of Isis are without question related to the politics of the Middle East, and its demise will not change the basic elements of the situation. Isis did not invent terrorism: it draws from a pool that already exists. The genius of Isis is the way it offers young volunteers a narrative framework within which they can achieve their aspirations. So much the better for Isis if those who volunteer to die – the disturbed, the vulnerable, the rebel without a cause – have little to do with the movement, but are prepared to declare allegiance to Isis so that their suicidal acts become part of a global narrative.
This is why we need a new approach to the problem of Isis, one that seeks to understand contemporary Islamic violence alongside other forms of violence and radicalism that are very similar to it – those that feature generational revolt, self-destruction, a radical break with society, an aesthetic of violence, doomsday cults.
It is too often forgotten that suicide terrorism and organisations such as al-Qaida and Isis are new in the history of the Muslim world, and cannot be explained simply by the rise of fundamentalism. We must understand that terrorism does not arise from the radicalisation of Islam, but from the Islamisation of radicalism.
Far from exonerating Islam, the “Islamisation of radicalism” forces us to ask why and how rebellious youths have found in Islam the paradigm of their total revolt. It does not deny the fact that a fundamentalist Islam has been developing for more than 40 years.
There has been vocal criticism of this approach. One scholar claims that I have neglected the political causes of the revolt – essentially, the colonial legacy, western military interventions against peoples of the Middle East, and the social exclusion of immigrants and their children. From the other side, I have been accused of disregarding the link between terrorist violence and the religious radicalisation of Islam through Salafism, the ultra-conservative interpretation of the faith. I am fully aware of all of these dimensions; I am simply saying that they are inadequate to account for the phenomena we study, because no causal link can be found on the basis of the empirical data we have available.
My argument is that violent radicalisation is not the consequence of religious radicalisation, even if it often takes the same paths and borrows the same paradigms. Religious fundamentalism exists, of course, and it poses considerable societal problems, because it rejects values based on individual choice and personal freedom. But it does not necessarily lead to political violence.
The objection that radicals are motivated by the “suffering” experienced by Muslims who were formerly colonised, or victims of racism or any other sort of discrimination, US bombardments, drones, Orientalism, and so on, would imply that the revolt is primarily led by victims. But the relationship between radicals and victims is more imaginary than real.
Few jihadis advertise their own life stories. They generally talk about what they have seen of others’ suffering
Those who perpetrate attacks in Europe are not inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, Libya or Afghanistan. They are not necessarily the poorest, the most humiliated or the least integrated. The fact that 25% of jihadis are converts shows that the link between radicals and their “people” is also a largely imaginary construct.
Revolutionaries almost never come from the suffering classes. In their identification with the proletariat, the “masses” and the colonised, there is a choice based on something other than their objective situation. Very few terrorists or jihadis advertise their own life stories. They generally talk about what they have seen of others’ suffering. It was not Palestinians who shot up the Bataclan.
Up until the mid-1990s, most international jihadis came from the Middle East and had fought in Afghanistan prior to the fall of the communist regime there in 1992. Afterwards, they returned to their home countries to take part in jihad, or took the cause abroad. These were the people who mounted the first wave of “globalised” attacks (the first attempt on the World Trade Center in New York in 1993, against the US embassies in East Africa in 1998 and the US Navy destroyer Cole in 2000).
This first generation of jihadis was mentored by the likes of Bin Laden, Ramzi Yousef and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed. But from 1995 onwards, a new breed began to develop – known in the west as the “homegrown terrorist”.
Who are these new radicals? We know many of their names thanks to police identification of perpetrators of attacks in Europe and the US. More still have been caught plotting attacks. We also have all the biographical information that has been gathered by journalists. There is no need to embark on painstaking fieldwork to figure out terrorist trajectories. All the data and profiles are available.
When it comes to understanding their motivations, we have traces of their speech: tweets, Google chats, Skype conversations, messages on WhatsApp and Facebook. They call their friends and family. They issue statements before they die and leave testaments on video. In short, even if we cannot be sure that we understand them, we are familiar with them.
We certainly have more information on the lives of terrorists operating in Europe than we do on jihadis who leave for foreign countries and never return. But, as a Sciences Po study on French jihadis who died in Syria has shown, there are many similarities between these groups. Here I will focus primarily on Franco-Belgians, who supply most of the ranks of western jihadis. But Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and the Netherlands also have significant contingents on the frontlines.
Using this information, I have compiled a database of roughly 100 people who have been involved in terrorism in France, or have left France or Belgium to take part in global jihad in the past 20 years. It includes the perpetrators of all the major attacks targeting French or Belgian territory.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Kouachi brothers, who attacked the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris in 2015. Photograph: Handout/Getty Images
There is no standard terrorist profile, but there are recurrent characteristics. The first conclusion that can be drawn is that the profiles have hardly changed over the past 20 years. Khaled Kelkal, France’s first homegrown terrorist, and the Kouachi brothers (Charlie Hebdo, Paris, 2015) share a number of common features: second generation; fairly well integrated at first; period of petty crime; radicalisation in prison; attack and death – weapons in hand – in a standoff with the police.
Another characteristic that all western countries have in common is that radicals are almost all “born-again” Muslims who, after living a highly secular life – frequenting clubs, drinking alcohol, involvement in petty crime – suddenly renew their religious observance, either individually or in the context of a small group. The Abdeslam brothers ran a Brussels bar and went out to nightclubs in the months preceding the Bataclan shooting. Most move into action in the months following their religious “reconversion” or “conversion”, but have usually already exhibited signs of radicalisation.
In almost every case, the processes by which a radical group is formed are nearly identical. The group’s membership is always the same: brothers, childhood friends, acquaintances from prison, sometimes from a training camp. The number of sets of siblings found is also remarkable.
This over-representation of siblings does not occur in any other context of radicalisation, whether on the extreme left or Islamist groups. It highlights the significance of the generational dimension of radicalisation.
As the former jihadi David Vallat has written, the radical preachers’ rhetoric could basically be summarised as: “Your father’s Islam is what the colonisers left behind, the Islam of those who bow down and obey. Our Islam is the Islam of combatants, of blood, of resistance.”
Radicals are in fact often orphans – as the Kouachi brothers were – or come from dysfunctional families. They are not necessarily rebelling against their parents personally, but against what they represent: humiliation, concessions made to society, and what they view as their religious ignorance.
Most of the new radicals are deeply immersed in youth culture: they go to nightclubs, pick up girls, smoke and drink. Nearly 50% of the jihadis in France, according to my database, have a history of petty crime – mainly drug dealing, but also acts of violence and, less frequently, armed robbery. A similar figure is found in Germany and the United States – including a surprising number of arrests for drunk driving. Their dress habits also conform to those of today’s youth: brands, baseball caps, hoods, in other words streetwear, and not even of the Islamic variety.
Their musical tastes are also those of the times: they like rap music and go out to clubs. One of the best-known radicalised figures is a German rapper, Denis Cuspert – first known as Deso Dogg, then as Abu Talha al-Almani – who went to fight in Syria. Naturally, they are also gaming enthusiasts and are fond of violent American movies.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mohamed Merah carried out a series of gun attacks in France in 2012. Photograph: France 2 Television/EPA
Their violent tendencies can have outlets other than jihad and terrorism – as we see in the gang wars of Marseille. They can also be channelled, either by institutions – Mohammed Merah wanted to enlist in the army – or by sport. One group of Portuguese converts, most of whom were originally Angolan, left London to join Isis after bonding at a Thai boxing club started by a British NGO. Combat sport clubs are more important than mosques in jihadi social life.
The language spoken by radicals is always that of their country of residence. In France, they often switch to a Salafised version of French banlieue speech when they reconvert.
Prison time puts them in contact with radicalised “peers” and far outside of any institutionalised religion. Prison amplifies many of the factors that fuel contemporary radicalisation: the generational dimension; revolt against the system; the diffusion of a simplified Salafism; the formation of a tight-knit group; the search for dignity related to respect for the norm; and the reinterpretation of crime as legitimate political protest.
Another common feature is the radicals’ distance from their immediate circle. They did not live in a particularly religious environment. Their relationship to the local mosque was ambivalent: either they attended episodically, or they were expelled for having shown disrespect for the local imam. None of them belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood, none of them had worked with a Muslim charity, none of them had taken part in proselytising activities, none of them were members of a Palestinian solidarity movement, and lastly, none of them, to my knowledge, took part in the rioting in French suburbs in 2005. They were not first radicalised by a religious movement before turning to terrorism.
If indeed there was religious radicalisation, it did not occur in the framework of Salafi mosques, but individually or within the group. The only exceptions are in Britain, which has a network of militant mosques frequented by members of al-Muhajiroun, which gave rise to an even more radical group, Sharia4UK, led by Anjem Choudary. The question |
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The wait to enjoy the best ski and snowboard resorts at Lake Tahoe is over. With El Niño serving up a healthy dose of new snow at Lake Tahoe over the weekend, and with forecasts calling for another storm to hit the region Monday night, Heavenly and Northstar have announced the resorts will open six days early, kicking-off winter 2015-16 on Saturday, Nov. 14.“We’ve already received about three feet of snow overall this season which, combined with around-the-clock operation from the West Coast’s two largest snowmaking systems, has created a great early-season base and the best snow surface conditions at Lake Tahoe,” said Pete Sonntag, Tahoe region vice president and chief operating officer. “Opening early creates even more value for Tahoe Local pass holders, who are already getting the best pass deal in Tahoe.”This is the earliest the resorts have opened since 2012, and the first time opening six days ahead of schedule since at least 2009. Heavenly plans to operate the Gondola, Tamarack Express and Dipper Express, accessing upper California Trail and Orion’s, which, at over a mile long, will be the longest run available in the Tahoe basin. Northstar will open top-to-bottom, spinning the Big Springs Gondola, Vista Express, Arrow Express and Comstock Express accessing West Ridge, Luggi’s, Skid, Pinball, Lumberjack and Lower Main Street. Northstar will also operate a surface lift near the Big Easy Chair to offer children’s ski and snowboard lessons.Kirkwood received 18 inches of new snow overnight at its summit. Resort officials have yet to determine if they will open Kirkwood prior to its Nov. 21 opening day.Early openings as well as all the new snow in Tahoe is further incentive for guests to secure the best option in season passes by the cutoff date – Sunday, Nov. 22, 2015.Guests can choose from the following Epic Passes, offering the best variety and value for any type of skier or snowboarder:Positions are still available to join the Best of Tahoe Resort teams, Please Click Here to view career opportunities.Mindfulness
Satori.
As opposed to what many people think, Satori is not a special state. It is simply a return to the original, natural condition of the human mind.
Satori, or Enlightenment, is not something that can be understood by using the brain. Satori is an experience; it is a state of mind. The posture of Zazen itself is Satori, and only through the harmony of body and mind one can discover the nature of Satori.
Satori exists in us long before we are born. Animals always have Satori, being constantly in their original condition, totally immersed in the present and connected to the Cosmos.
Only human beings have lost this original condition of the consciousness, and have thus become more complicated.
In order to have true inner peace, human beings must regain this original condition of Satori. However, in your journey to regain Satori, don’t tell yourself, “I have to become Buddha. I’ve got to achieve satori.” This is a waste of time and energy because this attitude reinforces the mistaken idea that Satori is some kind of goal to be achieved.
Simply live your daily life normally, practice zazen, and let go of everything. Do not try too hard to understand what Satori is, or how to achieve it. Again, this is a waste of time.
“Only human beings have lost this original condition of the consciousness, and have thus become more complicated.”
When we start trying to explain it what Satori is, we start putting it into limiting categories, saying, “Satori is this, Satori is not that.” In Zen, there are no categories; nothing can be separate.
The only way to truly have Satori is by practicing Zazen in the here and now.
Fudoshin.
Fudoshin is the ‘immovable mind’, that is, the mind that has met all challenges of life, and has attained a state of complete composure and fearlessness. This state of equanimity is essential in the practice of Zazen and Budo.
Fudoshin represents a peaceful state of total determination and unshakable will. It is the state of a spirit that is determined to win, and that is filled with courage, endurance and determination to surmount every obstacle that comes in its way. Fudoshin is associated with a feeling of invincibility, of a mind that cannot be disturbed by confusion, hesitation, doubt, or fear.
In Feudal Japan, Fudoshin was manifested in the Samurai’s unquestionable demonstration of courage, and determination to face difficulty, danger, pain, and even death, without fear. As the great Japanese swordsman Tsukahara Bokuden said: “Mental calmness, not skill, is the sign of a matured samurai”.
From a Western viewpoint, the concept of a Warrior (Samurai, Bushi) without anger or rage, a peaceful warrior, can be quite difficult to understand and accept. Being exceedingly dualistic, we can hardly reconcile the ideas of violence and a peaceful and calm mind, but this state of mind was the essence of the Samurai and is today the essence of martial arts like kendo, judo, karate or aikido.
“In our daily life, Fudoshin is the protection against the “shikai” or four sicknesses of the mind: anger, doubt, fear and surprise.”
In our daily life, Fudoshin is the protection against the “shikai” or four sicknesses of the mind: anger, doubt, fear and surprise. Through the rigorous practice of Zazen, the students learn implicitly to center themselves and clear their mind thus developing a Fudoshin mind.
In this era of random acts of violence, road rage, domestic violence and other losses of self control, it is not hard to see how development of fudoshin can make everyone’s life better.
Zanshin.
Zanshin is a concept found in Zen, Budo (Japanese martial arts), particularly Kendo, and in many Japanese arts, such as Ikebana (flower arrangement), chado (the tea ceremony) and sumi-e (ink painting).
Simply put, Zanshin is the state when the mind is fully vigilant and aware of its surroundings; when the mind remains still without being attached to anything and is totally present during every moment and action in the here and now.
Everything is interconnected, and the entire Cosmos is influenced by our attitude; that is, all the words we speak, all the actions we carry out, and all the ways we move influence what is happening inside of us and around us.
” When I eat, I eat. My mind is fully engaged on the action of eating. When I fight, I fight. My mind is fully engaged on the action of fighting.”
In Budo, Zanshin means being aware of one’s surroundings and enemies, while being prepared to react and being unaffected by pain. It is a state of mind that takes years of training to develop.
Through the practice of Zazen and Budo, little by little, this kind of alertness can expand to every action of one’s daily life, and in the end, one realizes that there are no ordinary moments.
Mushotoku.
In Zen, the concept of Mushotoku represents a state of mind where the spirit does not seek to obtain anything. This is the attitude of a mind that do not get attached to objects and that seeks no personal profit.
Without this state of mind, Zazen is not authentic. Universal wisdom is rooted in Mushotoku and it transcends dualities and limitations created by our egos. When you are mushotoku, even if you lose you are always free, always happy.
This concept of acting without wanting to achieve a result, and giving without wanting something in return is one of the most difficult ideas for Westerners to understand as we tend to think in terms of profit: “If I give him this maybe he’ll give me that in return”.
We must not practice Zen meditation, or Zazen, with a hope to personally profit. Do not practice for Zazen for fame or profit; do not practice it to obtain a reward; do not practice it to obtain esoteric powers.
Do not practice Zazen for yourself; simply practice Zazen for Zazen. Zazen has no object and no subject; it is simply the union of the absolute self with the Cosmos. In the martial arts, too, one must be mushotoku, without any goal or desire for profit.
In daily life, man always wants to obtain what he does not have, and he is afraid of losing what he already has. Some people are constantly thinking of profit, wondering what they can get in return for what they give. Or course, in everyday life you must sometimes make a profit in order to survive.
Hishiryo.
Hishiryo is a state of mind beyond thinking and non-thinking. During Zazen, it is the normal condition of the consciousness.
Consciousness during zen meditation is not the same as in daily life, it does not behave like the intellect. During zazen, we have thoughts that appears and disappears naturally, this is perfectly normal. If we let those thoughts come and go freely, without giving form to those thought, without wanting to chase them, the intellect becomes peaceful by itself and hishiryo consciousness appears, beyond thinking and non-thinking.
When you are thinking constantly, you are not in the mind’s normal condition. Your imagination and personal desires are expressing themselves to your mind, taking you away from your mind’s simple, peaceful, original condition.
The more you think, the more afraid you become, and the more anxious you grow. After too long, complications and even madness can arise from this.
When you think too much, conflicts and battles take hold of your mind, preventing you from ever finding true peace. This prevents you from harmonizing with reality, and with the Universe as a whole.
When you stop this internal activity, you return to the normal, simple, and peaceful condition of the mind.
We can observe the simplicity of Hishiryo in animals. Cats are, for example, very simple creatures. They are easy to understand and are not complicated. A cat does as it pleases, and it is completely connected with the present, never overthinking.
“The more you think, the more afraid you become, and the more anxious you grow “
Animals live true Zen, as they are totally connected with the present moment, and by extension, the Cosmos. Thus, we should look to them as examples in our journey to become one with the Universe.
Hishiryo is the absolute egolessness consciousness, in full unity with the whole Universe. and like Zen, it can cannot be explained but it can be experienced during zazen, naturally and unconsciously.
Mushin.
Mushin is the essence of Zen and Budo. Mushin literally means the “mind without mind”, and it is commonly called “the state of no-mindness”.
Mushin is the essence of Zen and Japanese martial arts. It is a state of mind where mind is not fixed on or occupied by any thought or emotion, and is thus connected to the Cosmos.
In Zen on in your daily life, if the impulse is expressed as conscious thought, it is not Zen.
This pure state of mind, of pure mental clarity is produced by the absence of the ego or limited self. A Mushin mind is not an empty mind like an empty shell, on the contrary is it a mind fully present, aware and free.
“Mu” or “emptiness” in Mushin refers to an empty mind in the sense that distractions, preoccupations, fears, worries, are absent and are no more an issue for the mind, whether in combat or in daily life.
The concept of Mushin is identical to the Japanese metaphorical expression “mizu no kokoro” or the “mind like water.” This mental attitude refers to a mind that is in total harmony with the Cosmos that it resembles a still pond of water without any ripples where the surface reflects a clear and perfectly undistorted image of the surroundings, like a mirror.
“Mushin is achieved when a person’s mind is free from anger, fear, or the ego during combat or everyday life.”
Mushin cannot be grasped with the intellect; it must be experienced. A Mushin mind has no Ego and no substance; it is pure Enlightenment and is the perfect realization of the self.
This state of mind takes years and years of practice to achieve, Mushin is achieved when a person’s mind is free from anger, fear, judgement or the ego during combat or everyday life.
http://zen-buddhism.net/Salmonella typhimurium A transmission electron-microscope image of isolated T3SS needle complexes from
Type three secretion system (often written Type III secretion system and abbreviated TTSS or T3SS, also called Injectisome) is a protein appendage found in several Gram-negative bacteria.
In pathogenic bacteria, the needle-like structure is used as a sensory probe to detect the presence of eukaryotic organisms and secrete proteins that help the bacteria infect them. The secreted effector proteins are secreted directly from the bacterial cell into the eukaryotic (host) cell, where they exert a number of effects that help the pathogen to survive and to escape an immune response.
Overview [ edit ]
The term Type III secretion system was coined in 1993.[1] This secretion system is distinguished from at least five other secretion systems found in Gram-negative bacteria. Many animal and plant associated bacteria possess similar T3SSs. These T3SSs are similar as a result of divergent evolution and phylogenetic analysis supports a model in which gram-negative bacteria can transfer the T3SS gene cassette horizontally to other species. The most researched T3SSs are from species of Shigella (causes bacillary dysentery), Salmonella (typhoid fever), Escherichia coli (Gut flora, some strains cause food poisoning), Vibrio (gastroenteritis and diarrhea), Burkholderia (glanders), Yersinia (plague), Chlamydia (sexually transmitted disease), Pseudomonas (infects humans, animals and plants) and the plant pathogens Erwinia, Ralstonia and Xanthomonas, and the plant symbiont Rhizobium.
The T3SS is composed of approximately 30 different proteins, making it one of the most complex secretion systems. Its structure shows many similarities with bacterial flagella (long, rigid, extracellular structures used for motility). Some of the proteins participating in T3SS share amino-acid sequence homology to flagellar proteins. Some of the bacteria possessing a T3SS have flagella as well and are motile (Salmonella, for instance), and some do not (Shigella, for instance). Technically speaking, type III secretion is used both for secreting infection-related proteins and flagellar components. However, the term "type III secretion" is used mainly in relation to the infection apparatus. The bacterial flagellum shares a common ancestor with the type III secretion system.[2][3]
T3SSs are essential for the pathogenicity (the ability to infect) of many pathogenic bacteria. Defects in the T3SS may render a bacterium non-pathogenic. It has been suggested that some non-invasive strains of gram-negative bacteria have lost the T3SS because the energetically costly system is no longer of use.[4] Although traditional antibiotics were effective against these bacteria in the past, antibiotic-resistant strains constantly emerge. Understanding the way the T3SS works and developing drugs targeting it specifically have become an important goal of many research groups around the world since the late 1990s.
Structure [ edit ]
The hallmark of T3SS is the needle[5][6] (more generally, the needle complex (NC) or the T3SS apparatus (T3SA); also called injectisome when the ATPase is excluded; see below). Bacterial proteins that need to be secreted pass from the bacterial cytoplasm through the needle directly into the host cytoplasm. Three membranes separate the two cytoplasms: the double membrane (inner and outer membranes) of the Gram-negative bacterium and the eukaryotic membrane. The needle provides a smooth passage through those highly selective and almost impermeable membranes. A single bacterium can have several hundred needle complexes spread across its membrane. It has been proposed that the needle complex is a universal feature of all T3SSs of pathogenic bacteria.[7]
The needle complex starts at the cytoplasm of the bacterium, crosses the two membranes and protrudes from the cell. The part anchored in the membrane is the base (or basal body) of the T3SS. The extracellular part is the needle. A so-called inner rod connects the needle to the base. The needle itself, although the biggest and most prominent part of the T3SS, is made out of many units of a single protein. The majority of the different T3SS proteins are therefore those that build the base and those that are secreted into the host. As mentioned above, the needle complex shares similarities with bacterial flagella. More specifically, the base of the needle complex is structurally very similar to the flagellar base; the needle itself is analogous to the flagellar hook, a structure connecting the base to the flagellar filament.[8][9]
The base is composed of several circular rings and is the first structure that is built in a new needle complex. Once the base is completed, it serves as a secretion machine for the outer proteins (the needle). Once the whole complex is completed the system switches to secreting proteins that are intended to be delivered into host cells. The needle is presumed to be built from bottom to top; units of needle monomer protein pile upon each other, so that the unit at the tip of the needle is the last one added. The needle subunit is one of the smallest T3SS proteins, measuring at around 9 kDa. 100−150 subunits comprise each needle.
The T3SS needle measures around 60−80 nm in length and 8 nm in external width. It needs to have a minimal length so that other extracellular bacterial structures (adhesins and the lipopolysaccharide layer, for instance) do not interfere with secretion. The hole of the needle has a 3 nm diameter. Most folded effector proteins are too large to pass through the needle opening, so most secreted proteins must pass through the needle unfolded, a task carried out by the ATPase at the base of the structure.[10]
T3SS proteins [ edit ]
Salmonella typhimurium Diagram of individual substructures of the needle complex from
The T3SS proteins can be grouped into three categories:
Structural proteins : build the base, the inner rod and the needle.
: build the base, the inner rod and the needle. Effector proteins : get secreted into the host cell and promote infection / suppress host cell defences.
: get secreted into the host cell and promote infection / suppress host cell defences. Chaperones: bind effectors in the bacterial cytoplasm, protect them from aggregation and degradation and direct them towards the needle complex.
Most T3SS genes are laid out in operons. These operons are located on the bacterial chromosome in some species and on a dedicated plasmid in other species. Salmonella, for instance, has a chromosomal region in which most T3SS genes are gathered, the so-called Salmonella pathogenicity island (SPI). Shigella, on the other hand, has a large virulence plasmid on which all T3SS genes reside. It is important to note that many pathogenicity islands and plasmids contain elements that allow for frequent horizontal gene transfer of the island/plasmid to a new species.
Effector proteins that are to be secreted through the needle need to be recognized by the system, since they float in the cytoplasm together with thousands of other proteins. Recognition is done through a secretion signal—a short sequence of amino acids located at the beginning (the N-terminus) of the protein (usually within the first 20 amino acids), that the needle complex is able to recognize. Unlike other secretion systems, the secretion signal of T3SS proteins is never cleaved off the protein.
Induction of secretion [ edit ]
Contact of the needle with a host cell triggers the T3SS to start secreting;[11] not much is known about this trigger mechanism (see below). Secretion can also be induced by lowering the concentration of calcium ions in the growth medium (for Yersinia and Pseudomonas; done by adding a chelator such as EDTA or EGTA) and by adding the aromatic dye Congo red to the growth medium (for Shigella), for instance. These methods and other are used in laboratories to artificially induce type III secretion.
Induction of secretion by external cues other than contact with host cells also takes place in vivo, in infected organisms. The bacteria sense such cues as temperature, pH, osmolarity and oxygen levels, and use them to "decide" whether to activate their T3SS. For instance, Salmonella can replicate and invade better in the ileum rather than in the cecum of animal intestine. The bacteria are able to know where they are thanks to the different ions present in these regions; the ileum contains formate and acetate, while the cecum does not. The bacteria sense these molecules, determine that they are at the ileum and activate their secretion machinery. Molecules present in the cecum, such as propionate and butyrate, provide a negative cue to the bacteria and inhibit secretion. Cholesterol, a lipid found in most eukaryotic cell membranes, is able to induce secretion in Shigella.
The external cues listed above either regulate secretion directly or through a genetic mechanism. Several transcription factors that regulate the expression of T3SS genes are known. Some of the chaperones that bind T3SS effectors also act as transcription factors. A feedback mechanism has been suggested: when the bacterium does not secrete, its effector proteins are bound to chaperones and float in the cytoplasm. When secretion starts, the chaperones detach from the effectors and the latter are secreted and leave the cell. The lone chaperones then act as transcription factors, binding to the genes encoding their effectors and inducing their transcription and thereby the production of more effectors.
Structures similar to Type3SS injectisomes have been proposed to rivet gram negative bacterial outer and inner membranes to help release outer membrane vesicles targeted to deliver bacterial secretions to eukaryotic host or other target cells in vivo.[12]
T3SS-mediated infection [ edit ]
T3SS effectors enter the needle complex at the base and make their way inside the needle towards the host cell. The exact way in which effectors enter the host is mostly unknown. It has been previously suggested that the needle itself is capable of puncturing a hole in the host cell membrane; this theory has been refuted. It is now clear that some effectors, collectively named translocators, are secreted first and produce a pore or a channel (a translocon) in the host cell membrane, through which other effectors may enter. Mutated bacteria that lack translocators are able to secrete proteins but are not able to deliver them into host cells. In general each T3SS includes three translocators. Some translocators serve a double role; after they participate in pore formation they enter the cell and act as bona fide effectors.
T3SS effectors manipulate host cells in several ways. The most striking effect is the promoting of uptake of the bacterium by the host cell. Many bacteria possessing T3SSs must enter host cells in order to replicate and propagate infection. The effectors they inject into the host cell induce the host to engulf the bacterium and to practically "eat" it. In order for this to happen the bacterial effectors manipulate the actin polymerization machinery of the host cell. Actin is a component of the cytoskeleton and it also participates in motility and in changes in cell shape. Through its T3SS effectors the bacterium is able to utilize the host cell's own machinery for its own benefit. Once the bacterium has entered the cell it is able to secrete other effectors more easily and it can penetrate neighboring cells and quickly infect the whole tissue.
T3SS effectors have also been shown to tamper with the host's cell cycle and some of them are able to induce apoptosis. One of the most researched T3SS effector is IpaB from Shigella flexneri. It serves a double role, both as a translocator, creating a pore in the host cell membrane, and as an effector, exerting multiple detrimental effects on the host cell. It had been demonstrated that IpaB induces apoptosis in macrophages—cells of the animal immune system—after being engulfed by them.[13] It was later shown that IpaB achieves this by interacting with caspase 1, a major regulatory protein in eukaryotic cells.[14]
Another well characterized class of T3SS effectors are Transcription Activator-like effectors (TAL effectors) from Xanthomonas. When injected into plants, these proteins can enter the nucleus of the plant cell, bind plant promoter sequences, and activate transcription of plant genes that aid in bacterial infection.[15] TAL effector-DNA recognition has recently been demonstrated to comprise a simple code[16][17] and this has greatly improved the understanding of how these proteins can alter the transcription of genes in the host plant cells.
Unresolved issues [ edit ]
Salmonella needle complex.[18] The topology and organization of theneedle complex.
Hundreds of articles on T3SS have been published since the mid-nineties. However, numerous issues regarding the system remain unresolved:
T3SS proteins. Of the approximately 30 T3SS proteins less than 10 in each organism have been directly detected using biochemical methods. The rest, being perhaps rare, have proven difficult to detect and they remain theoretical (although genetic rather than biochemical studies have been performed on many T3SS genes/proteins). The localization of each protein is also not entirely known.
. Of the approximately 30 T3SS proteins less than 10 in each organism have been directly detected using biochemical methods. The rest, being perhaps rare, have proven difficult to detect and they remain theoretical (although genetic rather than biochemical studies have been performed on many T3SS genes/proteins). The localization of each protein is also not entirely known. The length of the needle. It is not known how the bacterium "knows" when a new needle has reached its proper length. Several theories exist, among them the existence of a "ruler protein" that somehow connects the tip and the base of the needle. Addition of new monomers to the tip of the needle should stretch the ruler protein and thereby signal the needle length to the base.
. It is not known how the bacterium "knows" when a new needle has reached its proper length. Several theories exist, among them the existence of a "ruler protein" that somehow connects the tip and the base of the needle. Addition of new monomers to the tip of the needle should stretch the ruler protein and thereby signal the needle length to the base. Energetics. The force that drives the passage of proteins inside the needle is not completely known. An ATPase is associated with the base of the T3SS and participates in directing proteins into the needle; but whether it supplies the energy for transport is not clear.
. The force that drives the passage of proteins inside the needle is not completely known. An ATPase is associated with the base of the T3SS and participates in directing proteins into the needle; but whether it supplies the energy for transport is not clear. Secretion signal. As mentioned above, the existence of a secretion signal in effector proteins is known. The signal allows the system to distinguish T3SS-transported proteins from any other protein. Its nature, requirements and the mechanism of recognition are poorly understood, but methods for predicting which bacterial proteins can be transported by the Type III secretion system have recently been developed. [19]
. As mentioned above, the existence of a secretion signal in effector proteins is known. The signal allows the system to distinguish T3SS-transported proteins from any other protein. Its nature, requirements and the mechanism of recognition are poorly understood, but methods for predicting which bacterial proteins can be transported by the Type III secretion system have recently been developed. Activation of secretion. The bacterium must know when the time is right to secrete effectors. Unnecessary secretion, when no host cell is in vicinity, is wasteful for the bacterium in terms of energy and resources. The bacterium is somehow able to recognize contact of the needle with the host cell. How this is done is still being researched, and the method may well be dependent on the pathogen. Some theories postulate a delicate conformational change in the structure of the needle upon contact with the host cell; this change perhaps serves as a signal for the base to commence secretion. One method of recognition has been discovered in Salmonella, which relies on sensing host cell cytosolic pH through the pathogenicity island 2-encoded T3SS in order to switch on secretion of effectors. [20]
. The bacterium must know when the time is right to secrete effectors. Unnecessary secretion, when no host cell is in vicinity, is wasteful for the bacterium in terms of energy and resources. The bacterium is somehow able to recognize contact of the needle with the host cell. How this is done is still being researched, and the method may well be dependent on the pathogen. Some theories postulate a delicate conformational change in the structure of the needle upon contact with the host cell; this change perhaps serves as a signal for the base to commence secretion. One method of recognition has been discovered in, which relies on sensing host cell cytosolic pH through the pathogenicity island 2-encoded T3SS in order to switch on secretion of effectors. Binding of chaperones. It is not known when chaperones bind their effectors (whether during or after translation) and how they dissociate from their effectors before secretion.
. It is not known when chaperones bind their effectors (whether during or after translation) and how they dissociate from their effectors before secretion. Effector mechanisms. Although much was revealed since the beginning of the 21st century about the ways in which T3SS effectors manipulate the host, the majority of effects and pathways remains unknown.
. Although much was revealed since the beginning of the 21st century about the ways in which T3SS effectors manipulate the host, the majority of effects and pathways remains unknown. Evolution. As mentioned, the T3SS is closely related to the bacterial flagellum.[21] There are three competing hypotheses:[22] first, that the flagellum evolved first and the T3SS is derived from that structure, second, that the T3SS evolved first and the flagellum is derived from it, and third, that the two structures are derived from a common ancestor. There was some controversy about the different scenarios,[2][22] since they all explain protein homology between the two structures, as well as their functional diversity.[23] Yet, recent phylogenomic evidence favours the hypothesis that the T3SS derived from the flagellum by a process involving initial gene loss and then gene acquisition.[24] A key step of the latter process was the recruitment of secretins to the T3SS, an event that occurred at least three times from other membrane-associated systems.
Nomenclature of T3SS proteins [ edit ]
Flagellum of Gram-negative bacteria. The rings of the base are very similar to needle-complex rings, although the existence of a C-ring in the needle complex has not been proven. The flagellar hook is homologous to the T3SS needle
Since the beginning of the 1990s new T3SS proteins are being found in different bacterial species at a steady rate. Abbreviations have been given independently for each series of proteins in each organism, and the names usually do not reveal much about the protein's function. Some proteins discovered independently in different bacteria have later been shown to be homologous; the historical names, however, have mostly been kept, a fact that might cause confusion. For example, the proteins SicA, IpgC and SycD are homologs from Salmonella, Shigella and Yersinia, respectively, but the last letter (the "serial number") in their name does not show that.
Below is a summary of the most common protein-series names in several T3SS-containing species. Note that these names include proteins that form the T3SS machinery as well as the secreted effector proteins:
Yersinia Yop : Yersinia outer protein Ysc : Yersinia secretion (component) Ypk : Yersinia protein kinase
Salmonella Spa : Surface presentation of antigen Sic : Salmonella invasion chaperone Sip : Salmonella invasion protein Prg : PhoP-repressed gene Inv : Invasion Org : Oxygen-regulated gene Ssp : Salmonella -secreted protein Iag : Invasion-associated gene
Shigella Ipg : Invasion plasmid gene Ipa : Invasion plasmid antigen Mxi : Membrane expression of Ipa Spa : Surface presentation of antigen Osp : Outer Shigella protein
Escherichia Tir : Translocated intimin receptor Sep : Secretion of E. coli proteins Esc : Escherichia secretion (component) Esp : Escherichia secretion protein Ces : Chaperone of E. coli secretion
Pseudomonas Hrp : Hypersensitive response and pathogenicity Hrc : Hypersensitive response conserved (or Hrp conserved)
Rhizobium Nop : Nodulation protein Rhc : Rhizobium conserved
In several species: Vir : Virulence
Following those abbreviations is a letter or a number. Letters usually denote a "serial number", either the chronological order of discovery or the physical order of appearance of the gene in an operon. Numbers, the rarer case, denote the molecular weight of the protein in kDa. Examples: IpaA, IpaB, IpaC; MxiH, MxiG, MxiM; Spa9, Spa47.
Several key elements appear in all T3SSs: the needle monomer, the inner rod of the needle, the ring proteins, the two translocators, the needle-tip protein, the ruler protein (which is thought to determine the needle's length; see above) and the ATPase, which supplies energy for secretion. The following table shows some of these key proteins in four T3SS-containing bacteria:
↓ Function / Genus → Shigella Salmonella Yersinia Escherichia Needle monomer MxiH PrgI YscF EscF Inner rod MxiI PrgJ YscI EscI Needle-tip protein IpaD SipD LcrV EspA Translocator IpaB SipB YopB EspD Translocator IpaC SipC YopD EspB Chaperone for the two translocators IpgC SicA SycD CesD ATPase Spa47 InvC YscN SepB (EscN) Ruler protein Spa32 InvJ Ysc |
computer, power windows and automatic headlamps.[77] "CDX" versions add 17-inch alloy wheels, front fog lamps, a leather-wrapped steering wheel and upholstery, heated front seats and rear parking sensors.[78] Initially a petrol-only model, diesel availability was expanded to the "CDX" trim in early 2010.[79][80]
On March 18, 2010, Holden issued a recall for 9,098 petrol-engined 2010 model year Cruzes in Australia and a further 485 in New Zealand over a faulty fuel hose. According to Holden, some hoses on 1.8-liter cars had developed a leakage, although no accidents or injuries had been reported prior to the recall.[81] The recall followed a stop-delivery notice issued by Holden to its dealers on March 3 while the automaker conducted an investigation into the matter.[82]
Holden announced on December 22, 2008 that its Elizabeth, South Australia production line would be split to commence local production of the Cruze sedan and the Australian-developed hatchback.[83] Production was originally scheduled to start by September 2010.[84] However, it was confirmed in January 2010 that production would in fact begin in March 2011.[85] The announcement to assemble the car came as a response to the slowing sales of the larger, locally produced Holden Commodore range.[83] The Australian Government committed A$149 million to the program from its $6.2 billion Green Car Innovation Fund, with a further $30 million given by the State Government of South Australia.[83] GM Holden matched both amounts, but the then chairman and managing director Mark Reuss would not reveal Holden's total investment.[83] Reuss announced his firm would be considering the utilization of liquid petroleum gas (LPG), compressed natural gas (CNG), ethanol (E85) flexible-fuel and petrol/electric hybrid start-stop system powertrain technologies.[83][86] These technologies, if materialized, would supplement the four-cylinder petrol and diesel powertrain offerings already confirmed by Holden at the time of the announcement.[87]
At a media event on February 28, 2011, Holden unveiled the Australian assembled Cruze sedan in facelifted "Series II" guise,[88] otherwise known as the JH series.[89] Prime Minister Julia Gillard attended the February launch to drive the first example off Holden's production line before full-scale production commenced in March.[16] Holden has confirmed an initial local content level of between 40 and 50 percent if assessed by retail value, with an aim of increasing Cruze localization over time.[90][91] Series II styling revisions to the grille, lower air intake, and bumper have softened the front-end to bear a closer resemblance to Holden's larger VE II Commodore.[88] Further differentiation from the original has been achieved via the fitment of amber front indicator lights, jewelled bezel headlamps, remodelled wheel trims, and through adjustments to the lower portion of the rear bumper.[88][92] Carrying over largely unchanged is the 1.8-liter petrol inline-four, tweaked to yield slight enhancements in drivability.[93] When automatic transmission is specified, the 1.8-liter is now teamed with GM's six-speed 6T30 unit, lighter and more compact than the previous 6T40.[89] Diesel remains optional for "CD" and "CDX" specifications over the standard 1.8-liter petrol.[93] Alterations to the 2.0-liter turbodiesel have resulted in an additional 10 kilowatts (13 hp) and 40 newton metres (30 lb⋅ft) and a slight reduction in fuel consumption for the manual variant, now a six-speed unit.[92] However, the headline change is the release of the turbocharged 1.4-liter engine, dubbed iTi by Holden for intelligent turbo induction.[92] The inclusion of the 1.4 also brings an upgrade to electric (as opposed to hydraulic) power steering and affixes a Watt's linkage to the torsion beam rear suspension.[16] Linked with six-speed manual or automatic transmissions, the 1.4 is fitted as standard to the new "SRi" and "SRi-V" sports-oriented trims, but is available at extra cost on the base "CD".[92] The new "SRi" and "SRi-V" models have their respective badges embossed onto the grille insert, are fitted with their own front bumper design, and feature side skirts, chrome exterior door handles, a rear lip spoiler, and five-spoke 17-inch alloy wheels.[88][94] Over the "CD", "SRi" gains a leather-covered steering wheel rim and shift lever, with the "SRi-V" extending this upholstering to the seating.[94] A heat function for the front seats, keyless entry with push-button engine start, reversing sensors, and seven-inch LCD multimedia unit are also part of the "SRi-V" equipment list.[94] This multimedia system integrates satellite navigation, the CD and DVD players, and a 10 GB internal hard disk drive.[94] In mid-November 2011, Holden released the MY12 update to the Series II Cruze. This update coincided with the release of the hatchback body variant and saw Bluetooth telephone connectivity standard across the range.[95]
In April 2013 the Series II Cruze received an update and price drops. The update included rear-parking sensors, a 7-inch touch-screen, suspension adjustments and improved automatic gearboxes across the range along with many other new extras such as a larger 1.6-liter turbocharged engine as standard on the SRi and SRi-V, replacing the 1.4-liter turbo.
Holden ended manufacturing of the Cruze at its Elizabeth plant on October 7, 2016, replaced by the Astra hatchback and new generation Cruze sedan—both imported.[96]
Europe
European specification variants of the Cruze are offered with 1.6- and 1.8-litre petrol engines, and 2.0-litre and (from 2012) 1.7-litre diesel engines. In mid-2011, with the arrival of the five-door hatchback variant, the 1.6-litre petrol engine received an upgrade from 113 bhp to 122 bhp. Exports from the South Korean factory began on February 24, 2009.[97][98]
North America
Mexico became the first North American country to receive the car, going on sale for the 2010 model year in late 2009. Imported from South Korea, the Chevrolet Cruze in Mexico replaces both the Chevrolet Astra (last sold in 2008) and Optra as the compact offering there.[99][100]
The US and Canadian version of the Chevrolet Cruze entered limited production at Lordstown, Ohio, in July 2010 as a 2011 model, replacing the Chevrolet Cobalt.[101] Full production began September 8, 2010.[102] For these markets, the Cruze utilizes a more advanced Watts Z-link rear suspension from the Opel Astra (J).[103] Offered in LS, LT, LTZ, and Eco trim lines,[104] both the 1.8-liter and the turbocharged 1.4-liter engines are offered, coupled with either a six-speed manual or automatic transmission.[104] With a starting price slightly higher than most compact competitors, the base model Cruze LS is equipped with the 1.8-liter gasoline engine and comes with air-conditioning and power locks, the higher-level LT and LTZ models is fitted with the 1.4-liter turbocharged gasoline engine.[26][105] For the Eco model, aerodynamic improvements have been made such as an electronically controlled air shutter that adjusts air flow to the engine depending on the temperature, wind speed and tow weight.[106] To save weight, Chevrolet replaces the space saving spare tire and jack on the Eco model with a tire inflator kit, reducing weight by 12 kilograms (26 lb).[107]
Standard safety equipment includes electronic stability control and ten airbags, including side rear-seat and front knee airbags not fitted on models produced in the original South Korea facility.[108] The Cobalt's badge engineered twin, the Pontiac G5, has not been replaced by a Cruze-based equivalent, due to the Pontiac brand being phased out during 2010.[109] The Cruze is built on the production lines that were used to build the Cobalt and Pontiac G5 in Lordstown, Ohio.[110] Cobalt production ended in June 2010 and the Cruze started production in July 2010. GM has allocated three shifts to produce the Cruze and it arrived to dealers in September 2010, giving all dealers time to deplete their inventories of Cobalts.[111]
Changes to the North American-built Cruze for model year 2012 include the availability of the six-speed manual transmission for the 1.4-litre turbocharged engine, plus models not equipped with power front seats no longer have the front seat cushion tilt option.[112]
Starting with the 2014 model year, Chevrolet offered the Cruze with the clean diesel engine option for North America. With a starting price of $25,695, the Cruze diesel 2.0-liter Multijet engine got 44 mpg on the highway and 27 mpg in the city, while producing 148 hp (110 kW) and 258 lb⋅ft (350 N⋅m), mated to a six-speed automatic transmission.[113] The 2014 Chevy Cruze Clean Turbo Diesel, direct from the factory, will be rated for up to B20 (blend of 20% biodiesel / 80% regular diesel) biodiesel compatibility.[114]
The Cruze diesel was the first GM passenger car in the US equipped with a diesel engine in 28 years, however sales were weaker than expected with 2% of US models.[115]
For 2016, the first generation Cruze continued as a fleet and rental exclusive model in the United States, billed as Cruze Limited. The diesel model was discontinued, but a new chrome appearance package was offered.[116]
Trim Levels (North America) [ edit ]
Between 2011 and 2016, the first-generation Chevrolet Cruze was available in several different trim levels:
L : The L, introduced in 2015, was positioned below the previously-base LS. Offering identical standard equipment as the LS described below, the base L omitted the standard front and rear carpeted floor mats that were standard equipment on the LS, and was only offered with a six-speed manual transmission.
LS: Between 2011 and 2014, the LS was the base Cruze trim level, until the base L was added in 2015. Standard features of the LS included fifteen-inch black-painted steel wheels with full wheel covers, air conditioning, power windows and door locks, keyless entry, premium cloth seating surfaces, dual manually-adjustable front bucket seats, an A/M-F/M stereo with single-disc CD/MP3 player and auxiliary audio input jack with a six-speaker audio system, front and rear carpeted floor mats, tilt-and-telescopic vinyl-wrapped steering wheel with integrated audio system controls, a 1.8L EcoTec Inline Four-Cylinder (I4) gasoline engine, a six-speed manual transmission, and a split-folding rear bench seat. Options included Bluetooth for hands-free telephone calls (no streaming audio capabilities), a six-speed automatic transmission, and SiriusXM Satellite Radio.
1LT: Between 2011 and 2016, the 1LT was the value-oriented Cruze model. It added the following equipment to the base LS: sixteen-inch aluminum-alloy wheels, SiriusXM Satellite Radio, cruise control, and the OnStar in-vehicle telematics system. Options included the 1.4L Turbocharged EcoTec Inline Four-Cylinder (I4) gasoline engine, a six-speed automatic transmission, Chevrolet MyLink seven-inch touch-screen infotainment system (2013+ models only), Bluetooth for hands-free telephone calls (no streaming audio capabilities) (later standard equipment in 2013+ models), a 290-watt premium amplified Pioneer audio system, a power-adjustable front driver's bucket seat, a power sunroof, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, and the RS Package.
Eco: The Eco trim level, offered between 2011 and 2016 and based on the 1LT, was geared towards consumers who wanted a Cruze with higher fuel economy ratings. It added the following equipment to the 1LT: active front grille shutters, Bluetooth for hands-free telephone calls (no streaming audio capabilities- for 2011-2013 models only), Chevrolet MyLink touch-screen infotainment system (2013+ models only), a 1.4L Turbocharged EcoTec Inline Four-Cylinder (I4) gasoline engine, a power-adjustable front driver's bucket seat, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, and a rear-mounted spoiler. Additional options were identical to that of the 1LT, though the Eco also offered luxury leather-trimmed seating surfaces with dual heated front bucket seats as part of an optional package.
2LT: The 2LT trim level, offered between 2011 and 2016, added additional luxury and convenience features to the 1LT: a 1.4L Turbocharged EcoTec Inline Four-Cylinder (I4) gasoline engine, seventeen-inch aluminum-alloy wheels, Chevrolet MyLink seven-inch color touch-screen infotainment system (2013+ models only), luxury leather-trimmed seating surfaces with dual heated front bucket seats, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, power sunroof, and a security system. Options included a six-speed automatic transmission, a 290-watt premium amplified Pioneer audio system, side blind zone alert with rear cross-traffic alert (2014+ models only), the RS Package, and GPS navigation.
LTZ: The LTZ trim level, offered between 2011 and 2016, was the top-of-the-line Cruze trim level. It added additional luxury features to the 2LT, such as: premium aluminum-alloy wheels, remote start, a six-speed automatic transmission, and a 290-watt premium amplified Pioneer audio system. Options included GPS navigation and the RS Package.
Diesel: The Diesel was a diesel-powered version of the 2LT trim level of the Cruze, available for 2014 and 2015 only. It added unique seventeen-inch aluminum-alloy wheels, a six-speed automatic transmission, remote start, and a 2.0L Turbocharged Inline Four-Cylinder (I4) diesel engine to the 2LT trim level. Options were identical to that of the 2LT trim level, though the RS Package was not available on the Diesel.
South America
The car was launched and began production for South America in 2011.
Second generation (2016–present) [ edit ]
In 2013, Chevrolet had announced a launch for the second generation Cruze in late 2015, after originally being scheduled to debut in late 2014.[124] The delay is reportedly caused by engineering modifications.[124] The model had been spotted covered in camouflage while being tested in February,[125] and October 2013.[126] Its supposed interior was also spotted,[127] while graphical renders were presented by the Carscoops website.[128] The model will be slightly longer than the first generation.[129]
Chinese version (2014–2016) [ edit ]
Chevrolet Cruze J400 CN (China)
The new model was first announced for the Chinese market on the 2014 Beijing Auto Show and went on sale in August 2014. Based on the same platform as the Cruze J300, the Cruze J400 CN was essentially a reskinned old model, and only sold for 2 years before the release of the international Cruze J400. The four-door sedan has a fastback-like sloping roofline and a low drag coefficient of 0.28 comes with a choice of a 1.4 L (1,399 cc) turbocharged direct injection engine with a power of 110 kW (150 hp) @ 5600 RPM and torque of 235 N⋅m (173 lb⋅ft) @1600–4000 RPM, which can be mated with a six-speed manual transmission or seven-speed Start/Stop enabled dual-clutch gearbox, or a 1.5 L (1,490 cc) direct injection engine with a power of 84 kW (113 hp) @ 5600 RPM and torque of 146 N⋅m (108 lb⋅ft) @ 6000 RPM mated to a six-speed Start/Stop-capable automatic transmission. Both engines come from the new GM Small Gasoline Engine family. Weight reduction of 10% is achieved by using very high-strength steels and aluminum alloys. Watt's link torsion beam rear suspension, first used on the Opel Astra (J), comes as standard. The car comes equipped with a 4.2" color screen radio or MyLink 2.0 infotainment system with an 8" screen, and can be configured with OnStar Gen10 offering 4G LTE Internet connection with a built-in Wi-Fi hotspot.[130]
International version (2016–present) [ edit ]
Chevrolet Cruze hatchback
Chevrolet Cruze sedan
The 2016 North American-market Cruze has a new external design with a new split grille front and a fastback-like sloping roofline from the Chinese version of the fastback. This second generation Cruze has a slightly longer length and wheelbase than the one designed for the Chinese market, with different styling cues. The North American Cruze is also powered by the 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine producing 153 hp (114 kW) and 177 lb⋅ft (240 N⋅m) torque.
The 2016 Cruze comes equipped with both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto Capability features. However, only one of their phone brands at any one time can be used.[131][132]
In January 2016, Chevrolet unveiled the five-door hatchback version of the North American Cruze at the North American International Auto Show, it will go on sale in late 2016 as a 2017 model.[133][134]
Trim levels continue to be L, LS, LT (now combined into one trim level, as opposed to the previous 1LT and 2LT designations), and Premier (replacing the previous LTZ trim level as the top-of-the-line Cruze trim level). Discontinued are the Eco and Diesel trim levels (at least for the time being).
All trim levels include a seven-inch MyLink touch-screen infotainment system with A/M-F/M radio, USB integration, a 3.5-millimeter auxiliary audio input jack, optional SiriusXM satellite radio, voice control, and CarPlay and Android Auto capabilities, keyless entry, power windows, power door locks, OnStar with 4G/LTE/Wi-Fi Hotspot connectivity for multiple devices and RemoteLink via an app on the consumer's smartphone, air conditioning, and a 1.4-liter EcoTec inline-four engine.
Higher trim levels (LT and Premier) also offer features such as the "RS Sport Package", alloy wheels, remote start, keyless access with push-button ignition, a premium sound system by Bose with external amplifier and subwoofer, an eight-inch MyLink infotainment system with GPS navigation, a power tilt-and-sliding sunroof, and power seats. However, only the top-of-the-line Premier trim level offers heated leather seating surfaces, premium alloy wheels, and other luxury features.
The base L only offers a six-speed manual transmission, while the Premier, on the other end of the spectrum, offers only a six-speed automatic transmission. The LS and LT trim levels offer either a six-speed manual transmission, or a six-speed automatic transmission.
A new diesel-powered Cruze will be available in 2017.[135] It will have the 1.6L turbodiesel also found in the 2018 Equinox, paired to either a nine-speed automatic or six-speed manual transmission.[136]
Australia [ edit ]
Holden Astra Sedan
Before launching the Chevrolet Cruze as the Holden Astra in Australia, Holden engineers performed 100,000 kilometres of suspension and steering testing at the Lang Lang Proving Ground south east of Melbourne, Australia, tuning for Australian roads. A firmer more compliant ride and more responsive steering tune is the result. Other major changes over the international model included revised front and rear bumpers, which aim to give it a similar look to the Holden Astra Hatch.[137]
Unlike the Hatch, the sedan is offered in LS, LS+, LT and LTZ trim levels. All models are powered by a 1.4 L (1,399 cc) turbocharged direct injection engine with a power of 110 kW (150 hp) @ 5600 RPM and torque of 235 N⋅m (173 lb⋅ft) @1600–4000 RPM mated to a 6 speed manual or 6-speed automatic.[137]
For 2019, the Cruze received a mid-cycle facelift, which made its debut in April 2018, along with restyled versions of the 2019 Camaro, Spark, and Malibu. Changes for the Cruze for 2019 include the addition of a lower-priced LS model for the Cruze Hatchback, the deletion of the six-speed manual transmission option (all Cruze models, including the previous manual-only L, will come equipped with an automatic transmission), all-new third-generation Chevrolet MyLink Systems, and a revised RS Package for LT and Premier models. The 2019 Cruze went on sale in November 2018.[138]
Discontinuation [ edit ]
Production of the Cruze in the US and Mexico is scheduled to end in March 2019.[139][140] The Lordstown assembly plant will be idled, while the Ramos Arizpe plant will build the Chevrolet Blazer instead. Production of the Cruze in Argentina and China will continue.
Motorsport [ edit ]
The three works Cruze touring cars competing in the WTCC
The Chevrolet Cruze first entered the World Touring Car Championship in 2009 with a 2.0-litre naturally aspirated engine, taking six wins in its debut season.[141] The car has proved successful since its entry, with Yvan Muller winning the championship in 2010 and again in 2011 using the new 1.6-litre turbocharged engine. Chevrolet placed first, second and third in 2011, with Muller finishing ahead of teammates Rob Huff and Alain Menu. Chevrolet finished 1–2–3 again in 2012, this time, Huff becoming champion ahead of Menu and Muller.
The Cruze also entered the British Touring Car Championship for 2010 and 2011. Jason Plato won the championship for Chevrolet in 2010 and finished 3rd in 2011.[142] The BTCC Cruze used the 2.0-liter naturally aspirated engine found in the original variant of the WTCC Cruze.[143]
The Cruze won the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship in 2011, being run by NIKA Racing under the banner of 'Chevrolet Motorsport Sweden' with Rickard Rydell driving. Rydell and teammate Michel Nykjær finished second and third in 2012.
Chevrolet pulled their sponsorship at the end of 2011 from the BTCC to support the Chevrolet team in the World Touring Car Championship for 2012.[citation needed] Chevrolet then announced they would not enter a works team for the 2013 WTCC season. For 2013 RML, the original builders of the Cruzes, continued to compete without the support of Chevrolet. Cars were also entered by Bamboo Engineering, NIKA Racing and Tuenti Racing Team. Despite no funding from the manufacturer, the Cruze remained the car to beat, even against works teams from Honda and Lada. Muller won his fourth WTCC title, his third in a Cruze and James Nash won the Yokohama Drivers' Trophy for independent entries, ahead of fellow Cruze drivers Alex MacDowall and Michel Nykjær.
RML have confirmed they will build Cruzes to the new set of WTCC regulations for 2014, which sees the cars increase in power and feature greater aerodynamics. RML aim to build up to six cars. Confirmed recipients include Tom Chilton who has yet to announce a team to run his car, Bamboo Engineering who will run two cars and Campos Racing who will enter a car for Hugo Valente.
The Cruze returned to the BTCC in 2013 in the hands of Joe Girling and Tech-Speed Motorsport, who loaned the car from Finesse Motorsport. The increase in performance of the Next Generation Touring Car entries meant the older Super 2000 specification cars like the Cruze were now too uncompetitive to compete for wins but were provided with their own category. Now running a 2.0-litre turbocharged NGTC-specification engine, Girling took one class win at Donington Park but missed the second half of the season. The car returned to Finesse Motorsport who entered the Knockhill round of the championship with Aiden Moffat driving. At sixteen years old, Moffat became the BTCC's youngest driver at 16 years, 10 months and 28 days. This was to be the S2000 Cruze's final appearance in the BTCC, as S2000 cars are to be abolished from 2014. Andy Neate entered the 2013 season with a new NGTC-specification Cruze, built by his own team, IP Tech Race Engineering and used an engine built by RML. The car made its debut at Snetterton and competed at several rounds towards the end of the season. The car has since been sold to Aiden Moffat, who will run the car with his own team for 2014. BTC Racing will enter a hatchback variant of the Cruze for 2014, driven by Chris Stockton. The car was originally intended to be used by Jason Plato in 2012 but RML and Chevrolet withdrew from the BTCC and mothballed the shell. BTC Racing acquired it and were initially included on the entry list for 2013 but the car was not finished in time and never appeared all season.
The first-generation Chevrolet Cruze debuted in the Argentine TC 2000 in 2011, and the second-generation in 2016. Agustín Canapino won the 2016 championship.
Sales [ edit ]
By country
The Cruze diesel was the first GM passenger car equipped with a diesel engine in the American market in 28 years; however, sales were weaker than expected being 2% of Cruze models sold July through June of 2014.[115]
Top markets
In August 2014, Cruze sales reached the milestone of 3 million units sold worldwide, 16 months after passing the 2 million mark. The following table shows the top selling markets as of August 2014.[168]
Top 10 Markets for the Cruze as of August 2014[168] Ranking Country Cumulative
sales % Global
sales Ranking Country Cumulative
sales % Global
sales 1 China 1,130,000 37.7 6 South Korea 73,000 2.4 2 United States 900,000 30.0 7 Mexico 50,000 1.7 3 Russia 195,000 6.5 8 Turkey 30,000 1.0 4 Brazil 134,000 4.5 9 India 28,000 0.9 5 Canada 123,000 4.1 10 South Africa 27,000 0.9
By April 2016 cumulative sales of cars of the Cruze name exceeded 4 million worldwide.[169]
References [ edit ]A group of black students at one of America’s ritziest private colleges has sent a lengthy open letter to their school president charging that the search for objective truth is a white supremacist invention used for “silencing oppressed peoples.” The letter also criticizes free speech as “a tool appropriated by hegemonic institutions.”
The students who wrote the letter attend Pomona College in sunny Southern California, reports the Claremont Independent, a student newspaper.
Pomona, a member of the five-school Claremont Consortium, charges $64,957 for a single year of tuition, fees and room and board.
The museum-quality, 1,053-word letter addressed to outgoing Pomona president David Oxtoby is a response to Oxtoby’s statement earlier this month stressing the fancypants school’s commitment to “free speech and academic freedom.” Oxtoby made his statement in the wake of a protest which had shut down an April 6 speech by Heather Mac Donald, a generally conservative social critic.
The letter penned by Pomona students Dray Denson, Avery Jonas and Shanaya Stephenson begins by declaring that many American colleges — and, in fact, “this entire country” — “were founded upon the oppression and degradation of marginalized bodies.”
Oxtoby’s defense of free speech “contains unnuanced views surrounding the academy and a belief in searching for some venerated truth,” Denson, Jonas and Stephenson charge.
“Historically, white supremacy has venerated the idea of objectivity,” the missive says, but the concept of “a single truth” “is a myth and white supremacy, imperialism, colonization, capitalism, and the United States of America are all of its progeny.”
“The idea that the truth is an entity for which we must search, in matters that endanger our abilities to exist in open spaces, is an attempt to silence oppressed peoples,” the black students declare.
The very dramatic letter from the black students at the $64,957-per-year, meticulously landscaped school then laments the “idea that we must subject ourselves routinely to the hate speech of fascists who want for us not to exist.”
Inviting “white supremacists” to campus — like “fascist,” “warhawk” and “queerphobe” Heather Mac Donald — provides a platform for “toxic and deadly illogic” “condoning violence against Black people.”
After observing that their “ultimate goal” is “to overthrow systems of oppression,” the black students sternly ask Oxtoby to respond “by Tuesday, April 18, 2017 at 4:07pm.”
They demand that Oxtoby compose and send “a revised email sent to the entire student body, faculty, and staff by Thursday, April 20, 2017, apologizing for the previous patronizing statement, enforcing that Pomona College does not tolerate hate speech and speech that projects violence onto the bodies of its marginalized students and oppressed peoples, especially Black students.”
They further “demand that Pomona College and the Claremont University Consortium entities take action against the Claremont Independent editorial staff for its continual perpetuation of hate speech, anti-Blackness, and intimidation toward students of marginalized backgrounds.”
Still further, the black students “demand that this institution and its constituents take legal action” — “such as expulsion” — “against members of the Claremont Independent” if the black students “begin to receive threats and hate mail” once the Claremont Independent published the letter.
Free speech “has recently become a tool appropriated by hegemonic institutions,” the black students charge. “It has not just empowered students from marginalized backgrounds to voice their qualms and criticize aspects of the institution, but it has given those who seek to perpetuate systems of domination a platform to project their bigotry.”
In addition to Denson, Jonas and Stephenson, a couple dozen other students enrolled at a campus in the five-school Claremont Consortium have signed the letter as “co-signatories.” These “co-signatories” include Scripps College freshman Mazvita Nyamuzuwe, Harvey Mudd College sophomore Jordan Howard-Jennings, Pitzer College junior Karé Ureña and Pomona freshman Journey Simmons.
Oxtoby, the Pomona president to whom the letter is addressed, blamed then-candidate Donald Trump last year for the various race protests cropping up on campuses across the country. He suggested that America’s on-campus race protesters were angry because Trump refused to restrain his language and attitudes in the face of the students’ radical race-centered politics. (RELATED: Fancypants College President: TRUMP Caused Campus Race Protests)
Also last year, a group of white students at Pomona College established a white-people-bashing group with the impressively long title: “We’ve Got Work To Do: White People for Deconstructing Whiteness.” An ad for the group frothed that people with pale, cream-colored skin “are all not only complicit in, but actively perpetuating white supremacy.” Incredibly, the group was only allowing “white people who believe white supremacy exists” to join. (RELATED: White Students At Fancypants College Start SEGREGATED Club Dedicated To Bashing White People)
Just last month, over at nearby Pitzer College, a group of Latina students covered the exterior wall of a residence hall with a large graffiti-style message declaring: “White Girl, Take OFF your hoops!!!” (RELATED: Latina Students At Absurdly Expensive College: White Girls Must Stop Wearing HOOP EARRINGS Now)
“If you didn’t create the culture as a coping mechanism for marginalization, take off those hoops, if your feminism isn’t intersectional take off those hoops, if you try to wear mi cultura when the creators can no longer afford it, take off those hoops,” one of the Pitzer Latina students, resident assistant Alegria Martinez, wrote in an impressive run-on sentence. “I use ‘those’ instead of ‘your’ because hoops were never ‘yours’ to begin with.”
Follow Eric on Twitter. Like Eric on Facebook. Send education-related story tips to [email protected] couple of weeks ago I offered a brief performance preview of the $799 entry level Surface Pro 3 with an Intel Core i3-4020Y. The performance hit in going down to the $799 model is significant but compared to an upgraded ARM tablet you do get substantially more functionality/performance. The big unknown at the time was battery life. Going down to a Y-series part comes with a reduction in TDP (15W down to 11.5W), which could have power implications.
I spent the past week running and re-running battery life tests on the Core i3 model of the Surface Pro 3. For the most part, battery life hasn't changed. As you'll see from our laptop results, the Core i3 Surface Pro 3's battery life shows a slight regression compared to our Core i5 results but not significantly so:
Although our laptop tests didn't show any gains, our tablet workload showed a substantial increase in battery life for the Core i3 version vs. the Core i5 Surface Pro 3:
An 11% increase in battery life is likely due to the lower power binned Y-series Haswell ULx part. It's interesting to me that the gains are exclusively in our lightest workload and don't appear to be present under any of the more active workloads. The decrease in TDP would imply a reduction in peak active power consumption but perhaps that's more a function of the reduced clocks. What we see at lighter/more idle workloads is a reduction in leakage thanks to the Y-series part.
I still feel like the best overall balance of battery life, storage, performance and price is going to be a Surface Pro 3 equipped with a Core i5. I think where the $799 Core i3 makes sense is if you're budget limited and left with the choice between a 64GB ARM based tablet or the entry level Surface Pro 3. The problem is typically users who stretch their budget to get a 64GB ARM based tablet want the storage space, which is something you sacrifice when you move to a 64GB Windows 8.1 device (roughly 21GB free on a new install). I don't see the $799 Surface Pro 3 necessarily catering to the same market as a high end ARM device, but I think the entry level SP3 does embody Microsoft's mission better than any of the more expensive configurations. There's very little cross shopping between a $499 ARM based tablet and a $1200+ Surface Pro 3, but the entry level SP3 can serve as an in-between device if you want some of both worlds.Time magazine has released its list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2017, and former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick is featured as an "icon."
His former coach, Jim Harbaugh, wrote the article that went along with the QB's selection:
I thank Colin for all he has contributed to the game of football as an outstanding player and trusted teammate. I also applaud Colin for the courage he has demonstrated in exercising his guaranteed right of free speech. His willingness to take a position at personal cost is now part of our American story. How lucky for us all and for our country to have among our citizens someone as remarkable as Colin Kaepernick.
The quarterback stirred up discussion last year when he decided to take a knee during the national anthem in the preseason. At first he did so quietly, but then he was asked about it by NFL.com and revealed his actions were a protest.
"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," Kaepernick said. "To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."
Immediately there was a reaction. Even Harbaugh, who applauds Kaepernick in this piece, was against his former player's actions at first.
Jim Harbaugh on Colin Kaepernick: "I acknowledge his right to do it. But I don't respect the motivation or the action." — Kyle Rowland (@KyleRowland) August 29, 2016
I apologize for misspeaking my true sentiments. To clarify, I support Colin's motivation. It's his method of action that I take exception to — Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) August 29, 2016
People from every outlet seemed to have an opinion on the matter, and the protest went international. Other NFL players joined in, then high school and college football players joined and eventually athletes in other sports took part.
Not everyone took a knee like Kaepernick; some raised a fist. Others agreed with his thinking, but not with his actions. Many opposed his views all together. But at the end of the day, almost everyone had an opinion.
Fast forward to 2017 and now Kaepernick is a free agent and many believe politics have played a role in him being without a job.
Whether you agree with his decision or not, there's no denying Kaepernick influenced the lives of many over the past year. He was a trending topic for months on end, and his name expanded beyond the football realm.
Other sports figures to make the |
faucet with the sweetest, coldest, best tasting water any of us ever drank. The basement was made of dirt, accessed by a ladder under the floor; It was full of potatoes and canned vegetables in jars. The milk, cheese, cream, and butter were made on site, mostly in the “summer kitchen.” Again, when I was a young boy, our clothes were washed in an old wringer washer, and then hung on the line running from a small, enclosed porch on the end of the “summer kitchen.” Woodstoves heated the home and provided the oven for cooking. The warmer above the stove in the kitchen was our favorite place to warm our hats, scarves, and mittens in the winter. The old dirt road was cleared of heavy snows by a dirt grader, when it could make it out there. With little man-made light the stars were memorable and seemed close enough to touch. The moon lit snow-covered fields to the point of rivaling the sun’s first glimpses of light. The cows were a constant, and often woke me like an alarm clock would now. The smell of bacon cooking in the morning was as predictable as the sun coming up, and just as welcome. The north room was cold, snow blew in around the window, and ice formed on the inside, as it should be.
The yard was often full of vehicles, uncles, aunts, and cousins, each doing their own thing, all within the family getting together. The grass was always green, and the smell now is still much the same as it was then; sweet, wild, natural, and clean. The sounds of silence still abound, but the silence was even more deafening when I was younger. There at the homestead, there was time, and there was space, and there was nothing else to distract us, pull at us, or even mildly entertain us. Activity. Imagination. Exploration. Chores. Helping. Responsibilities, big or small, were part of the days and nights. Work gloves and tools were the days’ video games. The views taken in with my own eyes was better than any television I could have watched, and there was very, very little of that anyways.
Today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada. I am so very thankful that I have so many wonderful memories of my Canadian family. I am truly blessed to have seen and experienced so many places in an around this section of New Brunswick. I have continued trips to this area and love to share any of these places and people with my kids. Times and places have changed, but I am thankful so many details remain. I have shared some pictures below. Some of these pictures have been posted online in the past. Today I wanted to share them again, add some different ones, and share in my thankfulness this Canadian holiday. This holiday, and recent chats with members of the Canadian side of my family, has left me longing for this place, one of my favorite destinations, the old homestead.While we have seen the sign, the unthinkable has just happened: Netflix is now officially available in Malaysia. The announcement was made just moment ago at the company’s on-going keynote address at CES 2016.
Netflix’s arrival in Malaysia is part of a massive global roll out and users in Malaysia are able to enjoy the service right away, as we speak. Contents on Netflix can be enjoyed through various ways including web browser, smart TV, and game consoles as well as dedicated apps for Android, iOS and Windows.
Meanwhile, this is how the Netflix monthly fees looked like for Malaysia together with features that come together with each tier:
In general, the monthly fee for Netflix in Malaysia is rather comparable to United States which listed at USD 7.99 (about RM 35.39) for Basic, USD 9.99 (about RM 44.25) for Standard, and USD 11.99 (about RM 53.11) for Premium. In Singapore, Netflix charges SGD 11 (about RM 33.93), SGD 14 (about RM 43.18), and SGD 17 (about RM 52.44) for respective tiers per month.
In case that you are not sure if you should subscribe to Netflix right away, you can actually try for free for the first one month although you still need to enter your credit card details during registration. Just make sure that you cancel your subscription before the one month period is up.
This is certainly a great news for a lot of people out there that have been hoping for the service to be available in Malaysia. Now you no longer need to use alternative way to access Netflix anymore.
(Source: Netflix)
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160107netflixmalaysia04Notice: As of July 1st, we are pleased to offer our P-38 Red Bull as a free download. Formerly payware, we think that it's still an incredibly fun aircraft to fly; we have decided to share it with everyone as a thank you to all of our past and future customers! Please note: This free download does not include product support
We are very pleased to bring to you our rendition of the lovingly restored N25Y, s/n 44-53254 - the Salzburg based P-38L that is arguably the crown jewel of the Flying Bulls®.
Speed to Spare
With it's twin 1,600 hp turbo-supercharged V-12 engines, there's not a lot of 'civilized' in this civilian P-38! Showcasing a top speed of over 330 mph, this aircraft should bring a smile to the face of the most seasoned simulation vet.
And whether you're tossing the gleaming P-38 around the pylons, or taking a quick (very quick!) journey cross-country, flight dynamics expert Bernt Stolle has done an excellent job of recreating the best characteristics of this very unique aircraft.
Superb Detailing
From beautifully recreating the mirror-like exterior finish now proudly worn by two-five-Yankee, to the bright white interior finish that surrounds the pilot, we've put a lot of expertise into faithfully recreating the real aircraft.
The Milviz P-38 Red Bull also features smooth 3d gauge technology, high resolution textures, enhanced systems depth, and a sound set recorded from a real P-38. This all adds up to provide a rich and immersive simulation experience.
Custom and Configurable Avionics
Our P-38 includes our own highly detailed GPS units based on the default simulator data. However, we have also included full compatibility for Reality XP's GNS 430/530 gauges. In addition, we have also provided a switchable flat, blank panel for the user to install their own 2D gauges if so desired.
Please note that compatibility for any 3rd party gauges includes support for installation and setup of our product only; use of any of the offered options requires a functional existing installation of the appropriate gauge. In addition, any gauges we list compatibility for are not included with the Milviz P-38 Red Bull.
Use of any 3rd party avionics package in any desired simulator is also of course restricted to the availability of the avionics package for that simulator. Please see the respective manufacturers websites for platform compatibility.
Single Purchase, Multi-Platform Use
The Milviz P-38 Red Bull package now supports a wide range of platforms, in a single, downloadable installer:
FSX: Acceleration
FSX: Steam Edition
Prepar3d v2
Prepar3d v3
For an authentic, true-to-life experience, the Milviz P-38 Red Bull is as close to flying the chrome-clad famed racer as most of us will ever get, assuming of course that you can’t talk the Flying Bulls® into letting you take the real one for a spin!The case for switching to electric vehicles (EVs) is nearly settled. They are cheaper to use, cut emissions, and offer a whisper quiet ride. One of the last arguments available to the EV-hater club, which is largely comprised of thinly veiled oil-industry front groups funded by the Koch brothers, focuses on the impacts from the materials used to make an EV’s battery pack.
Specifically, the use of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and other metals that are part of an EV lithium-ion battery pack has raised red flags about the poor human rights and worker protection records in the countries where these materials are mined.
A lot of these warnings have been incorrectly categorized under “EVs and rare earth metals.” Though neither lithium nor cobalt are rare earth metals, and rare earth metals aren’t nearly as rare as precious metals like gold, platinum, and palladium, there are important issues surrounding the production of lithium-ion batteries that must be acknowledged and addressed.
It is also important to note that these impacts are not happening just because of EVs. They are also being driven by the global demand for cell phones, laptop computers, and the multitude of other electronic devices that use lithium-ion batteries.
As EVs gain market share, they will be more responsible for the impacts from battery production. But today, EVs comprise a small fraction of global vehicle sales. So, concerns about lithium-ion batteries should be directed not just to the suppliers of EV battery packs, but also toward Apple, Samsung, and the other companies that source lithium-ion batteries for their electronic goods.
Let’s also not forget that the supply chain for gasoline-powered vehicles has its fair share of issues, ranging from human rights violations like the use of child labor, to disastrous oil spills like Deepwater Horizon. But unlike gasoline-powered vehicles, EVs will be able to take advantage of emerging battery chemistries that don’t rely on cobalt or other materials that are linked to exploitative practices.
Cobalt and electric vehicle batteries
Cobalt, a bluish-gray metal found in the Earth’s crust, is one of today’s preferred components used to make the lithium-ion batteries that power laptops, cell phones, and EVs. Cobalt is mined all over the world, but 50 to 60 percent of the global supply comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which has a poor human rights track record. According to UNICEF and Amnesty International, around 40,000 children are involved in cobalt mining in DRC where they make only $1 – $2 USD per day. DRC’s cobalt trade has been the target of criticism for nearly a decade, and the U.S. Labor Department lists Congolese cobalt as a product it has reason to think is produced by child labor. More troubling, cobalt demand has tripled in the past five years and is projected to at least double again by 2020.
What can be done about EV batteries sourcing issues
First, companies should be held accountable for enacting and enforcing policies to only use ethically-sourced materials. Some companies are off to a good start. Apple has pledged to end its reliance on mining altogether, and one day make its products from only renewable resources or recycled materials. Other tech giants like HP, Samsung, and Sony joined an effort called the “Responsible Cobalt Initiative.” Members of the initiative pledged to follow global guidelines for mining supply chains, which call for companies to trace how cobalt is being extracted, transported, manufactured and sold.
On the EV side of things, Tesla has committed to sourcing materials only from North America for its new battery production facility, the Gigafactory. In 2015, Tesla secured two contracts with mining companies to explore lithium deposits in northern Nevada and Mexico, though Tesla still relies on cobalt that may have been sourced from the DRC.
Both Ford and GM get their EV batteries from LG Chem, who has said they have stopped using DRC-sourced cobalt and stated that neither Ford nor GM batteries rely on DRC-sourced cobalt, but some of the LG practices and statements have been called into question by the WaPo.
Second, recycling can help reduce the need to search for new source of battery materials, or rely on sourcing materials from countries with poor worker protections. Cobalt, for example, (as opposed to gasoline) is fully recyclable and roughly 15 percent of U.S. cobalt consumption is from recycled scrap today.
Companies like Umicore are in the cobalt recycling business and have demonstrated that there is a business model for recycling cobalt that can help reduce demand for DRC-mined cobalt.
Third, battery technology is continuing to improve. The multitude of battery applications has generated a strong financial incentive for researchers to find the next greatest battery chemistry, and some of the most promising next-gen battery types don’t rely on cobalt at all.
Lithium-titanate and lithium-iron-phosphate, for example, are gaining importance in EV powertrain applications and don’t need cobalt. Other battery chemistries that rely on magnesium, sodium, or lithium-sulfur are also gaining traction as they have the potential to beat lithium-ion batteries on energy density and cost. Battery research has seen a big shift in recent years. Nearly half of the presentations at the Battery Symposium in Japan were once about fuel cells and lithium-ion battery materials. But since 2012, these topics have been supplanted by presentations about solid-state, lithium-air and non-lithium batteries.
Overall, the human rights issues related to the lithium-ion battery supply chain cannot be ignored. At the same time, they shouldn’t be used by the oil industry and their allies as a rallying cry to dismantle EV policy support, or as reason to stop the growth of the EV industry. Again, it’s not just EVs that are at issue here. All manufacturers of electronic devices need to find better sources for their batteries and it is their responsibility to source materials from places that have worker protections. It’s also the responsibility of our government to ensure that Americans can buy products that are ethically and sustainably sourced.
Posted in: Vehicles Tags: cobalt, congo, drc, electric vehicles, mining practices, rare earth metals
Support from UCS members make work like this possible. Will you join us? Help UCS advance independent science for a healthy environment and a safer world.How easy is it to falsify memory? New research at the Weizmann Institute shows that a bit of social pressure may be all that is needed. The study, which appears in the journal Science, reveals a unique pattern of brain activity when false memories are formed -- one that hints at a surprising connection between our social selves and memory.
The experiment, conducted by Prof. Yadin Dudai and research student Micah Edelson of the Institute's Neurobiology Department with Prof. Raymond Dolan and Dr. Tali Sharot of University College London, took place in four stages. In the first, volunteers watched a documentary film in small groups. Three days later, they returned to the lab individually to take a memory test, answering questions about the film. They were also asked how confident they were in their answers.
They were later invited back to the lab to retake the test while being scanned in a functional MRI (fMRI) that revealed their brain activity. This time, the subjects were also given a "lifeline": the supposed answers of the others in their film viewing group (along with social-media-style photos). Planted among these were false answers to questions the volunteers had previously answered correctly and confidently. The participants conformed to the group on these "planted" responses, giving incorrect answers nearly 70% of the time.
But were they simply conforming to perceived social demands, or had their memory of the film actually undergone a change? To find out, the researchers invited the subjects back to the lab to take the memory test once again, telling them that the answers they had previously been fed were not those of their fellow film watchers, but random computer generations. Some of the responses reverted back to the original, correct ones, but close to half remained erroneous, implying that the subjects were relying on false memories implanted in the earlier session.
An analysis of the fMRI data showed differences in brain activity between the persistent false memories and the temporary errors of social compliance. The most outstanding feature of the false memories was a strong co-activation and connectivity between two brain areas: the hippocampus and the amygdala. The hippocampus is known to play a role in long-term memory formation, while the amygdala, sometimes known as the emotion center of the brain, plays a role in social interaction. The scientists think that the amygdala may act as a gateway connecting the social and memory processing parts of our brain; its "stamp" may be needed for some types of memories, giving them approval to be uploaded to the memory banks. Thus social reinforcement could act on the amygdala to persuade our brains to replace a strong memory with a false one.
An accompanying video is available at: http://www.youtube.com/user/WeizmannInstitute#p/u/0/bKCCYhHUTPE
Prof. Yadin Dudai's research is supported by the Norman and Helen Asher Center for Human Brain Imaging, which he heads; the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurological Diseases; the Carl and Micaela Einhorn-Dominic Institute of Brain Research, which he heads; the Marc Besen and the Pratt Foundation, Australia; Lisa Mierins Smith, Canada; Abe and Kathryn Selsky Memorial Research Project; and Miel de Botton, UK. Prof. Dudai is the incumbent of the Sara and Michael Sela Professorial Chair of Neurobiology.U.S. sailors and Nigerian special forces on a training exercise off the Nigerian coast in 2010. The U.S. Navy has offered training to the Nigerian navy amid concerns of increasingly violent pirate attacks along the West African coast. Jon Gambrell/AP Photo
Pirates attacked an oil-supply vessel off Nigeria’s coast and kidnapped the captain and chief engineer, both U.S. citizens, an American defense official and security sources said Thursday. The incident is the latest in a surge of pirate attacks in the Gulf of Guinea.
The U.S.-flagged C-Retriever, a 222-foot vessel owned by the U.S. marine transport group Edison Chouest Offshore, was attacked early Wednesday, according to the U.K.-based security firm AKE and two security sources. The company was not immediately available for comment.
A U.S. defense official said the State Department and FBI were leading the American response to the incident. A second defense official said the Marine Corps has a small training unit in the region, but it was not clear if the unit would get involved.
Navy officials have grown increasingly concerned about piracy and armed robbery in the Gulf of Guinea and are working with local authorities to strengthen their ability to patrol the region.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus had called the region a potential "hot spot" after a visit to four countries surrounding the gulf in August. He told Defense News in September that the Navy was working closely with Gabon, Senegal, Sao Tome and Principe, and Ghana to help fight an increase in illegal trafficking of drugs, people and arms.
Pirate attacks off the Nigerian coast have jumped by a third this year as ships passing through the gulf, a major commodities route, have been increasingly targeted by gangs hoping to raid cargo and kidnap crews.
"The piracy threat is spreading even further through the waters of West Africa, and the attacks have been mounting, even as global rates of reported piracy are at their lowest since 2006," said Michael Frodl of the U.S.-based consultancy C-Level Maritime Risks.
In the dangerous waters off Somalia and the Horn of Africa on the continent's east coast, ships now speed through with armed guards on board. But in West Africa, many vessels have to anchor to do business off the coast, with little protection.
This makes them a target for criminals and raises insurance costs. Kidnapped sailors and oil workers taken in Nigerian waters are usually released after a ransom is paid.
In a separate incident, three Nigerian soldiers were killed on Tuesday when armed robbers attacked a vessel carrying construction workers in the creeks of oil-producing Rivers state, the army said Thursday.
ReutersMicrosoft has been working on a new scheme to strip away some of the legacy bloat that has burdened its Internet Explorer web browser, sources claimed.
According to the prolific Redmond rumormongers at Neowin, the software giant has forked the code for IE's Trident rendering engine into a new, leaner version that should consume fewer resources – and Windows 10 will ship with both versions.
Microsoft has been crowing about the web standards compliance of IE11 for some time now. The problem is, enterprises have been coding their bespoke web applications around IE's nonstandard quirks and idiosyncrasies for so long that they break when accessed using a modern version. Even some of Microsoft's own products have fallen into this snare.
It's a big part of the reason why truly awful browsers like IE6 have lingered around for so long, even though everyone knows they're buggy, render standards-compliant pages poorly, and are rife with security holes.
To help convince these stragglers to upgrade, Microsoft has included a "Compatibility View" in recent versions of IE that, when activated, renders pages the way earlier versions would (instead of how a standards-compliant browser should).
The trouble is that this requirement saddles IE with a bunch of legacy code that the developers of competing browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Opera don't have to worry about.
If Microsoft really is planning to split Trident into two separate DLLs for Internet Explorer 12, then, it would make a lot of sense. A version of Trident that's stripped of Compatibility View would free its developers to work more quickly to compete with other modern browsers, leaving the maintainers of the legacy version of Trident to integrate their changes as time permits.
According to Neowin, the leaner version of Trident would be the one that's invoked by default, and the browser would only fall back to the version with Compatibility View if either the user or the application specifically requested it.
That strategy should also give IE12 a smaller overall resource footprint, which in turn could help to give Windows 10 a smaller footprint than Windows 8.1 – which itself has a smaller footprint than Windows 7.
A version of Trident that does away with Microsoft's legacy cruft could also pave the way for new features. For example, one rumor from earlier this year claimed that IE12 will include a new extensibility mechanism that's less like Redmond's ActiveX-based plugins and more like Chrome's JavaScript-based extensions.
If true, that could restore extensibility to the touch-centric Modern version of IE – something that has been sorely missed, particularly by those who won't surf without an ad blocker installed.
One even more out-there rumor has it that the version of Trident without Compatibility View won't be used for IE12 at all, but for a completely new Microsoft browser that's currently going under the codename "Spartan."
According to Redmond-watcher Mary Jo Foley, this new browser will feature not just a stripped-down rendering engine but also a leaner UI, so it doesn't just behave like Chrome and Firefox but also looks more like them.
We haven't heard much to corroborate that theory here at El Reg – and IE11's UI is pretty, er, Spartan as it is – but who knows? Starting from scratch sounds like a lot better an idea than just changing the name and hoping nobody notices.
Just don't expect IE12 or Spartan to be the final nail in the coffin for terrible, legacy IE-based web apps. To appease its customers, Microsoft has pledged to support a broad range of bad-idea configurations until January 12, 2016, and IE11's Enterprise Mode will linger on through 2020. ®Unless you were at a film festival recently, you’re probably still waiting for the new Coen Brothers movie, Inside Llewyn Davis. The tale of a ’60s New York folk singer got stellar reviews out of Cannes and Telluride. It hits US theaters on December 20.
Of course, with the pending release of one Coen Brothers movie, fans can start to look towards their next work. At the Telluride Film Festival, Joel and Ethan gave a small hint at what they’re currently writing. It’s a film with an opera singer as the main character.
The Playlist reported on the small quote, which was as follows from Joel Coen:
You always hesitate to mention these things when you are in the middle of them, because sometimes they just go in a drawer and never surface again and then people ask ‘what ever happened to that thing’ for the next 20 years. We are writing something right now where the main character is an opera singer.
The Coens are obviously huge music fans, as evidenced not only by the music in their films, but having now made two films that more explicitly feature music than most: O Brother Where Art Thou and Inside Llewyn Davis. And while it would be safe to assume this new script is musically charged, too, the Coens rarely do the same thing twice, and even more rarely back to back. If the main character of their new film is an opera singer, I doubt the film is about opera.
However, there’s also no guarantee this film, whatever it is, is next for the Coens. But it’s still something to keep in mind moving forward.
Do you think a Coen Brothers film starring an opera singer will be about opera?When it comes to following space agency rules, Russia stands firm. The man who was going to be the first South Korean in space has now been grounded for violating Russian security protocol and will be replaced by a female biotechnology engineer, the South Korean science ministry said on Monday. Ko San, 31, was dropped from the April 2008 flight to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. He is now the backup for the mission after he removed sensitive material from a Russian space training center. Ko, a technology researcher is being replaced by Yi So-yeon, 29, who is finishing her doctorate in bioengineering.
“The Russians emphasized the importance of abiding by the rules, as even small mistakes can bring about grave consequences in space,” a South Koren official said at a news conference, adding Ko appeared to have made innocent mistakes.
The Russian authorities said Ko took a book out of the center without permission and sent it to his home in South Korea in September. Ko later returned the book, explaining he accidently sent it home together with other personal belongings.
In February, Ko again violated regulations by getting a book from the center through a Russian colleague, and it was material he was not supposed to read. Officials did not give details about the book’s contents, but South Korean officials portrayed both of his infractions as minor.
“The Russian space agency has stressed that a minor mistake and disobedience can cause serious consequences,” a south Korean official told reporters.
Ko will remain at the Russian space center and continue training. The official did not say if Ko would possibly go to space on a future flight.
Yi, 29, will work aboard the International Space Station for about 10 days with three other cosmonauts as well as American station commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Garrett Reisman. Yi will conduct scientific experiments, according to a ministry statement.
The mission will make South Korea the world’s 35th country and Asia’s sixth to send an astronaut into space.
The two South Koreans were selected from a list of more than 36,000 candidates.
Original News Source: Reuters, APDo you want to learn more about different composting method? Two of the most common composting method are cold composting method and hot composting method. Composting can also take place indoors using the Bokashi composting method. Let's look at each of these a little more closely for tips that can help you succeed with your composting.
Cold Composting Method
The cold composting method is probably the most common composting method in use today, because it is easy to maintain, and requires less time than other method to keep it alive. That's correct, the compost is kept alive because it is full of worms, bacteria and fungi which are all part of the cold composting process. You can use any organic material with the exception of meat and dairy products, including weeds, grass clippings, leaves, food scraps from the kitchen and shredded newspaper. A simple rule of thumb is that if it is plant based, you can add it to the compost. Layering your compost allows for ventilation and if the compost remains moist and is turned the compost will break down over time.
Hot Composting Method
The hot composting method means making a heap that is large enough to allow it to create heat. This method is often used by gardeners who have a garden big enough to support the creation of such a large compost heap. The average size of the compost container is at least 4 feet by 4 feet and needs to be fully covered.
You can put whatever you want in the compost bin with the exception of meat, dairy and citrus. For this process to work properly, you must shred everything that you put in the bin. In order to initiate the process of composting and keep it going, you need constant moisture and keep the lid firmly on top of the pile, a tarpaulin works well.
Keep a close eye on the internal temperature with a compost thermometer, which should remain in the range of 140 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. When the weather cools, you need to turn the compost. This happens about every 10-14 days and in 1-3 months you will have super-rich humus for using in the garden.
Bokashi Composting Method
Bokashi composting method is a form of anaerobic composting means composting of organic material. Unlike other forms of composting it is acceptable to add meat and dairy products and fish to the compost in addition to the usual composting materials. This makes it highly desirable as it is an effective way to compost those materials which usually have to go out in the trash. The compostable materials in the bucket are covered with a layer of EM Bokashi which contains micro organisms and are in a carrier mixture like bran so that it can be easily layered in the bucket with the scraps. The micro organisms in the mixture are what enable the fermentation to take place.
The layering process continues until the bucket is full and then with the lid tightly on, an oxygen free environment is created and fermentation can take place. This takes several weeks, so often two buckets are used, one in the fermentation process while the other is being filled. Once fermentation has taken place the contents will look much the same except that they are thoroughly pickled and can be added to the garden in a trench or hole or added to the compost pile. It is a nutrient rich soil conditioner and can also be mixed potting mix for potted plants. You can try this cold composting method. Composting doesn't need to be complicated.
source: http://goarticles.com/article/Composting-Methods/3962772/Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Feb. 14, 2015, 1:57 PM GMT / Updated Feb. 15, 2015, 12:27 AM GMT
A mother was shot in the head and was not expected to survive after an apparent road-rage attack, her husband and police in Las Vegas said Friday.
Tammy Meyers, 44, had been teaching her 14-year-old daughter to drive when she was followed home by an angry driver, Robert Meyers told NBC station KSNV.
He told reporters that he was preparing to switch off life support for his wife, who was left brain dead by her wounds, but doctors urged the family on Friday night to wait 48 hours to see if she improves.
The suspect remains at large after Thursday night’s attack.
Meyers was at the wheel when she was involved in a near-collision which led to a verbal confrontation between with the other male driver, police said in a statement.
She drove her daughter home to summon help from her 23-year-old son – but was followed home.
“The preliminary investigation indicates that some time later, the suspect vehicle appeared on the street, multiple shots were fired, and the victim was struck by one round,” the statement said.
“My word to them is I hope the cops find them first and it’s not me,” Robert Meyers told KSNV. "I have four kids. I just want to let you suspects know you took a mom away."
He added that his wife was “probably the best person you meet in your life …she loved her kids. She lived for her kids and me."
He told The Associated Press: "After I turn off the machines to my wife... we've got to do something to take our city back. Every time you turn around, someone is getting shot."
SOCIAL
— Alastair JamiesonModerate alcohol consumption has widely been heralded as beneficial at reducing the risks of coronary heart disease. A new study from Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg suggests that this benefit only exists in a small portion of the population. The research was published in the journal Alcohol. Moderate alcohol intake has been defined in the study as up to one drink per day for women and up to two drinks per day for men.
The study included 618 patients of both genders younger than 75-years-old. The patients were admitted to hospitals for coronary syndrome and “diagnosed with myocardial infarction, with a typical history, ECG, and enzyme changes or unstable angina,” according to Medical News Today. These participants and just under 3,000 heart-healthy controls were given questionnaires on pertinent variables. Body measurements and venous blood samples were also taken.
The samples were used to see if the CETP TaqIB genotype was present. This genotype has been found to play a role in the decreased risks of coronary heart disease. In this study, the samples were also tested to determine if the study participants had the B1 or B2 alleles of the genotype.
The study found that the B2 carriers were markedly more likely to benefit from moderate alcohol consumption.
“In other words, moderate drinking has a protective effect among only 15% of the general population,” Professor Dag Thelle explained.
The team explained that while the common attitude is that moderate alcohol consumption benefits the hearts of everyone, that no longer appears to be true.
“Moderate drinking alone does not have a strong protective effect,” Professor Lauren Lissner explained. “Nor does this particular genotype. But the combination of the two appears to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease significantly.”
The researchers indicated that one strength of their study is that they examined several levels of alcohol intake. Unfortunately, according to the researchers, self-reported alcohol consumption is often synonymous with under-reporting. Future studies, according to the researchers, should examine alcohol’s preventative link regarding coronary heart disease in this 15 percent of the general population while using data on the participants’ past and current alcohol consumption.
“Our study represents a step in the right direction,” Professor Thelle explained, “but a lot more research is needed. Assuming that we are able to describe these mechanisms, it may be a simple matter one day to perform genetic testing and determine whether someone belongs to the lucky 15%. That would be useful to know when offering advice on healthy alcohol consumption. But the most important thing is to identify new means of using the body’s resources to prevent coronary heart disease.”
Other recent alcohol-related research that challenged popular alcohol-consumption beliefs indicated that more children than previously expected suffer from damage after women drink alcohol moderately during pregnancy. The heart disease study published in Alcohol was funded by the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, and the Swedish council for working life and social research.
[Photo via Pixabay]As a vegan, one of the questions I get the most from people is how I can live without cheese…or…milk…or ice cream… You get the picture! I wasn’t that surprised to find out that dairy is literally addictive!
Well, the answers is, it’s SUPER EASY! First of all, cutting out dairy forced me to get creative in the kitchen, which I’ve always loved to do. I’ve developed recipes for cashew nacho cheese, thousand island dressing and even macaroni and cheese!
There’s also an abundance of amazing vegan products on the market these days. Even if you aren’t sure where to find them in your local area, it’s super easy to order vegan products online (notice I’ve included links for all of my suggestions below). You can even subscribe to a variety of delivery services such as VeganCuts so that you can constantly try new products without even having to seek them out.
My Favorite Vegan Dairy Products:
Milks & creamers
Cheeses
Spreads, Dips and Sauces
Ice Creams & Desserts
Butter
Vegan butter is available from brands like Earth Balance. However, they contain palm oil, which is an ingredient that is not environmentally sustainable or 100% ethical. For that reason, I choose to cook with coconut oil and use other things instead of butter such as peanut butter or hummus. That being said, it’s possible to make homemade vegan butter. If you try the recipe, let me know how it turns out!
So…like I said…it’s beyond easy to ditch the dairy when going vegan. If you’re still not convinced about the reasons you might want to make the leap, please check out my post about why dairy doe And then, read about vegan sources of calcium.LEXINGTON, VA—Speaking at a rally on Monday, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney told supporters his dramatic resurgence in the polls following last week’s debate had once again proved that he deserves his well-known moniker, Turnaround Mitty from Comeback City. “Since as far back as I can remember, folks have been calling me Turnaround Mitty from Comeback City, and just like in Detroit, Massachusetts, and Salt Lake, Turnaround Mitty from Comeback City has pulled through,” said Romney, adding that “the ol’ T.M.F.C.C. has struck again.” “There were many who doubted me, but everyone on the Nitty-Gritty Mitty Committee knew that Turnaround Mitty from Comeback City would one day be sitting pretty.” The candidate added that rebounds such as this one also explain why his close friends like to call him the Salt Lake Sultan of Surge.
AdvertisementFirst it was São Paulo, then Chennai. Then Grenoble, Tehran, Paris and now even New York have spawned movements to replace or ban outdoor advertising. Are we entering the age of ad-free cities – or is this just an eye-catching distraction?
Something seemed strange. Staring out of a hotel window in São Paulo, my eye was caught by an oversized digital display crowning the top of an undersized skyscraper. Steadily flashing the time, then the temperature, the display was incongruous in a way that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
It was only later, when a colleague mentioned that São Paulo had banned billboard advertising, that I realised what had felt so odd about my view. Those flashing numbers were the only visible signage actively making a play for my attention. Having come from New York, I was used to looking out at a |
of Mr Madafferi who co-owns the Docklands venue used for the 2013 fundraiser.
Mr Lamattina angrily declined to answer questions, stating: "You print a lot of f***ing lies. If you want to see me you come and see me on the farm."
Mr Macmillan did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The Liberal Party is cash strapped, with some of its traditional wealthy donors withholding funds after a spat between party officials and long-time donors.
A series of Fairfax Media and Four Corners reports over the past two years have shown that Tony Madafferi and Mr Lamattina were involved in a 2006 donations scandal in which the planned deportation of Mr Madafferi's brother, Francesco, a Mafia boss, was overturned after a long campaign of lobbying and donating to federal Liberal politicians.
Francesco, a violent criminal and drug trafficker, was later jailed in connection to Australia's biggest ecstasy importation.
Madafferi covertly filmed with Mafia drug traffickers
For three decades, policing agencies have alleged Mr Madafferi holds a senior rank in Australia's secretive Calabrian Mafia organisation.
The Australian Federal Police covertly filmed Mr Madafferi in a city park and at Crown Casino with several notorious Mafia drug traffickers in 2008 as part of a probe into Australia's biggest ecstasy importation.
After the Lygon Street murder of Mr Madafferi's lawyer and associate, Joe Acquaro, in 2015, Mr Madafferi's solicitor, Paulo Tatti, revealed in an affidavit filed in court that detectives had falsely accused Mr Madafferi of placing a $200,000 contract on Mr Acquaro's life.
There is no suggestion Mr Madafferi was involved in Mr Acquaro's unsolved murder.
Mr Madafferi gained further notoriety after a 2015 Fairfax Media and Four Corners expose about his political donation activity.
The expose detailed Mr Guy's appearance at the Madafferi political fundraiser in Docklands in 2013.
Mr Guy was planning minister at the time and his office claimed he had no role in Mr Madafferi's presence at the fundraiser.
After the 2015 reports, Liberal politicians allegedly cut contact with Mr Madafferi.
The Howard government gave Mr Madafferi's brother, drug trafficker Francesco, a visa in 2006 after Tony Madafferi and Frank Lamattina lobbied and donated to several Liberal MPs.
Topics: government-and-politics, melbourne-3000, vic
First postedSo I was pretty bummed I didn't gift from my original Secret Santa, but I was glad I had a generous regifter. I got a message from him yesterday that he shipped some stuff out from Amazon and I should expect it on Monday. Imagine the shock I got when I came home from work and there was an Amazon box just waiting for me.
I got Artie Lange's Too Fat To Fish. I'm not all that familiar with him, though I do know he was (or still is) with Howard Stern's radio show doing hilarious things.
And "ONE THOUSAND BEARDS - A Cultural History of Facial Hair"! As a man that some may call a facial hair aficionado I'm super excited about reading this book.
Thanks again jupzchris!Frank Rich on the “mystery” of Obama
By Barry Grey
8 September 2010
New York Times columnist Frank Rich on Sunday published a bitter critique of President Obama’s Oval Office speech last week announcing the supposed end of US combat operations in Iraq. The piece is the latest in a series of columns by Rich reflecting the growing dismay and disappointment with Obama within the left-liberal constituency of the Democratic Party.
Obama’s speech was a full-throated endorsement of the Iraq war. Its reactionary content was summed up in the president’s glorification of the American military as “the steel in our ship of state.”
Rich is often quite perceptive in his observations about American political life. Perhaps reflecting his previous role as the Times’ theater critic, he brings to bear a certain sensitivity that is generally lacking in the other Times columnists. In Sunday’s column he takes Obama to task for trivializing the war and its associated crimes and downplaying their impact on American society.
“What was grievously missing from Obama’s address was any feeling for what has happened to our country during the seven-and-a-half-year war whose ‘end’ he was marking,” Rich writes. He derides Obama’s “tidy homilies about the war’s impact… as if all those bygones were now bygones and all the toxins unleashed by this fiasco had miraculously evaporated once we drew down to 50,000 theoretically non-combat troops.”
He cites the more than 4,400 Americans and “some 100,000 Iraqis (a conservative estimate)” who have been killed, the 32,000 Americans wounded, the over 2 million Iraqis driven into exile, the use of torture, and the $750 billion in US taxpayer money squandered in the criminal enterprise.
He suggests that Obama is complicit with the Pentagon in “the whitewashing of our recent history.” Of the political legacy of the war, he says, “The other American casualties of Iraq include the credibility of both political parties, neither of which strenuously questioned the rush to war and both of which are still haunted by that failure, and of the news media, which barely challenged the White House’s propaganda about Saddam’s imminent mushroom clouds. Many pundits, quite a few of them liberals, stoked the war fever as well.”
To his credit, Rich was not among those liberal pundits who promoted the war. But he diplomatically fails to mention in his column that his newspaper, the New York Times, and many of its leading reporters and commentators were.
Rich’s critique struck a nerve with many readers. Letters poured into the Times web site, some deeply emotional, reflecting disillusionment, anger and, to some extent, despair over the results of Obama’s election.
Joe, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, begins his comment as follows: ”I am a 35-year-old man who had an interesting set of perspective shifts from 2001-2002. I started 2001 a Republican; I ended 2002 a vocal anti-Bush anti-war Democrat. And now I’m not sure I even want to be an American anymore. I speak for many of my friends.”
He speaks of the transition from the “disgusting crimes of the Bush years” to the “Dems’ despicable capitulation to corporations,” where “a ‘liberal’ president convenes secret meetings to dismantle the last shred of fairness in American society, Social Security.” He concludes that America can no longer satisfy his wish to live “in a humane place where democracy still means something.”
Another contributor writes, “Obama’s whitewashing of Iraq—a war he himself said he would have voted against—further erodes his credibility for many of us who proudly call ourselves liberals.” Still another says, “I am terribly disappointed. America needed a great president after eight miserable years. I though we had gotten lucky with Obama. Boy, was I wrong.”
Judy from Chicago writes: “Like so many, I worked hard to ensure that our president was elected. I even took a six-week unpaid break from my jobs to work exclusively for the Obama campaign. I was so hopeful… like so many others, I believed that Obama could begin to heal us and get us back to the America we love and were proud of. He has not done so and, honestly, I can’t understand why.”
Rich’s column and perhaps even more the letters it evoked reflect the extent to which the illusions that attended Obama’s election have been shattered.
Rich is too perceptive a drama critic not to know that great crimes cannot simply be white-washed away. But he is far better at describing events than explaining them. As with most of his commentaries, his argument in last Sunday’s column ends where it should begin. When he attempts to account for Obama’s cover-up and complicity in war crimes, he lapses into banality.
In the most revealing line in his column, Rich writes, “It’s a mystery why a candidate so attuned to the nation’s pulse, most especially on the matter of war, has grown so tone deaf in office.”
No, it is not a mystery. It appears mysterious only if one ignores the class character, history and record of the Democratic Party and the multiple signs that that the entire Obama campaign was an exercise in fraud and deceit.
A central purpose of the promotion of Obama by those in the ruling class who financed and supported his campaign was to utilize his persona to refurbish the image of the United States internationally after the foreign policy disasters of the Bush years, while exploiting the popular illusion within the US that Obama’s ethnic background would make him more sensitive to the needs and interests of ordinary working people.
Much about Obama could have been foreseen, and, indeed, much was foreseen. Rich can speak of Obama as a “mystery” only in so far as he chooses to ignore the socialist analysis that accurately predicted the basic trajectory of the Obama administration.
Rich speaks as though there were nothing to the left of him. He joins in the decades-long collaboration of American liberalism in the efforts of the US ruling elite to exclude socialist thought from public discussion and debate—a process that has deepened immeasurably the intellectual and political poverty of liberalism.
He could have found a comprehensive analysis of the Obama campaign and a highly accurate prognosis of his course of action once in power in the innumerable articles and statements posted on the World Socialist Web Site. The WSWS and the Socialist Equality Party did not join in the “left” promotion of Obama prior to his election, and our opposition to the Democratic as well as the Republican candidate was rapidly vindicated after Obama’s victory.
To cite just one statement, entitled “One week since the election of Obama” and written in part in response to a column by Rich reflecting the liberal euphoria over Obama’s victory, we wrote the following: “Virtually without exception, liberal commentators and ‘left’ political tendencies have ignored or downplayed all such indications that Obama intends to pursue a conservative course and reject anything that suggests a more democratic and egalitarian restructuring of American capitalism. This has been facilitated by their interpretation of the election almost entirely in racial terms. The obsession with race, which for 40 years has been the mainstay of liberal politics in America, has, if anything, been accentuated in the aftermath of the election…
“Typical is the column in the Sunday New York Times by Frank Rich, which begins, ‘On the morning after a black man won the White House, America’s tears of catharsis gave way to unadulterated joy.’”
We went on to warn: “This indicates that Rich and others of his political stripe will be prepared to tolerate policies that they considered unacceptable under Bush when they are carried out by Obama—which was precisely the point of the promotion of Obama by his establishment backers. To the extent that Obama is able to exploit his identity to politically disarm workers, his administration becomes all the more dangerous to the social interests of the working class.”
The political bankruptcy of liberalism and all varieties of so-called “left” politics oriented to the Democratic Party underscores the need for a new political perspective. The real question facing workers and young people is the fight for the independent political organization of the working class on the basis of a revolutionary socialist program.
Amidst growing social distress, endless wars, and the debasement of every aspect of political life, the way forward is to be found in the perspective advanced by the Socialist Equality Party and the World Socialist Web Site.
The author also recommends:
Frank Rich on Obama: Liberal fears and illusions
[8 June 2010]
Liberalism and Wall Street
[16 January 2010]
One week since the election of Obama
[11 November 2008]Posted by coltsindianapolis on December 8, 2015 – 1:57 pm
The Indianapolis Colts today elevated inside linebacker Amarlo Herrera to the 53-man roster from the practice squad and signed free agent cornerback Jalil Brown.
The team also waived cornerback Josh Thomas, placed inside linebacker Nate Irving on the Injured Reserve list and signed linebacker Edwin Jackson to the practice squad.
Herrera, 6-1, 249 pounds, has spent most of the season (Weeks 1-5, 7-13) on the team’s practice squad. He was elevated to the 53-man roster from the practice squad on October 17. He played in Week 6 vs. New England and assisted on one special teams tackle. Herrera was waived from the active roster on October 20 and signed to the practice squad the next day. He was selected by the Colts in the sixth round (207th overall) of the 2015 NFL Draft. Herrera started 43-of-54 games at Georgia and totaled 334 tackles (147 solo), 21.0 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks, four forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries, 11 passes defensed and three interceptions.
Brown, 6-1, 210 pounds, played in the first four games (three starts) for the Colts in 2015 and registered 15 tackles (12 solo) and one pass defensed. He was placed on the Injured Reserve list on October 7 and released six days later. He originally signed with the Colts as a free agent on November 27, 2014. Brown has seen action in 43 games (five starts) over his NFL career and totaled 40 tackles (37 solo), four passes defensed, one forced fumble, one fumble recovery and 17 special teams tackles with Indianapolis (2013-15) and the Kansas City Chiefs (2011-12).
Thomas, 5-11, 185 pounds, has played in eight games for the Colts this season and registered three tackles, two passes defensed and one special teams tackle. He has seen action in 51 career NFL games (10 starts) with the Colts, Detroit Lions, New York Jets, Seattle Seahawks and Carolina Panthers and totaled 69 tackles (54 solo), 13 passes defensed, two fumble recoveries and one interception.
Irving, 6-1, 253 pounds, has played in eight games (two starts) for the Colts this season and registered 18 tackles (13 solo), 1.0 sack, two passes defensed, one forced fumble and two special teams tackles. He signed with the team as an unrestricted free agent on March 23, 2015. Irving has seen action in 62 career NFL games (14 starts) and totaled 99 tackles (62 solo), 3.0 sacks, four passes defensed, one forced fumble and 24 special teams tackles. He has also played in six postseason contests (three starts) and posted nine tackles and one pass defensed.
Jackson, 6-0, 230 pounds, most recently spent time with the Arizona Cardinals. He signed with the Cardinals as an undrafted free agent on May 5, 2015. He spent the entire offseason and most of training camp with the team before being waived on August 31.
Collegiately, Jackson played in 48 games at Georgia Southern and totaled 218 tackles (121 solo), 8.0 tackles for loss, 2.0 sacks, two passes defensed, one interception, one forced fumble and one fumble recovery after joining the team as a walk-on in 2011. He was a Sun Belt first-team selection and a Medal of Honor Bowl participant as a senior. In 2014, Jackson started all 12 games and led the team and ranked in the top-10 of the Sun Belt Conference with 100 tackles (58 solo). He also added 4.0 tackles for loss, one pass defensed, one interception and one forced fumble. As a junior, Jackson saw action in 11 games and led the Eagles with 92 tackles (52 solo) while contributing 3.5 tackles for loss, 2.0 sacks, one pass defensed and one fumble recovery. He played in 12 games in 2012 and tallied 16 tackles (five solo) and 0.5 tackles for loss. Jackson appeared in 13 games as a freshman and recorded 10 tackles (six solo) after joining the team as a walk-on.
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Posted in Colts BlogThe day Republicans took over Congress, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) declared, “We’re focused on job creation” and running “a more efficient, effective, accountable government.”
“Serious adults are in charge here,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) added for good measure, “and we intend to make progress.”
And then they introduced no fewer than five restrictions on abortion on the first day of the new Republican-controlled Congress. Because, you know, priorities.
Reps. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) reintroduced a ban on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, a bill the Republican House had already passed in 2013. And in the Senate, David Vitter (R-La.)—always a jarring champion for such moral crusades given the scandalous and, uh, detailed revelations that he frequented a DC prostitution ring—introduced four bills restricting reproductive rights. One would bar Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds for family planning work—even though abortions make up only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s vital health services work, and Planned Parenthood is already barred from using federal dollars for abortions.
Another one of Vitter’s bills would require all abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital—which especially hurts rural abortion providers that aren’t located hear hospitals. The mortality rate from colonoscopies (which do not require hospital admitting privileges) is 40 times higher than for abortions, but anyway. Vitter also has a bill would allow hospitals, doctors and nurses to refuse to participate in abortion-related care even in cases of an emergency—which makes that “admitting privileges” bill entirely disingenuous. And Vitter would also ban “sex-selective abortion,” which is purely a fictional boogieman invented by anti-abortion opponents.
Job creation, eh? The only jobs these bills will create are at advocacy organizations protesting these ridiculous infringements on reproductive freedom.
In the 2014 midterm elections, Republicans nationwide deliberately feigned moderation on social issues while proclaiming how they would focus on the economy if elected. Republicans like Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Sen. Joni Ernst in Iowa and Sen. Cory Gardner in Colorado backed away from their prior anti-abortion fanaticism while campaigning. Ernst, for instance, said that her previous support for a pregnancy-restricting “fetal personhood” law in Iowa was “simply a statement that I support life.” The Washington Post accurately described this as her trying “to cover her tracks.”
Republicans largely ducked social issues —and in the 11 principles the GOP outlined for its election strategy, only one vaguely referred to “values” lumping in “traditions of family, life, religious liberty, and hard work.” The rest were about the economy, jobs, education and bread and butter issues. The kind of stuff, supposedly, Republicans would make their focus if elected.
So much for that.
This isn’t what the American people voted for. In the 2014 election polls, the majority of voters said the economy is the most important issue facing the country — not abortion or any kind of social issue. And 50 percent of those who said the economy was their top issue voted for Republicans. Notably, 63 percent of voters overall said our economic system favors the rich—and 35 percent of those voters backed Republicans as well. They’re not looking for the GOP to pander to social conservatives. They’re not looking for ideological crusades. They’re looking for concrete, compromise-based solutions that create jobs and strengthen our economy, especially for working people. But what did the new Republican Congress give them? Five anti-abortion bills.
It’s also worth noting that, among 2014 voters, 52 percent said that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Many of those Americans voted for Republicans—24 percent of voters who think abortion should be “legal in all cases” voted for the GOP, as did 41 percent of voters who think abortion should be “legal in most cases.” Republicans are turning their back on these voters and the majority of the American people, 7 in 10 of whom other polls show support legal abortion.
Mitch McConnell’s “serious adults” act like children who can’t keep their hands out of the anti-abortion, reflexively right-wing, out-of-touch moral crusader cookie jar. That is not the “leadership” for which the American people voted, nor the leadership our nation and our economy need. Which is something that, despite all the GOP tricks, “serious voters” notice.On the football field, Zack Evans is a beast; off it, he says he’s a big cuddly teddy bear.
OK, Zack, we’ll take your word on that one. At 6-foot-4, 295 lbs, he’s become one of the CFL’s top Canadian defensive linemen. Plucked from his hometown Saskatchewan Roughriders in the expansion draft, Evans has made steady progression — he gives to credit to defensive line coach Leroy Blugh. In a rotation at defensive tackle with Keith Shologan, Evans had seven sacks in 2015. As a go-to guy this season, Evans, who is still just 26, has six sacks. No question, his future is bright.
He’s also excelling at being a dad. Evans and his wife Jenna have a 21-month-old boy, Zander.
Oh, and he says he’s a “weird fact man.”
“I’m a history buff so I know a lot of stuff,” he said. “I would go back to the Roman Era. I know how to forge steel. I understand battle tactics. I look back to the Spartans, working as one phalanx, it kind of relates to football.”
Here’s a Q and A with the Redblacks defensive lineman:
What do you do away from the field?
Evans: I play with my son a lot. I take him out to play in the parks, at the waterparks. We go on the seesaw … I get my squat workout in.
Are you a video gamer?
No. I don’t want to ruin my brain any more than I already have. I watch a little bit of TV, kids stuff like Bubble Guppies.
What movies do you watch?
Back in the day, I used to get 100 VHS tapes and watch them over and over. I watch fantasy, real action, drama, documentaries. 300. I’m a big Star Wars fan, I don’t like the new stuff, I like the old Star Wars. I’m a big Lord of the Rings guy.
What’s the best Star Wars movie?
Return of the Jedi.
What’s the best Lord of the Rings movie and who’s your favourite character?
Return of the King. I like Gandalf, he’s bad ass, he can do anything and he’s kind of immortal.
What’s the last documentary you watched?
Interview with a Murderer. It was sick stuff.
What TV shows do you watch?
Spartacus … Game of Thrones I watch like crazy.
Who’s the next Game of Thrones character to die?
Everyone’s going to die. Seriously … everyone.
If you could be a superhero, which one would you be?
Superman. He can’t lose.
How did you start playing football?
My dad played for the University of Regina Rams for four years, won two national championships. He went to the Riders, played there and broke his back in three places. I said I wanted to be better than he was. I became a professional football player and I’ve won a Grey Cup.
Were you always the biggest kid in class?
Yes, by far.
You weren’t a bully, were you?
No. Never. I was soft hearted. I’m a big cuddly teddy bear on the inside.
How have you progressed in three years in Ottawa?
It’s all on my D-line coach, Leroy Blugh. He’s really taken me under his wing and taught me how to be a good football player. I’m 26, but where I’m at right now, I feel like I’m 35. I feel like the game has slowed down. I understand offences, I understand defences better. I’m the seventh O-lineman. I know the game a lot better so it helps me on the field.
Any fears?
Snakes. Definitely afraid of snakes. Every snake. My wife’s afraid of snakes, too. Spiders are cool, anything that crawls is cool. The slither, it’s scary to me. I’ve seen too many Man vs. Wild Bear Grylls stuff where he picks up a Black Mamba and you’re like, ‘That thing will kill you.’ No. I’m good.
What’s the locker-room culture like here?
It’s fun. Everyone likes each other. There’s no butting heads, there aren’t many confrontations. In the end, we all have each other’s backs. We feel like we’re a family. It feels like last year, we had a great family dynamic and that took us really far. I feel like we have the same recipe brewing right now.
What’s fatherhood been like for you?
It’s really hard. Thankfully I have my wife who does absolutely everything. If not, I wouldn’t be here — to be able to come to football practice and not have to worry about what’s happening at home. My wife is amazing.
Do you think about politics, Canadian or American?
I stay away from that. I make fun of a lot of Americans, just to bug them because I’m Canadian … I love it.
Whar music do you listen to?
I used to be a country guy, I listened to classical, I used to listen to R and B … it’s mixed. AC/DC is No. 1, for sure. I’ve been to two of their concerts. I’m not a headbanger, but I just love their music. Back in Black is my favourite by far.
Who’s your favourite actor?
The Rock. Dwayne Johnson. I will watch every single movie of his. He’s my man crush. I would love to be The Rock.
Any other actors you like?
Maybe Bradley Cooper. He’s funny and smart. Hangover and stuff like that … I like those movies.
Who’s the funniest guy in the locker room?
EJack. Ernest Jackson. Uncle Ernie, that old man. He could make anybody laugh. He’s funny as hell. He’s goofy in a funny way. He doesn’t step on anyone’s toes, everybody loves him and he just likes screwing with people.
What are you going to do post-football?
I’ve worked in an oil refinery for the past eight years, working heavy machinery. I’m also a firefighter at the refinery so I could get my certificate and become a firefighter.
THE WORD GAME
Here we go — a little word-association game. First thing that pops into your mind, Zack …
DONALD TRUMP
Evans: Not good
JUSTIN BIEBER
Bad to be Canadian
TOM BRADY
Hell of a quarterback
CFL
The best league
RATTLESNAKE
Scary as hellWith Windows Phone 8.1 only five weeks out, there’s not too much left to revealed, except one big feature: Cortana.
The digital voice assistant to rival Apple’s Siri and Google’s Now service is expected to premier with Windows Phone 8.1, and while a few facts have leaked out so far, the Verge has now gone into more detail about Cortana, including its Notebook core.
According to the Verge's Tom Warren, Cortana will have a ‘Notebook feature’ that stores “location data, behaviors, personal information, reminders, and contact information”, but only as the user allows. This is to ensure that privacy takes priority over efficiency of the assistant, meaning Cortana won’t collect, store or use information about you without your consent. Indeed, information can reportedly be edited or even deleted later by the user.To catch a bit of green in the modern concrete jungles is indeed a refreshing sight. It is all the more beautiful when it comes attached with a gorgeous modern home that is nestled in one of the busiest cities of the planet. When you think New York, you think of those tall sky scrapers along with all those monuments and streets where everyone always seems to be in a hurry to get somewhere. The Fishers Island Home that you see here is a truly a refreshing change of pace.
The home integrates beautiful and minimalistic look with its serene green surroundings to ensure that the exteriors seem like a natural extension of the home. Using floor to ceiling glass windows that offer relaxing views, the home tends to follow the modern trend of using steel, concrete in neutral shades and plenty of glass. There is no wood here and that lens it a more futuristic look than one of a classic home.
A beautiful painted white kitchen that uses sleek furnishings, an interior glass enclosure that brings in the flora, skylights that provide both natural ventilation and exhaust in the kitchen and ambient lighting will ensure that you find the home refreshing and relaxing. Mossy rock garden, beautiful shrubs and flowering foliage help you escape from the big city rush and give you a feel that you are close to nature.
Designed by Thomas Phifer and his partners, Fishers Island Home is all about simple design and ergonomic styling and showcases how one can fit a modern home into a natural backdrop without disturbing the serenity of the place. If anything, its contours add to the setting…My colleague Joel told me he doesn’t own any bitcoin right now. Instead he has a “USD Wallet” on Coinbase and when he needs to spend or send bitcoin, he just does that out of his USD wallet.
So I decided to set one up myself. I now have three accounts on Coinbase. A bitcoin denominated wallet, a USD denominated wallet, and the vault where I keep most of my bitcoin (I don’t own much, around 30 bitcoin in total).
The recent slump in price for Bitcoin revives the issue for many of the price volatility of owning bitcoin. Some want that. They are speculators who think the price of Bitcoin will increase substantially as the technology is broadly adopted. That may well happen. But others, like me, hold bitcoin so that I can use to it spend money and send money. For them, having their bitcoin denominated in dollars makes a lot of sense. Joel is one of those people. I could become one, but for now I’m happy to do it both ways.
Coinbase has had a USD wallet since October 2014, but it has not been available in many states as a result of regulatory issues. Coinbase recently added New York State customers to the USD wallet which is why I was able to add it to my account.
If you own a lot of bitcoin and are concerned about price volatility, you might consider putting it in a dollar denominated account on Coinbase. You can still do everything with your bitcoin you want to do, but you can now do it in dollars. If you have stayed away from bitcoin because of the price issues, you now have a way to “pay with bitcoin” without taking price risk.
If you want to try it you visit your account or set up an account at Coinbase.On January 2, 2005, Rahinah Ibrahim, a PhD student in Construction Management and Engineering at Stanford University, arrived at San Francisco International Airport to board a scheduled international flight en route to Malaysia. Ibrahim was slated to attend a Stanford-sponsored conference in the country to present findings from her doctoral research; a trip she was taking despite being wheelchair-bound due to complications from a recent hysterectomy.
However instead of boarding her flight, Ibrahim found herself in handcuffs - detained by the San Francisco Police Department before being searched and locked in a holding cell by TSA agents without explanation as to the reason for her arrest. After being interrogated for several hours by the FBI it was revealed that she had been placed - for reasons not revealed to her - on a No-Fly list which prevented her from routinely boarding her flight. Despite this Ibrahim was cleared by the agents of being a security risk, assured there would be no future problems, and allowed to board a flight for Malaysia the following day.
However upon attempting to return to the United States after her trip, Ibrahim found herself again detained and prevented from boarding her flight by local authorities who had received instructions from the US Consulate that she was to be barred from returning home.
It has now been eight years and Ibrahim has still not been allowed to return to the United States, banished based on secret evidence which she is unable to view let alone contest and trapped in a Kafkaesque legal limbo which has made her an effective exile from the country.
No fly, no way
As shocking as Ibrahim's situation is, it is not unique; over the past decade there have been countless documented cases of individuals who have suddenly found themselves permanently stranded abroad after being banned from the United States despite holding legal residency and/or citizenship in the country.
The Stream
Blacklisted from the skies
In April 2012, a 43-year old American citizen and US Air Force veteran named Saadiq Long was banned from boarding a flight to Oklahoma to visit his mother whose health had been deteriorating due to congestive heart failure. Long, who had grown up in Oklahoma but moved to Qatar for work, was told by officials from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that he had been placed on a No-Fly List which would exclude him from the country of his birth but was refused access to even the most basic details as to the reason for his placement on this list. Outcry over Long's case from American civil rights organisations eventually led to him being allowed to visit his mother - but the worrying precedent set by the arbitrariness of his de facto banishment has had an impact on countless others.
In the past year alone, the number of individuals placed by the Obama administration on the federal No-Fly list has doubled to over 10,000, with at least 500 being holders of American citizenship. A further 400,000 individuals of indeterminate citizenship are on a separate "watchlist" which flags them as being "reasonably suspicious" and potentially subject to exclusion. The names of those on these lists are not disclosed and neither is the reasoning or evidence as to why any particular individual may be flagged. The American Civil Liberties Union has represented many Americans who believe have been on the No-Fly list and have been banned from travelling for work or to visit family for reasons unknown to them. In the words of ACLU attorney Ben Wizner:
People who are protected by the Constitution have a right to fundamental due process. If the United States government is going to maintain a watch list and prevent people from flying, there has to be some way for people to confront the evidence against them and rebut it.
Targeted bannings
An identified trend has seen Muslims and those who claim ethnic descent from majority-Muslim countries being overwhelmingly targeted for seemingly inexplicable placement on these lists. Steve Washburn, a Muslim convert as well as a US military veteran was told by officials at Dublin International Airport that he was on a "terrorist watch list" and would not be allowed on his flight home to New Mexico or on any other future flights which would take him to the United States. Even high profile individuals such as Gilbert Chagoury, a multimillionaire businessman with close ties to former President Bill Clinton, have seen themselves effectively banned from travel by their unexplained and indisputable placement on the No-Fly list. After being detained and interrogated by agents for several hours and questioned about his views and purported ties to terrorists he would say:
I cannot accept being labelled a terrorist when I am known all over the world as a person who loves peace. It really hurts.
Gadeir Abbas, a lawyer with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says that calls from Muslim-Americans stranded abroad after being banned from boarding flights home have become a regular occurrence. "The amount of people who experience tragic, life-altering travel delays is significant," said Abbas.
In numerous cases individuals have claimed to be banned from travelling after refusing to become informants against their own community. Ibrahim "Abe" Mashal, was told by FBI agents that his name would be removed from the No-Fly list if he would agree to go undercover and spy on other Muslims, while Mohammed Tanvir was coerced with threats and blackmail to become an informant spying on the South Asian community in New York. After refusing, Tanvir was placed on the No-Fly list, an act which his lawyer said was direct retaliation for his refusal to inform.
There is a recognised and genuine need to prevent known terrorists and those legitimately suspected of involvement with terrorism from travelling freely to the United States and elsewhere. However in practice it seems as though the ability to place individuals on No-Fly lists and other types of restrictive surveillance has been abused to harass and pressure innocent individuals, with specific emphasis upon Muslims.
In the case of Rahinah Ibrahim a federal judge in San Francisco recently blasted the government's usage of secret evidence against her, citing their "persistent and stubborn refusal" to follow applicable laws and attempts to undermine "the traditional system of fair play where both sides have notice of the arguments and evidence being used against them".
This system increasingly appears to be inapplicable to Muslim-Americans and those who claim descent from Muslim countries, for whom a parallel legal system exists which leaves them at the mercy of secret evidence and subject to effective exile from the United States through legal prohibition them flying home. The subversion of the US justice system towards this end has been a legacy of the past decades erosion of civil liberties and has continued with even greater vigor under the Obama administration.
As articulated by ACLU attorney Nusrat Choudhury, "It doesn't make anyone safer for innocent people not to be allowed to fly." Effectively granting government the ability to opaquely subject citizens to de facto banishment while abroad protects no one, but rather represents a troubling and potentially consequential deterioration of constitutionally protected rights in the post-9/11 era.
Murtaza Hussain is a Toronto-based writer and analyst focused on issues related to Middle Eastern politics.
Follow him on Twitter: @MazMHussainCould roof-straddling “sky walks” soon be coming to Stockholm? A new plan proposed for the Swedish capital would see a large slice of its city center built over with densely packed towers, joined at their peaks by a dramatic zigzag of tree-lined, open air gangways. Commissioned by Sweden’s opposition Center Party, the plan might seem a little fanciful. But it nonetheless answers some key questions that Stockholm is currently being forced to ask itself. Sweden’s capital is one of the fastest growing cities in Europe, with a population due to swell by 17 percent in just nine years. If it isn’t going to sprawl unmanageably or become overcrowded, it’s going to have to find somewhere to put everyone. One key solution could be to densify, as the proposal suggests, by rooting out and building on every scrap of currently un-built inner city land.
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Wilcox’s trial showed he wrote approximately 618 prescriptions resulting in the distribution of approximately 74,000 oxycodone pills for non-medical purposes between July 2010 and March 2013. Dr. Wilcox wrote hundreds of prescriptions to people using false identifications that were filled at pharmacies throughout Utah and Nevada. Many of the oxycodone pills were then sold.
Along with Dr. Wilcox, five co-conspirators from Utah had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute oxycodone: Benjamin David Grisel, age 49, and Brenda Grisel, age 48, both of Santa Clara; Jeron Scott Hales, age 40, of Hurricane; Jeremy Daniel Perkins, age 36, of Washington, and Randall David Ayrton, age 35, of St. George.
As a part their plea agreements reached with federal prosecutors, Dr. Wilcox’ co-conspirators in the case admitted they conspired with Dr. Wilcox to use his medical license to write prescriptions for oxycodone pills — one of the co-conspirators created false identification documents for the group to use in filling the oxycodone prescriptions.
“The 74,000 oxycodone pills that found their way into our communities through the 618 prescriptions Dr. Wilcox wrote are no different than a drug dealer selling heroin on the corner,” said U.S. Attorney John W. Huber in a statement to reporters. “In fact, these crimes are worse because they abuse the trust we place in physicians. To stop the wave we are seeing, we need to attack every angle of the heroin and opioid problem.”
Acting DEA Assistant Special Agent in Charge John Eddington said his agency is committed to stopping people like Dr. Simmon Wilcox who illegally facilitate the distribution of narcotics. “DEA takes its responsibility to prevent the distribution of dangerous and addictive drugs to those who do not have a medical reason to have them very seriously,” he said. “We are pleased the jury recognized the seriousness of the conduct involved in this case.”
Dr. Wilcox’s sentencing hearing has been scheduled for April 18, 2016. He faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $1 million for each of the two drug distribution counts.
The Beaver Countian’s Archived Coverage Of Dr. Simmon Wilcox:
– Federal Agents Raid Building In Center Township
– Federal Agents Believe Center Twp Dr Simmon Wilcox Was Involved In A Drug Scheme
– Former Center Township Doctor Wilcox Awaiting Trial On Drug Charges
– New Details As Former Center Twp Doctor Simmon Wilcox Awaits November Trial On Drug Charges
– Federal Trial For Former Center Township Doctor On Drug Charges Delayed Until End Of Summer
– Trial For Former Center Township Doctor Accused Of Drug Dealing Delayed Until Next Year
– Former Center Township Doctor Found Guilty Of Narcotics Trafficking In Federal CourtBefore Memet Kilic climbs into his car, he quickly checks to make sure that all of the lug nuts on his wheels are tight. He only takes the train when he knows that he will be back home in Heidelberg before sunset. His apartment is only a few minutes' walk from the commuter train station, "but I wouldn't risk it after dark," the Green Party politician says. "Who knows who might follow me?" Kilic's youngest son has internalized his father's fear: Before going to bed, the six-year-old makes sure to check whether the family's front door is locked.
A lawyer by training, Kilic is confronted every day with threatening emails, insults over Twitter and denigration on Facebook. He calls it "inbox sludge" and he has seen it all, including threats to his life. On one occasion, someone really did cram his mailbox full of garbage from the street. Sometimes, the attacks have come from xenophobes and racists. Mostly, though, they are the work of supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeking to intimidate him into changing his political views and finally fall into line, Kilic says. For years, the 50-year-old has been a sharp critic of Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Kilic is the Green Party candidate in an electoral district in the northern part of the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg and has already done one stint in the Bundestag, as Germany's parliament is called, from 2009 to 2013. He says that during that campaign, the situation wasn't nearly as bad as it is today. "What is happening today can make you very afraid," he says. "Particularly if you have children."
Fear for Your Safety
At least 80 of the 4,828 candidates for the parliamentary elections on Sept. 24 have Turkish roots. Reporting conducted by DER SPIEGEL and by public broadcaster ARD's "Report Mainz" program show just how difficult their political lives have become, particularly if they are publicly critical of Erdogan. Those like Kilic and Cem Özdemir of the Green Party, or Sevim Dagdelen of the Left Party, have learned that if you don't back Erdogan's politics, you must live in constant fear for your safety -- as German citizens in Germany.
Green Party co-head Cem Özdemir is accompanied by bodyguards everywhere he goes as a result of threats relating to his criticism of Erdogan.
Just recently, Erdogan directed Turkish-Germans to avoid casting their ballots for the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) or the Greens, saying these parties are "enemies of Turkey." Kilic says that Erdogan's plea constitutes "an additional justification to attack people like me."
Kilic was born and grew up in Malatya in eastern Turkey before coming to Germany to study law. His family is part of the Alawite minority and Kilic says they were threatened by religious fanatics back in Turkey as well. He finds it shocking that he has once again become a target, only this time in Germany.
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Recently, someone wrote to him on Facebook that he "should be careful that his body doesn't soon end up without a head." Another user called him a "dog devoid of ancestry" and said he shouldn't risk traveling to Turkey. Two weeks ago, Kilic's mother died in Ankara, but he didn't dare head back for her funeral. "I don't think I would be allowed to enter the country without problems," he says.
Several German citizens are currently locked up in Turkey for political reasons. Deniz Yücel, a journalist for the German daily Die Welt who has been accused of distributing terrorist propaganda and has dual Turkish and German citizenship, is the best known. In July, human rights activist Peter Steudtner was placed in pre-trial detention for allegedly supporting terrorism.
Online Hate
There are those who think that Kilic is overreacting to the threats posed to him and his children. The kind of online hate that is so pervasive on social media platforms is widespread in plenty of other contexts as well. "Those who have grown up in a free and liberal world are perhaps unable to fully understand the fear," Kilic says in response. "But as an Alawite, you have a completely different warning system for the terrible things that can happen."
Ali Ertan Toprak, head of the Kurdish Community in Germany (KGD), agrees. Erdogan critics in Germany receive far too little support, he says, adding that the government in Berlin isn't doing enough. Many secular and democratically minded Kurds and Turks no longer feel safe in Germany.
Bundestag candidate Kilic recently pricked up his ears when Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel of the SPD, who has been one of Erdogan's morevocal critics in Berlin, complained that his wife had been threatened by phone at her dental practice. "That's terrible, of course," Kilic says. "But maybe it will help the government understand what is going on here and what it means when your own family is threatened."
Left Party parliamentarian Sevim Dagdelen, 41, also says that she hopes the hostility displayed toward Gabriel and his wife will help change perspectives. She adds that German Chancellor Angela Merkel still isn't critical enough of Turkish President Erdogan.
Dagdelen and Özdemir, the Green Party's lead candidate in this campaign, are both among the most-hated politicians for Erdogan fans in Germany. This spring, they urged Turkish-Germans and Turks in Germany to vote "no" in the Turkish constitutional referendum. Erdogan won that vote with a slim majority, allowing him to consolidate power by imposing a presidential system on the country. "What happens in Turkey always has a direct impact on Germany," Dagdelen says, alluding to the around 3 million people of Turkish origin who live in the country.
Insults and Hostility
She and Özdemir, 51, are constantly accompanied by bodyguards at campaign appearances, and when Dagdelen held a speech in Hamm on Wednesday, Erdogan supporters tried to shout her down. Others sat in their cars and honked continuously in order to prevent her from being heard.
On Monday, unknown perpetrators broke into the Left Party's campaign office in Bochum, where Dagdelen is a candidate. They tore up posters and flyers and someone urinated on the floor. Dagdelen's personal district office in Bochum has likewise been daubed with paint on several occasions.
CDU parliamentarian Cemile Giousouf, whose parents belonged to the Turkish minority in Greece, avoided putting her picture on her campaign vehicle from the very beginning. She says doing so would simply have led to vandalism.
Özdemir says that he often encounters insults and hostility from Turkish taxi drivers. In response, he often threatens to report them to the police.
Most of those who oppose Özdemir and Dagdelen, however, do so on the internet. Defamatory hashtags have been created for both of them, such as #götdemir for Özdemir. Göt is the Turkish word for ass. Dagdelen, for her part, is referred to as a #terrortubby. She is often accused of being close to the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), which has been banned as a terrorist organization. "That's complete nonsense," Dagdelen says. Part of her family, she says, has Kurdish heritage, but the PKK accusations only serve to provide AKP supporters with a justification to vilify her.
Open Season
Her Twitter notifications are full of base comments such as "Sevim works in a whore house" or "Come on, lick my balls, okay?" She says that "misogynistic and sexist comments are typical of Islamist Erdogan supporters."
DPA Cansel Kiziltepe is a member of the German parliament with the center-left Social Democrats. She required bodyguards temporarily after voting in favor of a resolution classifying the early 20th century massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as "genocide."
Among such obscenities, xenophobes also post their comments. Dagdelen is accused of not being "a'real #German'" and the Left Party is referred to as a "Turkish party." Just below, though, a Turkish user calls her a "German whore."
Dagdelen tries not to let such comments get to her. At the apex of the refugee crisis, she says, the "right-wing mob was in top form," but currently, hatred from the Turkish community has become more prominent. A mother of two, she makes sure to prevent photos of her family from appearing anywhere on the internet in order to protect them. Her support for the Armenian resolution in the Bundestag didn't help the situation. In June 2016, the German parliament -- with the support of several politicians with Turkish roots -- voted almost unanimously to classify the early 20th century massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide. Özdemir was one of the sponsors of the legislation. The move infuriated Erdogan and the Turkish president said that lawmakers like Özdemir and Dagdelen had "impure blood." Turkish newspapers printed their pictures and called them "traitors" to Turkey. Dagdelen says: "That pretty much signaled open season on us."
Berlin-based SPD parliamentarian Cansel Kiziltepe also voted in favor of the resolution and needed bodyguards for a time as a result. Nevertheless, she says, just like Kilic and Özdemir, she isn't going to allow her politics to be dictated from 2,000 kilometers away by Turkey. She finds it personally insulting when she is insulted as a traitor, she says. "But I am a German politician and I work here. That's what matters."<div>An international team of astronomers, led by Australia's Swinburne University of Technology professor Matthew Bailes, has discovered a planet made of diamond crystals, in our own Milky Way galaxy.
The planet is relatively small at around 60,000 km in diameter (still, it's five times the size of Earth). But despite its diminutive stature, this crystal space rock has more mass than the solar system's gas giant Jupiter.
Radio telescope data shows that it orbits its star at a distance of 600,000 km, making years on planet diamond just two hours long. Any closer and it would be ripped to shreds by the star's gravitational tug. Putting together its immense mass and close orbit, researchers can reveal the planet's unique makeup.
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It's "likely to be largely carbon and oxygen," said Michael Keith, one of the research team members. Lighter elements, "like hydrogen and helium would be too big to fit the measured orbiting times". The object's density means that the material is certain to be crystalline, meaning a large part of the planet may be similar to a diamond.
While the planet is an exciting find, it's parental star is also quite interesting as well. It's a pulsar (with the catchy name PSR J1719-1438), which are small spinning stars about 20 km in diameter -- around the same size as London.
It's also a very fast spinning pulsar (called a millisecond pulsar), rotating more than 10,000 times per minute. Like its companion planet, its mass far outweighs its minuscule size -- it has a mass of about 1.4 times that of our Sun.
Astronomers believe that the diamond planet was once a star of its own, but the pulsar ripped off its outer layers and siphoned off 99.9 percent of its mass. The transferred matter is what caused the pulsar to spin at such a frenzied pace.
Researchers from institutions in the UK, Australia, Germany, Italy and the USA used a variety of radio telescopes -- including the Australian Parkes CSIRO, the Lovell in Cheshire and the Keck in Hawaii -- and 200,000 Gigabytes of celestial data to find the distant pulsar and its nifty diamond-esque planet.QPR LADIES have completed their first transfer business of the summer with the addition of three new signings.
Attacking duo Katie Wilding and Leanne Mabey have both arrived from Enfield Town while former Leicester City defender Lauren Gage has also put pen to paper on a one-year contract.
All three starred on Sunday as Martino Chevannes' charges made the perfect start to life back in the South East Women's Combination League, running out 3-1 winners on the opening weekend of the season.
No side managed fewer goals in the Premier League South than QPR last season but assistant boss Tony Smith is hopeful Wilding - who netted 25 times last term - and Mabey can spearhead a promotion push this time around as the R's plan an immediate return at the first attempt.
"They are exactly what we've been missing," Smith told www.qpr.co.uk. "Last season we were guilty of wasting a hatful of chances so attack was an area we were keen to strengthen.
"They will make a huge difference to the side this season."
Meanwhile, Gage made an instant impact by netting on her competitive debut with the R's second goal in Sunday's victory.
The centre-half (pictured in pre-season action against Trinidad & Tobago) should prove a ready-made replacement for former club captain Jade Dempster, who faces a lengthy spell on the sidelines through injury.
Images courtesy of Kevin Richards.Extreme Speed Motorsports has pulled the plug on the remainder of its 2014 TUDOR United SportsCar Championship program, opting to skip next month’s season-ending Petit Le Mans in favor of taking its HPD ARX-03b cars to China for the FIA WEC Six Hours of Shanghai.
The Scott Sharp-owned squad made the announcement Saturday morning at Circuit of The Americas, ahead of today’s Lone Star Le Mans double-header, which sees ESM make its FIA World Endurance Championship debut.
“What an incredible opportunity and next step to take Tequila Patrón and ESM to Shanghai and race against the top P2 cars in the world,” Sharp said. “We’re equally excited, to utilize Tequila Patrón’s investment in motorsports to help further expose their brands to one of their hottest global markets.”
Sharp will team with Ryan Dalziel and Ed Brown in the No. 30 Tequila Patron-sponsored HPD in today’s race, with Brown moving over to the No. 31 car for Shanghai alongside Johannes van Overbeek and David Brabham.
Reigning FIA WEC LMP2 champion Ricardo Gonzalez, meanwhile, will join Sharp and Dalziel for the Chinese round on Oct. 31-Nov. 2.
“We enthusiastically welcome David and Ricardo to our driver lineup,” Sharp said. “Both David and Ricardo have raced at Shanghai and we’ll leverage their experience there to get our Honda prototypes ready for that six-hour race.
“We’re still learning our way around the FIA WEC and we believe we’ll be that much stronger with both of our Tequila Patron HPDs in China.”
Today’s TUDOR Championship race will mark their final outing of the year, with no plans having been put in place for 2015, other than its intentions to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and early season FIA WEC rounds.
Whatever program they undertake, it will come with a pair of brand-new HPD ARX-04b P2 cars next year.
“We’re excited but know there is a give and take,” Brown said. “Racing is expensive and because of that we’ll park the cars at Petit Le Mans and not run the final race of the TUDOR Championship series race so we can setup the cars for Shanghai.
“By all means, we’re going to be racing in the United States next year, but we felt that this was important to set us up for the goals that we’ve set.
“We’re committed to going to the 24 Hours of Le Mans next year. I feel it is important for us to pick the absolute hardest race that the team could do, and that means racing in China; there’s language, food and logistics issues, among other challenges.
“If we truly want to be competitive at Le Mans or any other WEC race, we need to get our hands around the series and regulations at one of the demanding location.
“The best thing we can do is throw a challenge at the team. We’re going to learn so much in the week in China; it will pay huge dividends.”The story about Clara was released today, she was born three and a half months too early and she only weighed 0.67 pounds (307 gram)!
Have you seen anything that tiny?
I was stunned when I saw these images (courtesy family photos) and was worried to carry on reading. But it was happy reading! She recovered quickly and today she is a happy and a healthy little lady.
It might be because I so clearly remember the birth of my daughter but I felt tears coming seeing these images.
Clara was born in Sweden December 17th last year.
Her father Anders Borg followed her to the emergency room and let his finger rest under her hand – and she gripped it!
The day after she opened her eyes, and after 3 weeks later the parents were allowed to hold her.
Clara at 888 gram (1.95 pound):
At week 24 she stopped growing and they had a rough time following, but each time the doctors came with grief news Clara gave them good signs of life.
Yesterday she was 10 months and look forward to her birthday December 17th.
Link to the Swedish newspaper.Catching Up With... Matt Beleskey by Staff Writer / Anaheim Ducks
As we get closer to the start of the 2013-14 season, we've exchanged emails with assorted Ducks, asking about their summers and other personal info. Our latest subject: Matt Beleskey
New fiancee’s name
Victoria Hall
Your favorite NHL player growing up
Wendel Clark
Favorite hockey moment of your career
My first NHL goal vs. Detroit
Do you have any pregame superstitions or routines?
Always dress from left to right.
Your favorite TV shows
Sons of Anarchy and Breaking Bad
Your favorite movies
Slap Shot, Billy Madison, Dumb and Dumber, Old School, Step Brothers
(You get the trend haha)
Your favorite bands
BB King, Jimmy Hendrix, Tragically Hip, Pearl Jam
A band or artist on your iPod you're ashamed of
Justin Bieber (one mistake of a song)
Your favorite food
Italian, Mom’s chicken parm
Strangest thing you've been asked to autograph
A man’s lower back
The best perk of being a pro athlete
Hearing 20,000 people cheering you on... and concert hookups (haha)
Where did you spend most of your summer?
In northern Ontario. Minesing is where we live.
What else did you do this summer?
Had a great trip to Jamaica, watched Karl (my dog) entertain the family for many weekends, visited with good friends and family, got engaged!
Any movies you saw this summer you liked?
Did not go to one movie all summer. Too busy!!
Any music you've gotten into to or concerts you attended this summer?
Unfortunately, we didn't go to any concerts this summer which is pretty sad :(
View LessA California man is suing Iliza Shlesinger after being turned away from a girls-only show in a hyperbole-laden lawsuit that begins with a quote from George Orwell's Animal Farm.
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others," writes attorney Alfred Rava, before beginning a 14-page complaint that says his client is a victim of the comedian's "war on men."
George St. George asks the court to imagine the uproar and protests that would follow if comedian Andrew Dice Clay, who is described in the complaint as "the bane of feminists," hosted a comedy show that prohibited women from entering.
Men in Texas were similarly offended in May when Alamo Drafthouse held a women-only screening of Wonder Woman. Although the theater didn't actually turn away any men, it reportedly did agree to make some concessions in response to an official complaint filed with the City of Austin Equal Employment & Fair Housing Office.
It's worth noting that San Diego-based attorney Rava has built a career on suing companies for gender discrimination, including filing a class action against the Oakland A's for giving away plaid hats to women only at a May 2004 game.
Here, St. George says he and a friend bought tickets for a Nov. 13 show at Largo at The Coronet that was advertised as "Girls Night in with Iliza — No Boys Allowed" and was informed they would only be allowed in if they agreed to sit in the back row of the theater "because of their sex."
The men decided to leave to grab a bite to eat before returning for the show, and Rava compares what happened when they returned to the racial segregation experienced across the South prior to the civil rights movement. The female employee with whom they had spoken earlier told them Shlesinger and the theater had since decided only women would be admitted to the show and they'd be given a refund.
Rava argues the decision to turn away St. George and his friend violates the Unruh Civil Rights Act and California's business and professions code.
"Simply put, it is against many California laws for a business to discriminate against patrons based on their sex or other personal characteristics, such as race or sexual orientation which should surprise no one," writes Rava. He argues the girls-only show "repudiated hundreds of years of women's struggles to be viewed as being equal to men and is typical of old-fashioned sexism that might also advise a young woman that her best chance for a happy life is to ace her home economics class and learn how to make a queso dip from Velveeta to catch a good man."
UTA and Largo at The Coronet are also named as defendants in the lawsuit, which is posted in full below. St. George is seeking an injunction barring defendants from engaging in unequal treatment of consumers based on sex, an order requiring them to undergo sex discrimination sensitivity training and statutory damages.
Reps for Shlesinger on Thursday sent The Hollywood Reporter a statement in response to the complaint. "Since this is a legal matter, I'm unable to comment to the specifics of this lawsuit," she says. "I will say that of the many shows I do throughout the year, Girls Night In was a singular evening that encouraged women to get together, talk and laugh about the things we go through as well as donate some money to Planned Parenthood. It's unfortunate that this has now become an issue."
Dec 28. 3:25 p.m. Updated with a comment from Shlesinger.After my initial pickup/intro of the Kia Soul EV, I’ve spent the last week driving the vehicle as my daily driver. I normally drive a 2012 Prius Plug-in or a 2013 Tesla Model S so I know my way around EVs but this was the first time I’ve had the opportunity to really dig deep into both a Kia branded vehicle and a 100-mile range Chademo electric vehicle. I’ll spoil it a little saying that I was pleasantly surprised …
The Kia Soul EV is in many ways exactly what you’d expect if you are an EV optimist. It is so similar externally to the regular Kia Soul that most people don’t even recognize it is an EV. It lacks a gas input and has a hidden electric input on the front grill, slightly different lights and has some aerodynamic rims and low rolling resistance wheels. But besides those little nuances and of course the small ‘EcoElectric’ label on the car (below), it is pretty hard to tell this is an EV.
On one hand that is great –Kia didn’t put together a BMW i3-like “look at me, I’m a Freak EV” design. On the other hand, it didn’t really work very hard on this model which was born a compliance car and even after expanding, is still only sold at some dealerships in 10 states.
From a drive train perspective, Kia ripped out the gas tank and internal combustion engine and all of the bits that go with it. In its place (and about 3-inches into the rear seating/legroom area) it put 32.7kWh of batteries. Under the hood it switched out the 4 cylinder ICE with a tiny 109HP AC engine, but surprisingly capable engine thanks to 210ft/lbs of EV torque. On top of that is a charge controller and inverter. There’s a ton of empty space up there in the front that wouldn’t exist if this was designed as an EV first.
And that’s part of the bigger takeaway here: The Soul EV looks a lot like an amateur EV conversion than a car that was designed from scratch to be an EV. But somehow, this works really well. It seems so easy, really. Rip out the combustion bits and put in a bunch of batteries and an electric motor. Double the price.
Charging:
The problems here begin in the details. The one I imagine is on many of the Electrek readers’ mind is range and charging. The 32kWh of batteries carry the Kia Soul EV around 100 miles but because of the box-like aerodynamics, that can mean significantly over 100 miles in the slow driving city or under 100 miles on the highway. Every time I fully charged the car I would get fewer miles of estimated range. 1st time 115 miles. 2nd: 105, last time was 95. But I’ve been driving it hard so I guess it is taking that into consideration.
The big variance in range is fine and really you’ll see that to a certain degree in all cars, but what I thought would be an easy “fix” in DC Chademo charging access turned out to be a jerry-rig at best. I tried 3 different charging spots offered by evGo in my area -the nearest ChargePoint access is in New York City, over 40 miles away.
I was only able to get one of the 3 evGo stations working. On the other 2: one was broken (but I was still charged $10) and the other one was occupied by an ICE vehicle and a non-charging Chevy Volt (which was taking advantage of EV parking without actually charging – almost a worse offense than being ICE’d in my opinion).
The evGo station that worked did charge pretty fast (see previous post) but it stopped charging at 80% and turned off. I’m not sure if this was on purpose, a factor of the air cooled batteries vs. liquid cooled ones in higher end cars (which can take a stronger charge, especially when nearing completion), or it was just a fluke.
My takeaway on Chademo access is that it is very unwise to depend on DC fast charging at the moment. And that makes the 100 miles a pretty hard stop on range.
At home I charged using the 110V 12A charger that was included and an Aerovironment TurboCord. Here is one (of a bunch of) places where I think Kia should have taken a note from Tesla. Including a 110/240V level 2 charger (which have dropped to under $300 – not a lot for a car in the high $30Ks) would have been a huge improvement.
Home 110V AC charging puts on close to 5 miles per hour of charge and extrapolated out over a nightly 12 hour recharge time and you can expect to recoup 60 miles per night. Obviously if you can get it to 16 hours/per night – say 5pm-9am: 80 miles. The bottom line here is that unless you push your car very close to empty or you don’t have a lot of overnight charging, you are going to wake up with that 100 miles of range almost every morning. For ICE drivers, that’s like waking up every day with about a third of a tank of gas – not something that should induce any kind of stress. Also, if you are going to grandma’s house 80 miles away and can stay overnight, that means you’ve got a pretty good chance of making it back in the morning.
Other notes:
This is a 2016 Kia Soul EV which didn’t come with Apple CarPlay nor Android Auto. A commenter pointed out (and indeed we covered on 9to5mac) that an update was available via this crazy process. The car I got wasn’t updated, the rep somehow wasn’t aware it existed (“sorry, it is only available on the 2017 model”) and it didn’t have the SD card the update required. I tried to use a off the shelf SD card to do the update but it didn’t work. Nuts. I imagine people buying these things from dealers should demand that the SD updates are done. You also need that SD card for maps too. It isn’t an over-the-air update, but at least it isn’t a floppy disk!
Low rolling resistance EV tires + 210 ft/lbs of EV torque = slipping. I got caught slippin’ on a number of occasions: On wet surfaces, going up hills, on gravel and generally speaking when gunning it, I felt some slippage. I know those extra miles are important but I wonder if some better tires for those 16-inch rims would be a good option.
The Soul EV seats four people very comfortably. Even though the battery does take up some space vs. the ICE version, there is absolutely no problem seating 4 normal sized adults in this car. Five gets tight in the back but for kids isn’t a stretch at all. The trunk room is shallow but at 50 cubic feet overall, there’s plenty of room in here.
The moon/sun roof is very cool and provides lots of perceived space for the folks in the back. I’d definitely recommend this option.
So what do I really think?
This car is great for commuters…but…
For those 90% of us that commute less than 40 miles a day and/or have charging options at work, the Kia Soul EV makes a perfectly adequate car. I’d even say it is a nice car and way better than most ICE options out there. It is pleasant to drive. it offers ample storage and it is one of the only EVs to ride higher than a typical car.
But the elephant in the room of course is that the Chevy Bolt is coming in a matter of months. It offers similar size and utility but because it is designed as an EV first, it packs double the battery for over double the mileage in a relatively similar form factor. It is also faster and sportier and it costs about the same price. Those 238 miles are a huge difference and there isn’t really anything about the Kia that would sway me from getting a Bolt – besides GM’s corporate practices perhaps. In my initial test drive of a prototype at CES, I loved the Bolt. We’ll see how GM does with the details.
Without the Bolt however and obviously the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y coming in the years ahead, this car would be a definite buy. As it stands however, I don’t see a reason to get this over waiting for a Bolt again or a Tesla…unless you can grab a really good deal, soon.“I didn’t learn much in school last year,” said the 11 year old boy I look after.
“Oh, really?” I asked. “Why not?”
“I don’t think my teacher was very good and it felt like a waste of time going to school,” he replied. “I learned a lot more at home with you.”
Well, if that didn’t make my heart swell with pride! Of course, I wish he’d learned more at school and felt like he was getting something out of it, but the reality is that government schools just don’t deliver very well on teaching most of the time for most kids. For kids in public schools, parents and other caring adults need to pick up the slack.
While we at Four Birds strongly advocate homeschooling as the ideal, we realise that not every family is well placed to start homeschooling for a variety of reasons. So what can you do to help your child learn outside of school?
The particular boy I work with is an extremely motivated learner who has not yet had his desire for learning crushed by the state, which makes my job with him much easier, but many parents may find their children no longer have any interest in academic learning after their school teachers have turned it into a hated chore. If this is where you are starting, your first task is to rekindle the natural hunger for knowledge that children innately have. You may have a child who refuses to learn maths or spelling, but eagerly learns the rules to any new sport or computer game or spends hours figuring out how to assemble a Lego set. Children want to learn when they are motivated to do so- when the result of their learning is pleasurable.
Start by finding new things for them to learn, not necessarily academic, that offer quick, satisfactory rewards. For example, many children like sweets- teach them how to follow a simple recipe to make a cake or cookies. They will get the satisfaction of having created something they can enjoy, something they can be proud of, while learning a new skill (and also an opportunity to practice reading and math skills). Every new hobby is an opportunity for learning, many everyday tasks can be turned into teachable moments. Children also love being included in what adults are doing, so take them shopping, let them help set a budget, include them in home repairs. Everything you do as an adult is something you once had to learn and someone once had to teach you. Teach these things to your kids and watch their confidence soar as they become more independent, more responsible, and feel valued as a member of the family. When kids realise that learning can be fun and isn’t always drudgery, their motivation to learn academic subjects will also increase. A child who once believed he couldn’t learn math will have a lot more self-confidence once he finds himself practicing basic sums and measurements while helping his father build something, for example.
Now, sometimes the focus needs to be solely on academic work. Children in public schools receive homework assignments and are subjected to regular testing and grading. You may find the rare child who can motivate themselves throughout an entire school term by the promise of the end-of-term report card and the hope of seeing straight As, but most kids want more immediate rewards.
There’s a lot of talk about different learning styles: Some people learn better from hands-on tasks or from listening or from reading or whatever. The fact is, all kids learn well when learning is fun and interesting. A few years ago, I worked with a child who was really struggling academically and was very far behind the rest of his class in memorising his multiplication tables. He absolutely hated doing the worksheets his teacher sent home with him, filling in the answers to one multiplication problem after another. I can’t say I blamed him- after sitting still in class all day, the last thing he wanted to do was sit still at home after school. Multiplication tables are pretty boring and it can be hard to make them fun. This boy, however, had recently become very interested in basketball, as his older brother had started playing and he wanted to be allowed to be included when his older brother played basketball with friends. Being included by his older brother was a far better motivator than pleasing his teacher at school or getting good grades. So, we did our times tables while playing basketball. I would ask him a multiplication question and if he got it right, he got to take a certain number of shots before the next question (if we were doing the 6 times tables, he got to take 6 shots for every right answer) and if he got it wrong, I got to take a shot. We spent far more time shooting hoops than drilling times tables, but by the end of the year, he knew his times tables up through the 8s, which is what his school had wanted, and he had become quite good at what he called “swish shots”.
As kids become older and their workload from |
solid starting point, creates a framework for Mayor and #Chargers to negotiate." — Annie Heilbrunn (@annieheilbrunn) May 18, 2015
Color me impressed. Adam Day addressed many potential criticisms. This seems like a plan that people can support. pic.twitter.com/tp0aB9Q109 — Ben Higgins (@BenHigginsSD) May 18, 2015
San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer releases statement on CSAG's stadium proposal pic.twitter.com/TTOhMNICE5 — Marty Caswell (@MartyCaswell) May 18, 2015
Mayor Kevin Faulconer says in statement that if city, #Chargers reach agreement, he is still committed to a public vote. — Bernie Wilson (@berniewilson) May 18, 2015
Well, Dean Spanos is certainly taking this all very seriously as he's now making the stadium issue his full time job.
Filed to ESPN: Chargers owner Dean Spanos has relinquished day-to-day control of the team to his sons. Permanent move. Will remain as COB. — Jim Trotter (@JimTrotter_NFL) May 18, 2015Posted on September 6, 2012
Krauthammer On Obama: "One Of The Emptiest Speeches I Have Ever Heard"
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I was stunned. This is a man who gave one of the great speeches of our time in 2004, and he gave one of the emptiest speeches I have ever heard on a national stage. Yes, it had cadence, and yes, there were deceptions in it, but that is not what is so striking about it. There was nothing in it. This is a man who believes that government can and should do a lot. There is nothing in here that tells us how he's going to go from today to tomorrow. For any of the so called goals and what government is going to do, what is he going to enact?
At least Romney had a five point plan. What we heard from Obama was a vision. And he pulls numbers out of a hat. 100,000 new math and science teachers. 600,000 more people working in natural gas. Two million more trainees, and he doesn't say how we get from A to B. It's a vision. I have a vision of an America where there is no disease and everybody has a private airplane, but unless I tell you how we get there, I’ve said nothing. And what is so surprising, is that - all he had left - he can't speak about his record on the economy, and it's not a good one. As we heard, he didn't speak about achievements, the one that's liberals like, ObamaCare, stimulus and etc… they're unpopular.
So, at least he would talk about the future, what he's going to to. There was nothing there. I’m amazed that he was -- it was like this is a guy who is the A student in the class turning in a paper clearly a C, and the teacher says, “How could you do this? Why did you mail it in?” I felt the Biden speech was infinitely better, because it was empathic and carried a message, but the Obama speech, I thought was flat and had no content in it. Otherwise, I loved it, really…
KRAUTHAMMER: Well, it is the heart of the debate with Republicans and Romney. The heart of the debate between left and right, since the French Revolution. The individual or community, and he stands for the community, which he translates as government. So with that abstract, a cleverly sealed argument.
But, that is not what you're talking about in an acceptance speech, when you've been in power for four years. People expect you to say I’m going to do X, Y, and Z, and we didn't hear any of that. So, as a philosophical issue, yes, but without any of that meat on the bone, I think it rings quite hollow.
KRAUTHAMMER: I think it does [affect Independents] and I think it's a negative. If you're an independent and aren't a committed person on the left or right. And you were sort of a pragmatist, and you’re listening and the President offers you numbers out of a hat, he wants a lot of this and that. He’s mentioning again and again with wind and solar and algae, but he didn't use a word, he used biofuel. And you say, I’ve heard this, this is nothing new. This, is what he tried, he talked about. Where is the meat to make me think that I should have hope and faith? That we will achieve anything? That is what I think he's lacking. I think for independents, it will send him somewhat backwards.Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke delivered an unusually harsh rebuke to American International Group yesterday, expressing rare public exasperation over having to repeatedly bail it out.
"I think if there's a single episode in this entire 18 months that has made me more angry, I can't think of one, than AIG," said the characteristically reserved central banker.
Bernanke had arrived on Capitol Hill for what was billed as a Senate hearing on the federal budget. Instead, he ran headfirst into a fresh wave of frustration about the latest federal rescue of the wounded insurance giant.
"Mr. Chairman," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked as the hearing began, "at what point will the taxpayer no longer be on the hook for the massive AIG failure? What is the endgame for American taxpayers?"
Bernanke acknowledged that the "AIG situation is obviously a very uncomfortable one." But he maintained that because the company has ties to major financial firms across the globe, its collapse "would be devastating to the stability of the world financial system."
The Fed chairman did his best to counter the lawmakers' frustrations with his own. "I share your concern. I share your anger. It's a terrible situation," he said. "But we're not doing this to bail out AIG or their shareholders, certainly. We're doing this to protect our financial system and to avoid a much more severe crisis in our global economy."
Bernanke said much of his anger stems from the way AIG strayed from its core insurance business and took unmonitored and unnecessary risks through its Financial Products unit, which wrote billions of dollars in exotic derivative contracts that faltered and nearly destroyed the parent company.
"AIG exploited a huge gap in the regulatory system," Bernanke said. "There was no oversight of the Financial Products division. This was a hedge fund, basically, that was attached to a large and stable insurance company, made huge numbers of irresponsible bets -- took huge losses. There was no regulatory oversight because there was a gap in the system."
When Financial Products imploded, it left the government with a dilemma.
"We had no choice but to try to stabilize the system because of the implications that the failure would have had for the broad economic system," Bernanke said. "We know that failure of major financial firms in a financial crisis can be disastrous for the economy."
On Monday, AIG announced a loss of $61.7 billion for the fourth quarter of 2008, the biggest quarterly corporate loss in U.S. history. The federal government simultaneously announced that it would once again restructure the terms of the AIG bailout, which began in September and had grown to a $152 billion total package.
The new deal gives AIG access to another $30 billion in taxpayer funds, eliminates some costly dividend payments and grants the government direct stakes in two of the company's largest insurance subsidiaries.
Yesterday afternoon, during another budget hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee, it was Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner's turn to explain the government's ever-growing rescue of AIG to irate lawmakers.
"AIG is a huge, complex, global insurance company, attached to a very complicated investment bank hedge fund that built -- that was allowed to build up without any adult supervision, with inadequate capital against the risks they were taking, putting your government in a terribly difficult position," Geithner said.
"And your government made the judgment back in the fall that there was no way that you could allow default to happen without catastrophic damage to the American people."Veteran political consultant Rob Stutzman has helped plenty of Republican candidates, from local officials to governors. Now he has teamed up with two equally seasoned GOP strategists to try to stop a Republican they fear will destroy the party for years to come.
That candidate is Donald Trump.
It won’t be easy, considering Trump’s significant lead in statewide polls. But Stutzman and fellow consultants Ray McNally and Richard Temple have a plan that is unorthodox even by this year’s wacky standards.
They are not necessarily promoting Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Ohio Gov. John Kasich or any other presidential candidate. What they are determined to do is keep Trump from securing the 1,237 delegates required for party nomination at the Cleveland convention this summer. Their strategy took shape in recent months as “you could see the arc of this race would very likely come to California,” Stutzman said in a phone interview last week.
And it has. So it’s game on for the stop-Trump movement.
“There’s no question there are voters who want to know what’s the most efficient way to vote for an open convention,” Stutzman said.
As Americans have seen in this primary season — and Trump has complained every time his campaign has been outwitted — delegate-allocation rules vary wildly from state to state and from party to party.
In California, the statewide winner receives only 10 of the 172 available delegates. The bulk of the delegates are awarded to the top vote-getter in each of the 53 congressional districts. A win in a district yields three delegates.
“The reality is, we’re talking about 53 distinct races,” Stutzman said. “That provides some unique opportunities.”
What the Stutzman-McNally-Temple team plans to do is determine — through polling, demographics and other data — which candidate, Cruz or Kasich, has the best chance to defeat Trump in each district. They are raising money (http://victorycalifornia.com) for mailers and social-media campaigns to ensure that anti-Trump Republicans know which alternative has the best chance in their district.
Because neither Cruz nor Kasich has a chance of reaching 1,237 before Cleveland, the only hope for each is to deny Trump a first-ballot victory and hope for a free-for-all on subsequent ballots.
This is where the strategy gets a bit crazy. A relative centrist Republican who supports Kasich but despises Cruz as too rigidly right might be advised to swallow hard and vote for Cruz “to give John Kasich an opportunity on a third or fourth ballot,” Stutzman explained.
Conversely, die-hard Cruz supporters might be encouraged to vote for Kasich in certain districts.
Yet another twist: All Republican votes are not equal in this primary. Congressional District Four, a wide swath of the Sierra from north of Lake Tahoe to south of Yosemite, has 175,000 registered Republicans. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s 12th District has about 30,500 Republicans.
Yet each of those districts will send three delegates to Cleveland.
“If you’re a Republican in Nancy Pelosi’s district, this is the reward you finally get,” Stutzman said. “People are going to pay a lot of attention to you. The irony of that is pretty rich.”
Stutzman initially supported Jeb Bush, then, when he dropped out, turned to Sen. Marco Rubio. When Rubio left the stage, Stutzman’s primary goal became stopping Trump. He acknowledged that Cruz would be a long shot against anticipated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, but at least the senator would preserve much of the Republican base, and avoid huge losses in congressional and legislative races. Polls show that 20 percent of Republicans, said Stutzman, “will not vote for someone who is a misogynist, a liar, a bigot, a vulgarian and appears to not have a grasp of fundamental issues that are required to occupy the Oval Office.”
The anti-Trump GOP consultants’ playbook essentially comes down to this: The enemy of my enemy is my friend, no matter what.
It’s a long-shot quest. One sure prediction: If it succeeds, Trump will cry foul about “stolen delegates” and a “rigged system.” Yet all sides know going into the California GOP primary is that it involves 53 races and great attention to detail.
John Diaz is The San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial page editor. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @JohnDiazChron
The June 7 California primary: A primer
Registration deadline: May 23
You can register online at www.registertovote.ca.gov.
Vote by mail: You can get a vote-by-mail application at the Secretary of State’s website: www.sos.ca.gov.
Ballots will be mailed to voters the week of May 9; they must be received by May 31.
Republican presidential primary
Under party rules, only registered Republicans can vote in this closed primary.
Delegate allocation (172 total): 159 selected on a winner-take-all basis in each of the state’s 53 congressional districts (three per district); 10 go to the statewide winner; the remaining three are reserved for the state party chair and two national committee representatives.
Democratic presidential primary
Under party rules, voters who selected “no party preference” when they registered to vote can request a Democratic ballot and vote in its presidential primary. The Libertarian and American Independent parties also offer that option to unaffiliated voters.
Delegate allocation (475 at stake): Delegates will be awarded proportionate to each candidate’s vote total, with a 15 percent minimum vote to qualify. California also has 73 superdelegates who are not bound by the primary results.
U.S. Senate primary
Under the state’s top-two system (established by voters in 2010), candidates of all parties appear on all ballots. The top two finishers, regardless of party, will compete in the November general election.
Note: The first major debate of the race to succeed Sen. Barbara Boxer is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday at the University of the Pacific in Stockton. Democrats Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez and Republicans Ron Unz, Tom Del Beccaro and Duf Sundheim have confirmed. The Chronicle-KCRA debate will be televised statewide (NBC3 in the Bay Area) with The Chronicle’s John Diaz and KCRA’s Edie Lambert serving as moderators. The Chronicle, KCRA and UOP all plan to live-stream the debate on their websites.Some years ago I started to take photos from my kitchen window of wild red squirrels, and do that still. Normally, I get bored after doing something for a few years, but not with this. I still watch these beautiful animals almost every day and make photos. They come and they go.
I try to bring some magic, wonder and happiness with my work, which are real photos and not Photoshop. Only sometimes I take away a wire or some food. I also put out some videos on Youtube.
As of today I have been published in about 25 newspapers. Articles about my work have appeared on the internet in about 30 countries. 2 books are published, postcards and a Calendar.
More info: 500px.com
Journey
Light head
Easy way to eat
Kiwi seller
2 squirrels seen as 1
This way
Drinking buddies
The photographer
Keeping warm
Shake dance
New journey
Skull eater
Swing
In between
Play with me
Fall
Sawing nuts
Cracking nuts
My outside studioLoyola guard Donte Ingram remembers feeling the court vibrating from the roaring students at Florida as he dribbled the ball. Forward Aundre Jackson said he won’t forget the deafening crowd.
“Donte was trying to call a call and I couldn’t hear him. I could just tell he was screaming,” Jackson said.
“It was crazy,” Ingram echoed. “I lost my voice.”
The Ramblers withstood that wild atmosphere Wednesday night to stage one of the most noteworthy college basketball upsets this season when they toppled the No. 5 Gators. Now the program that has run mostly under-the-radar for decades like so many area college teams is starting to make a little more noise back home in Chicago.
Loyola’s basketball team appears to be the hottest in the state — pro or college — and becoming one local fans finally are starting to pay attention to with a 10-1 record for its best start in 52 years.
“We didn’t go just to have fun and say, ‘Oh, we played Florida,’ ” Ingram said. “We wanted to compete and win. … We just want to keep winning and give people a reason to come see us play and keep taking notice of us.”
The Ramblers avoided a letdown, following up with an 80-52 victory over Norfolk State on Saturday afternoon. They shot 71.4 percent (25 of 35) from the field — the highest percentage in a college basketball game this season and a single-game program record.
As has been a tradition of coach Porter Moser’s since his first head coaching gig at Arkansas-Little Rock in 2000, he and his players rounded the Gentile Arena high-fiving fans, including a crowded student section.
“I’m greedy; I want it full. But I’m telling you there is a loyal group that’s growing of students,” said Moser, remarking on the crowd of 1,904, roughly 2,600 short of capacity for a decent matinee showing two days before final exams.
“It’s the best student involvement we’ve had here in my seven years. In my other six years, on a Saturday before finals, you would have seen about five students in there. Now we have a ton.”
Loyola’s claim to college basketball fame is its 1963 NCAA tournament championship under coach George Ireland. The Ramblers have been to just one NCAA tournament in the last 49 years — a Sweet 16 appearance in 1985 under Gene Sullivan.
Let’s put this in perspective: Ingram, a 6-foot-6 senior out of Simeon, was born in 1996.
Loyola is eager to make its name buzz in Chicago again.
The Ramblers mostly have been on an uphill climb under Moser, who is in his seventh season at the lakeshore campus, though they won 24 games in 2014-15 and captured the CBI Championship. They’re working on improving off last season’s 18-win season when they finished fifth in the Missouri Valley Conference as Moser seems to have broken through with local recruits.
The victory at Florida was the first top-five victory for the Ramblers since 1984 and the first over a ranked opponent since 2009.
Ingram said the players took notice of Northwestern’s historic first NCAA tournament appearance last season.
“Seeing a team like that put a great vibe into the city of Chicago,” he said. “That just gave me motivation. Why not Loyola? Why can’t we have a great season and have people notice us.”
After the upset, players doused Moser with water and Gatorade. (“My dry cleaner got a hefty bill today,” he said.) Players said they had dozens of text messages waiting on their phones after the game. Moser said even friends of his were bombarded with texts about the victory.
And what is a better indicator of a team having arrived than its name popping up on Twitter?
“We were trending,” Jackson said.
They celebrated on the two-hour bus ride back to Orlando before flying home.
This start is one the Ramblers have desired for years, but Moser is making sure to find the equilibrium of success.
“You worry about that when you’re not used to this at this level right now,” he said. “There’s the (Clemson football coach) Dabo Swinney quote, the light shining on them from the outside, you hope the light inside shines brighter. We want to get hungrier. We want to be greedier.”
On that bus ride, Moser texted a recruit. Thursday’s film session, he said, was about “coming back to Earth.”
“Our film session had all the teaching clips of what they didn’t do right against Florida,” he said. “We talk about the process of getting better, getting better, getting better. This doesn’t change. We screwed up three or four switches late in the game. We screwed up three or four box outs. Everything was about getting better. They’re like, ‘But where’s that great shot I had?’ ”
Loyola, which is celebrating its 100th year as a program, also has plenty of good shots to review.
The Ramblers entered Saturday’s game ranked sixth nationally in shooting 52.2 percent from the field. They ranked 14th nationally on 3-pointers at 42.3 percent. Loyola also ranked 30th nationally with 17.7 assists per game.
Six players entered the Norfolk State game shooting at least 50 percent, and five shoot at least 40 percent on 3-pointers. Jackson, a 6-foot-5 senior forward from Kennedale, Texas, entered Saturday shooting 68.9 percent from the field, while making 61.9 percent of his 3-pointers to average 14.7 points per game.
Jackson was ill and vomiting before the Florida game, and (a la Michael Jordan) he shot 10 of 12 from the field for 23 points.
“The biggest thing is the spacing and the ability to make one more pass,” said Moser, a former assistant to late coach Rick Majerus at Saint Louis between head coaching jobs. “We’ve really emphasized the assist. We’ve really emphasized spacing. So many Majerus terms, all these spacing terms, our guys know it. We wanted to recruit guys who could pass, shoot and dribble.”
What makes this streak even more impressive is that the Ramblers’ depth has kept them alive despite injuries.
Loyola is without its starting backcourt. Guard Ben Richardson, a senior from Overland Park, Kan., is out with a broken hand. In the first half at Florida, point guard Clayton Custer, a high school teammate of Richardson’s, suffered an ankle sprain that kept him out of the second half and sidelined him against Norfolk State.
Guard Adarius Avery (Arlington, Tenn.) missed the first eight games after offseason shoulder surgery.There are varying opinions as to how much stock to place in preseason matches. Obviously there is offseason rust to remove and there are chemistry problems to work through, but preseason is more than that. Jobs are won and lost. Field positions can be tested and depth charts can be solidified.
So how important is the Feb. 24 clash between the Indy Eleven and Butler University? Hardly at all. Last season’s preseason matchup versus the Hoosiers was just a first glimpse at the team and it was just a first step toward preparing for the regular season. It was full of wholesale lineup changes and the outcome couldn’t be viewed as an indicator for things to come.
The preseason match against Butler last March was more telling. Indy Eleven failed to dominate a college team at a much later time during the training camp. Indy recovered during the Spring in the 2016 campaign, but a disjointed attack was present during these early friendlies and on into the first tests of the regular season. So preseason is important too.
Look for every healthy player to take the field at some point. Don’t get too caught up in positions or starting lineups either. Look for a massive change at halftime and look for players linking up well. The Eleven were designed as a “defense first” kind of club and that should be easier for them with so many familiar faces returning. Look for the new guys to be trying really hard. Even though there aren’t very many, they should be eager to play. This is their first graded performance in front of the coaching staff and the Indy Eleven faithful.
There are currently 16 players officially rostered for Indy Eleven at this time. There were 23 players under contract at this same time a year ago. Watch for frustrated players. Are they frustrated with their teammates or themselves?
Don’t say that preseason doesn’t matter.
The score doesn’t matter at all, but breakdowns in communication surely do. Indy Eleven head coach Tim Hankinson will not be pleased when assignments are blown and that is nothing new. This game is insignificant. The performances are not. This first runaround will help to set the tone for the weeks to come.
Please let me know what you thought of the game in the comments section below. You can follow me on Twitter @AGunyon.Man decapitated by homemade hovercraft
Posted
A New Zealand man has been decapitated in front of his family while taking a homemade hovercraft on a test run.
Police said the 40-year-old, whose name has not been released, died instantly when he was struck by a propeller blade while using the hovercraft at Muriwai beach, west of Auckland, on Sunday, the New Zealand Herald reported.
The newspaper said it was the first time the man had driven the hovercraft, which he had assembled from a kit.
Fairfax Media said police planned to interview members of the man's family about the death.
"Some of them were present on the beach," Sergeant Colin Nuttall told Fairfax.
The report said an engineer was examining the remains of the hovercraft and the death had been referred to the coroner.
Sergeant Nuttall told the Herald that New Zealand did not have regulations covering recreational hovercrafts, provided they were not used on roads.
AFP
Topics: accidents---other, new-zealandFENTON, Mo. – Saint Louis FC and the Rochester Rhinos will both be looking to snap losing streaks when they meet for the first time since the 2015 USL season on Wednesday night at Toyota Stadium – Saint Louis in a game that was rescheduled to July 5 after its postponement from May 6. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. CT.
Matchcenter: http://bit.ly/2sAwVSM | Tickets: http://bit.ly/2ojZb9J
Saint Louis FC news and notes
Current record: 4-6-3, 15pts
Saint Louis fell 1-0 to the New York Red Bulls II on Saturday afternoon at MSU Soccer Park as the side suffered its third consecutive defeat.
STLFC had not previously suffered defeats in three consecutive league contests, and now sits 13th in the USL Eastern Conference.
Jose Angulo and Christian Volesky have both scored four goals this season for Saint Louis, but no other player has multiple goals this season.
Volesky is one of three former Rhinos currently with STLFC, with Tony Walls and Adam Grinwis also having been part of Rochester’s 2015 USL Cup victory.
Rochester Rhinos news and notes
Current record: 5-3-5, 20pts
Rochester dropped a second consecutive contest on Saturday night as it lost 2-1 to the Charlotte Independence in a weather-affected contest.
The Rhinos’ defeat saw the side dip out of the Eastern Conference playoff places, but a win on Wednesday would put the side comfortably back into the top eight.
Rochester only lost back-to-back matches once in the 2016 season. The last time the side had a three-game losing streak was between Aug. 10-16, 2014.
Rhinos midfielder Wal Fall equaled his goals total from the 2016 regular season on Saturday, with his tally against the Independence being his fourth of the season.
Series Notes
Rochester won both meetings between the clubs when they met in the 2015 USL regular season.
Squads
Saint Louis – GK: Devala Gorrick, Adam Grinwis, Jack Filla; D: Aedan Stanley, A.J. Cochran, Konrad Plewa, Austin Ledbetter, Matt Sheldon, Wes Charpie, Ryan Howe, Erick Cabalceta; M: Sebastian Dalgaard, Dragan Stojkov, Mats Bjurman, Tyler David, Nick Radosavljevic, Octavio Guzman, Ivan Mirkovic, Max Alvarez, Tony Walls, Denis Ahmetovic, Emir Alihodzic; F: Seth Rudolph, Jose Angulo, Christian Volesky, Milan Petosevic
Rochester – GK: Kyle Morton, Tomas Gomez, Dan Lynd; D: Sergio Campbell, Ryan Felix, Joe Farrell, Todd Pratzner, Raymond Lee, Bradley Kamdem, Jordan Dover, Ryan James; M: Wal Fall, Mike Garzi, Kenardo Forbes, Stefan Defregger, Jalen Brown, Antonio Correia, Sofiane Tergou, Rayane Boukemia; F: Darius Madison, Jochen Graf, Samuel Edoung-Biyo, Brandon Beresford, Christiano Francois
Discipline
Saint Louis – Accumulation warning: Dragan Stojkov
Rochester – Accumulation warning: Wal Fall, Ryan Felix
Officials
REF: DULE DJURASEVIC
AR1: Jeffrey Swartzel
AR2: Don Tebeau
4TH: Matthew Rodman
Game hashtag:
#STLvROC
Twitter social handlesAs a professional writer, committed to improving my work, I meet with not one, but two weekly writing groups. The first is made up of New York Times best-selling authors and literary darlings. The other is made up of 7-year-olds. Guess which group cries more?
My grown-up group meets Monday nights in the back room of a gallery full of sharp metal sculptures. Chuck Palahniuk, author of “Fight Club” and cult superstar, likes to take off his shoes and rub his socked feet together as he reads. He prefers SmartWool socks, by the way, made from high-performance merino. Cheryl Strayed, whose memoir, “Wild,” inspired Oprah to bring back her book club, is a chatter; she will chat right up until the moment we start. Monica Drake — Kristen Wiig is adapting her indie novel hit, “Clown Girl,” for the big screen — is almost always five to seven minutes late; you can set your watch by it. Lidia Yuknavitch, author of the freak-pride novel “Dora: A Headcase,” once had a cake made for Chuck’s birthday that cannot be described in a family newspaper. There are nine of us in total. There used to be 10, but there was a fight and someone left.
I meet with the 7-year-olds on Monday mornings, and let me tell you, we drink a lot less wine. The group started out squeezed into a supply closet off the computer room, but now we meet in the school cafeteria, which is an improvement because we don’t have to sit on the floor, though I suspect I’m the only one who really appreciates that. There are six kids who take part, including my daughter. We started out as a reading group. But do you know how boring it is to listen to a bunch of first graders take turns reading “Bunnicula”? I decided to make the kids write stories instead. That way I could play with my iPad.
And so they write. This is one great thing about first graders — they will do what you tell them. Still, when I informed the children that they were going to take turns reading what they’d written out loud, and then the rest of us would give feedback, I expected some protest. After all, I had some experience with this: the first time I read at my Monday night workshop, I almost threw up on Chuck. But the first graders couldn’t wait to read their work aloud.
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At my Monday night group, there is always this complicated dance to figure out the order we’ll read in. Cheryl likes to go first. Chuck likes to go last. The rest of us vary depending on mood and wine intake. But Monday mornings, the kids all want to go first. They want to read aloud every time they complete a paragraph. When it’s time for comments, they instinctively offer praise before going in for the kill. “I really like your story, but I still don’t know what Jungle Girl looks like.”The Cincinnati Bengals have tied their best start in franchise history. In any normal season of the NFL, there would be one, maybe two undefeated teams and Cincinnati could lay claim to being the top squad in the league. So far, this isn't any normal season.
The Bengals are currently tied with five other teams in the NFL with a spotless record. Two of these teams reside in the AFC. The New England Patriots and Denver Broncos also remain undefeated. However, I see Cincinnati as better than both of these teams.
Let's start with the easy one. The Denver Broncos are the least impressive undefeated team we have seen this season. When you talk about luck breaks, the Broncos have cashed in all of theirs to remain undefeated. An insane fumble by Jamaal Charles, a lucky overtime win against Cleveland and close wins against the Ravens, Vikings and Raiders have given Denver their 6-0 record. Their problems start at quarterback where Peyton Manning is playing at a fraction of the level we have been accustomed to seeing. The Bronco's defense has kept them alive and the offense will eventually become a liability.
The Bengals will meet up in Denver with the Broncos in the second to last game of the season, and this could very well be a pivotal, deciding game in the seedings for the post season.
The Patriots have a legitimate case for claiming the title of the top team in the AFC. They should hold the top spot in all power rankings as they are the defending champs and have yet to lose. But, their team is also not inspiring at times. Take a look at how they handled Buffalo earlier this season. They allowed 19 points in the fourth quarter and almost blew the game. New England was also losing at half time to the woeful Colts.
The Bengals are not without their faults. We have seen this team need to climb out of deficits on two occasions this season to remain unbeaten. What is outstanding about the Bengals is they have yet to score less than 24 points in a game and have not given up more than 24 points in a game this season.
The Bengals' offense also ranks:
4th in total points
3rd in points per game
2nd in 3rd down percentage
3rd in yards per game
Strong rankings, on top of that, Cincinnati holds a +60 point differential. This is pretty impressive considering the Bengals have faced the number one offense in the San Diego Chargers. The also faced the Buffalo Bills and held them to 11 less points than the Patriots, in a game also played in Buffalo.
Because the Bengals and Patriots won't face each other during the regular season, though they could face off in the postseason, there is no clear way to distinguish the better squad. The Bengals have a shot this weekend to add another point of comparison as they face the Steelers. This is another common opponent between the two teams.
The obvious strength of the Patriots is quarterback Tom Brady. While Andy Dalton has nowhere near the resume of Brady, this season he is going toe-to-toe with him. At this point in the season, Dalton holds a three point advantage in quarterback rating and almost a full yard better per pass average. He has double the amount of long ball completions and has been sacked 10 less times than Brady.
There are more than the three undefeated teams in the AFC that may lay claim to the AFC crown. However, at this point in the season no other team has less than two losses, so they can be discounted based on that alone. What are your thoughts? Are the Bengals the top squad in the AFC?GENEVA (Reuters) - Homosexuals and transgender people in all regions face discrimination and violence, including killings, rape and torture because of their orientation, and risk the death penalty in at least five countries, the United Nations said on Thursday.
A gay couple hug as they celebrate their one-year wedding anniversary in West Hollywood, June 16, 2009. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
In the first official U.N. report on the issue, it called on governments to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, prosecute all serious violations and repeal discriminatory laws.
“Homophobic and transphobic violence has been recorded in all regions. Such violence may be physical (including murder, beatings, kidnappings, rape and sexual assault) or psychological (including threats, coercion and arbitrary deprivations of liberty),” said the report by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay.
The U.N. Human Rights Council commissioned the report in June when it recognized the equal rights of LGBT people and said there should be no discrimination or violence based on sexual orientation. Western countries called the vote historic but Islamic states firmly rejected it.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a speech to the 47-member forum in Geneva on December 6, said “it should never be a crime to be gay.”
“HIGH DEGREE OF CRUELTY”
In addition to spontaneous “street” violence, people perceived as being LGBT may be targets of more organized abuse, “including by religious extremists, paramilitary groups, neo-Nazis and extreme nationalists,” the U.N. report said.
Violence against LGBT people tends to be especially vicious, with “a high degree of cruelty” including mutilation and castration, it added.
They are also victims of so-called “honor killings” carried out by relatives or community members who believe shame has been brought on the family, according to the 25-page report.
Gay men have been murdered in Sweden and the Netherlands, while a homeless transgender woman was killed in Portugal, it said. Lesbian, bisexual and transgender women in El Salvador, Kyrgyzstan and South Africa have experienced gang rapes, family violence and murder.
Members of sexual minorities are disproportionately subjected to torture, often in custody, the report said.
It cited allegations that in a police station in Indonesia, a man and his male partner were severely beaten and sexually assaulted a day after having been attacked by civilians.
A lesbian couple in Brazil were allegedly beaten at a police station and forced to perform oral sex, according to the report.
Currently 76 countries have laws that are used to criminalize behavior on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, it said, calling for their repeal.
“Such laws, including so-called ‘sodomy laws’, are often relics of colonial-era legislation... Penalties range from short-term to life imprisonment and even the death penalty,” it said.
The sodomy trial of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim ended on Thursday after nearly two years of sensational testimony with the judge saying he would deliver a verdict on January 9, ahead of a general election expected early next year in the mainly Muslim country.
“In at least five countries, the death penalty may be applied to those found guilty of offences relating to consensual, adult homosexual conduct,” the U.N. report said.
It did not identify the countries, but activists named them as Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen. Areas of Nigeria and Somalia also |
formally teams up with Mr. Icahn?” as one invitee asked. Mr. Icahn may be a brilliant investor — he actually doesn’t get enough credit or respect for that — but let’s be honest, he doesn’t use a computer, let alone know how to run Yahoo. And what does it say about Microsoft? The notion that Yahoo’s board would sell the crown jewel, its search business, to Microsoft and then hand over the scraps of the company to Mr. Icahn is, as Roy Bostock, Yahoo’s chairman, said, “absurd and irresponsible.”
(The war of words continued with Mr. Icahn firing back on Monday: “I have yet to see a company distort, omit and twist events and facts in the manner that Yahoo has done.” Separately, Microsoft claimed its proposal “did not include changes to Yahoo’s governance,” though that’s exactly what its partner, Mr. Icahn, was calling for.)
Mr. Yang may once have looked like an entrenched founder unwilling to sell the company, but now it is Microsoft that has those in the deal-making world wondering about its judgment. “At this point, it’s embarrassing,” one technology C.E.O. whispered just out of earshot of Bill Gates. “Ballmer should either buy the company or forget it.”
To the other moguls, it appears as though Microsoft doesn’t have the courage of its convictions — and doesn’t even really seem to know how to proceed.
“If Microsoft called to buy your company, would you call them back?” a media executive asked, incredulously. Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, echoed that view. “Microsoft has a long history of having deals that look quite good and end up looking not so good when you look at the fine print,” he said.
Mr. Yang, dressed in a yellow button-down shirt and khakis, paced around a private room overlooking a duck pond as we spoke. He insisted that he had been prepared to sell the company to Microsoft all along, and practically pleaded with Mr. Ballmer to negotiate a serious deal. Microsoft, he believes, has tried to undermine Yahoo’s business so it can buy the company at a fire-sale price. Judging by Microsoft’s recent actions, it is becoming harder to argue with him. “It is now more clear in hindsight what they wanted to do,” Mr. Yang said.
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One big problem Mr. Yang has is that some of Yahoo’s biggest shareholders — several of whom showed up in Sun Valley, including Bill Miller of Legg Mason and Gordon Crawford of Capital Research — believe that he should have sold the company to Microsoft when it had a $33-a-share offer on the table. On that score, of course, they may be right to be upset.
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But let’s be real: The $33 a share has always been a bit of a misnomer — since the offer was partly in stock, it is worth only $29 and change today.
In less than a month, these shareholders will have a chance to express their displeasure when Yahoo holds its annual meeting — when they will vote on whether to oust the Yahoo board and install Mr. Icahn’s slate. In the days preceding the Sun Valley conference, Mr. Ballmer, for the first time, publicly backed Mr. Icahn, announcing that if the activist investor were able to take control of the board, Microsoft would come back to the negotiating table.
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“We have concluded that we cannot reach an agreement with them,” Microsoft said in a statement last week about the current board. “We confirm, however, that after the shareholder election, Microsoft would be interested in discussing with a new board a major transaction with Yahoo.”
Mr. Yang is incredulous about the statement. “To say he can’t work with this board is ludicrous,” he said.
And there is something to what he is saying: at this point, if Microsoft were serious, why wouldn’t it seek to strike a deal while it had the backing of the company’s founders and the good will of a friendly deal? The timing is perfect. Mr. Yang and the Yahoo board are under so much pressure from disgruntled shareholders like Mr. Miller, they would have no choice but to negotiate a deal. And if Microsoft and Mr. Icahn’s combined offer really is worth $33 a share as they say it is — yes, the math is complicated — then Microsoft should just buy the whole thing and do it itself.
As it happens, the moguls here tended to agree with Mr. Yang’s analysis; namely, that Microsoft may just be trying to play the role of spoiler. “Steve is playing Carl to the hilt,” said one rival mogul, drinking a Scotch and smoking a cigar after midnight. “If Carl gets the board, Steve will buy Yahoo for a song — or watch Yahoo die on Carl’s watch.”
Mr. Miller of Legg Mason, who held court in the back of the bar Tuesday night with Sue Decker, Yahoo’s president; Larry Page, Google’s co-founder; and Terry Semel, Yahoo’s former chief executive, hinted that as upset as he is with Yahoo, he wasn’t yet sure he could support Mr. Icahn. He fears that Mr. Icahn wouldn’t extract a fair price from Mr. Ballmer. “He’d have more shareholder support if he would say he wouldn’t sell the company for less than $33.”
Others, however, appear willing to back Mr. Icahn. Mr. Murdoch said he spoke with Mr. Crawford of Capital Research, who is furious with Yahoo’s board.
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Mr. Yang recently met with Mr. Icahn in his New York office. “We’ve had rational conversations,” Mr. Yang said of the meeting, almost as if he enjoyed the get-together. “He said to me, ‘I like you, but I have to get rid of you,’ ” he recounted with a smile.
Amazingly enough, he seems almost willing to give up the helm if it would help. “This isn’t about me,” he said, with a sense of earnestness. “It’s about what’s going to happen to Yahoo.”
So how did Mr. Yang act so calmly all Thursday and Friday — mingling effortlessly when he knew Mr. Ballmer and Mr. Icahn were off somewhere plotting his demise?
“Sure, it was on my mind,” he told me later. “But I’ve gotten pretty good at compartmentalizing. If you let this sort of situation take over your life, it will. I have a business to run and stockholders to think about.”After an anti-choice protest at his child's school, Todd Stave turns the tables on anti-choice bullies by standing up and fighting back.
Todd Stave. Ricky Cariotti/The Washington Post.
This piece was amended at 3:24 pm on Thursday, July 5th, 2012 to correct the description of Diane Derzis, who is a clinic owner. An earlier version identified her as a clinic worker.
It seemed one of the most unlikely places for an anti-choice protest — a quiet, suburban middle school during back-to-school night. And yet, there they were, pictures of bloody fetuses in hand, and the picture, name, and phone number of Todd Stave, entrepreneur and owner of a Germantown, Maryland building that houses one the most protested clinics in America: the offices of Dr. LeRoy Carhart, of one of the only doctors in America to openly acknowledge that he performs late-term abortions.
This is a fight that is not new to Stave — his father, Carl Stave, was an abortion provider in the era immediately following Roe v. Wade that operated in the very same clinic. The clinic was firebombed and protesters once gathered to demonstrate outside of his father’s house.
But the targeting of his daughter’s school and the subsequent round-the-clock calls to his home were too much for the normally calm, composed Stave, who decided that enough was enough.
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Quietly, he collected names and phone numbers of the protesters and he, along with a small group of friends, decided to turn the tables on those who had for so long been allowed to harass and bully without consequence. Thus, Voice of Choice was born.
Today, Voice of Choice has been featured on the Rachel Maddow Show, NPR, and in the Washington Post. Stave has also been honored by NARAL for his work. Its volunteers are ready and willing to calmly and peacefully make calls, send e-mails, and engage in other forms of direct action against the scores of anti-choice bullies who have become more and more emboldened by the increasing attacks on reproductive freedom.
Most recently, the target was Tony Massey of Denver, Colorado. Massey posted several videos of himself harassing a local restaurant as they delivered food to the Denver Planned Parenthood. In the video, he can be heard yelling things such as, “The killers are keeping you busy!” and “Your company benefits off the murder of little boys and girls!” At one point, the camera focuses on the license plates of the car being used to deliver the food. At the end, viewers are encouraged to contact the owners of Udi’s in protest of their support of the “baby killers.” In response, Voice of Choice encouraged their volunteer base to contact Massey to voice their opinion of his harassment. His home address and phone numbers were provided. In return, almost 500 informed Voice of Choice that they had spoken with or left messages for Massey.
In another recent campaign, a protester named Jeff White was confronted after he had been caught on video physically assaulting an Alabama clinic owner named Diane Derzis as law enforcement looked on and did nothing.
In an environment where many organizations have taken a stance of non-engagement, it is shocking to protesters when some one stands up to their bigotry and misogyny. And they often do not enjoy having their own tactics turned against them. Results have been dramatic and almost immediate, with many of the targets ceasing their harassment.
But they can’t do it without volunteers. Stave estimates that his current numbers stand around 10,000, but he is aiming for ten times that, an army so numerous and far-reaching that it will drown out the voices of hate and misogyny and leave in it’s place an environment where the voice for choice is clear and unmistakable.
Voice of Choice can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.I was very pleased with Dustforce, one of the latest featured indie games on the Steam platform. Its a marriage of precision controls and style with a fantastic soundtrack to boot. I asked creators Hitbox Team if they would like to sit down and answer some questions and they were kind enough to respond. Hit the jump for the full interview!
First off, who all is on your team, where are you from and what did you do before working on Dustforce?
Woodley Nye: I’m the artist/designer on Dustforce. I did animation at college, but worked mostly in 3D. I then spent a lot of time doing absolutely nothing but playing/analyzing games, and then we started prototyping stuff in my mom’s shed.
Lexie Dostal: I do all the game code for Dustforce. I started out making little games in high school, and later went on to study game design at college. A year passed of not learning anything substantial, so I dropped out, but i was lucky enough to meet Matt. Everything I know about making games is self taught or through discussions with our team.
Matt Bush: I’m coding the engine that powers Dustforce, currently in Brisbane, Australia. I went to a game development college for a year where I met Woodley and Lexie before I dropped out. P.S. Don’t go to a game development college, unless you’re going to meet Woodley and Lexie there.
Terence Lee: I’m a developer from Ohio where I studied software engineering and art. I made my own games instead of paying attention to classes. I met the rest of the team when they came to the US for a contest they won with an early version of Dustforce. I joined them shortly afterwards to work on the sound and music for the game.
Could you summarize what sort of game Dustforce is to you? What’s your “elevator pitch” to people who have never heard of it?
Terence: Dustforce is a game about elegantly maintaining your momentum in precarious situations. The context of this is a 2D platformer where you play as an acrobatic janitor, sweeping off dust from the walls, ceiling, and objects.
What was your major inspiration(s) for creating Dustforce? Any games, movies, books, music or even life experiences that might have influenced it?
Terence: Our primary inspirations for Dustforce are Super Smash Bros Melee, Nikujin and N. I think Dustforce is unique in how it combines maneuverability and combat in a way that rewards successful play with a satisfying, unbroken sense of flow.
After playing Dustforce, I felt like the game was incredibly challenging, how hard do you think this game should feel to a new player?
Terence: Dustforce is intended to be quite difficult, because we wanted it to be a game about real player growth. Older games used to push players to their limits – likewise, we want players to really feel like they are actually getting better at the game instead of just luckily stumbling through it after enough brute force. Getting the full experience of the game isn’t just encountering all of the levels, art, and music – the full experience is the journey of earning it all.
When I was doing my review of the game I kept coming back to Sonic the Hedgehog, I felt like this game really “gets” that style of fast-paced, yet difficult platforming. Are you fans of Sonic and/or was it any sort of influence, or is this just coincidental?
Terence: We didn’t really look to Sonic for inspiration – instead of speed, we were more focused on maneuverability and precision.
On another personal note while playing, I wasn’t feeling the game completely until I hooked up my game controller to it, suddenly the game just made sense and the controls were much smoother. Do you have any plans to port this to consoles such as through the Xbox Live Arcade or PSN where a controller would be native?
Terence: We’re still working on adding in other features, like the level editor and Mac and Linux versions. We’re not at the point yet to be thinking about console versions, but we’ll get there soon.
Now that your game is released, is there anything you would have added, changed or just done differently?
Terence: We are happy with the choices we made, given the limited time and manpower that we had. In our next projects, we hope to prototype our ideas more – there were a few instances where we used up a lot of time on some ideas that didn’t end up being fun enough to make it into the game.
What has it been like working with Steam as your distributor? Any good or bad experiences?
Matt: Working with Valve has been good – it was pretty simple to get everything discussed and set up, meaning we could focus more on just making the game.
The music for this game is incredible and I can already hear people clamoring for the soundtrack (myself included), do you have any plans for one? And on a related note, have you produced anything outside of this game in terms of music?
Terence: Thanks! Yes, the soundtrack is now available at Bandcamp here: http://lifeformed.bandcamp.com. Dustforce is my first finished musical project – I will definitely have more in the future.
Lastly, I know its a little early, but what’s next in store for Hitbox? Have you made any plans for another game or even a follow-up to Dustforce?
Lexie: Matt is working on the Mac and linux builds, so they should be out shortly. We plan on releasing the level editor and some more levels in an upcoming update, as a way of saying thanks to the public for supporting us. After that, who knows? We have a lot of game ideas that we want to work on, but we will see where the road leads us.
Thank you to everyone at Hitbox for taking the time to answer my questions and best of luck to all your future endeavors! You can find Dustforce on Steam for $9.99!
AdvertisementsThere were protests in and outside the Missouri home of the St. Louis Rams on Sunday as tensions remain high almost a week after a grand jury declined to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of unarmed Michael Brown in August.
Five St. Louis Rams players stood with their arms raised in a show of solidarity for Ferguson protesters before trotting onto the field for pregame introductions at the Edward Jones Dome.
A Rams spokesman said on Sunday that the team was not aware the gesture had been planned before the game against the Oakland Raiders.
Scroll down for video
Solidarity: St. Louis Rams wide receiver Stedman Bailey (12), wide receiver Tavon Austin (11), tight end Jared Cook (89), wide receiver Chris Givens (13) and wide receiver Kenny Britt (81) put their hands up to show support for Michael Brown before Sunday's game against the Oakland Raiders at the Edward Jones Dome
Symbolic: The gesture also made another appearance after the Rams' Tre Mason, left, scored a touchdown and was congratulated by Kenny Britt
Tensions still high: Police and Missouri National guard stand outside the Edward Jones Dome before the start of Sunday's game between the St. Louis Rams and the Oakland Raiders
Injustice? St. Louis Rams wide receiver Tavon Austin (11) puts his hands up to show support for Michael Brown before a game against the Oakland Raiders
Flare-up: Police arrest a protester in St. Louis following an NFL football game between the St. Louis Rams and the Oakland Raiders on Sunday as protests continued following a grand jury's decision not to indict Darren Wilson
Dragged away: The female protester is removed from the scene by police offers before the St. Louis Rams and Oakland Raiders played on Sunday
Detained and cuffed: Police arrest protest organizer Derrick Robinson as demonstrations against the failure to indict Officer Darren Wilson continued in St. Louis
Help: A clergy member assists a protester as he is arrested and left on the ground near to the St. Louis Rams and Oakland Raiders game on Sunday
Wide receivers Tavon Austin and Kenny Britt came out together first, with the move obscured by a smoke machine in the upper reaches of the stadium.
Stedman Bailey, Jared Cook and Chris Givens - all of whom are black - then came out and stood together with arms raised.
After Tre Mason scored on an 8-yard run to make it 45-0 in the fourth quarter, the gesture made another appearance when he and Britt raised their hands together.
There have been riots, looting and buildings burned in Ferguson since Monday’s grand jury verdict.
Confrontation: Tensions were high between Rams and Raiders fans on Sunday before the game in St. Louis
Frustrations: Demonstrators protest outside the Edward Jones Dome in downtown St. Louis, Missouri on November 30, 2014
Taken away: One protester is arrested by St. Louis Police outside the stadium on Sunday before the game began
United: Demonstrators protest outside the Edward Jones Dome in downtown St. Louis, Missouri on November 30, 2014
Some cheer: Oakland Raider fans Joe and Trisha Morrow, (right), take a photo with members of the Natural Guard on Sunday
Grievances: Demonstrators marched through the streets of St. Louis that eventually led to clashes with police officers and fans of an American Football game between the St. Louis Rams and Oakland Raiders
Prepared: Police in riot gear respond to Michael Brown shooting protesters outside of the Edward Jones Dome during the NFL game between the Oakland Raiders and St. Louis Rams
Protest: St. Louis Rams wide receiver Kenny Britt (81) puts his hands up to show support for Michael Brown before a game against the Oakland Raiders at the Edward Jones Dome
Activism: Across the street from the stadium, about 75 protesters gathered in the second half as about 30 police wearing riot gear watched from a safe distance
Across the street from the stadium, about 75 protesters gathered in the second half as about 30 police wearing riot gear watched from a safe distance.
Protesters chanted ‘Hands up, don't shoot!’ ‘No Justice, No Football!’ ‘This is what Democracy looks like,’ and ‘We're here for Mike Brown.’
The Rams had additional security measures in place for the game, including armed personnel from the National Guard. The team has wanded fans outside entrances all season.
Earlier in the week there had been reports that the game might be moved because of the protests.
In the end, the game remained in St. Louis giving the Rams the opportunity to show a sign of solidarity to the hometown crowd.
Michael Brown Sr. arrives for services at The Flood Christian Church on November 30, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown
Scouting: About 30 police wearing riot gear watched the protesters from a safe distance outside the Edward Jones DomeI’d heard for a long time about the usefulness of sending out newsletters, or monthly emails to your customers to drive sales. I’ve also been on the receiving end of overly obnoxious amounts of emails from websites that I’d bought from in the past. The thing I worried about the most, was balancing between piquing people’s interests and the thin line of not being a nuisance.
Some people told me that newsletters have not worked for them. They told me it didn’t seem to bring in customers and was a waste of time. They are wrong.
So far I’ve sent out two newsletters, one a month, and both times my views spiked huge within the 24 hour period of it being sent. Also I’ve had sales on both occasions which customers stated were directly due to the newsletter. Not bad.
As of today I have a little over 300 people on my mailing list. I sent my last newsletter out on a Monday and had a 39% open rate. That may not sound like much, but the industry average is around 18%. It generated some repeat business, and some friendly emails from customers.
A newsletter only takes the slightest of effort, and as long as you don’t overwhelm your customers, it’s a great way to advertise yourself. Not sure how to get started? I’ll walk you through it.
First step, is to go into your etsy account and edit your policies to say something like this: When you make a purchase I add you to my very infrequent mailing list, which you can opt out of at any time. Your customers will become your mailing list recipients.
Next, open an account at www.mailchimp.com. They make the whole process of starting a newsletter pain-free. Once your account is all set up, you can easily add all of the email addresses from your customers into a mailing list.
Once you have your list built, you’ll be ready to send out your first newsletter, or campaign as mailchimp calls it. To get started you need to choose a template based on how you want the layout of the email to appear. There are numerous styles to choose from, or if you have the chops (I don’t) you can build your own.
At this stage you choose images, build links, and write text to make the best newsletter you can. Mine looked like this:
Mailchimp makes it easy and painless from your end, and if your customer doesn’t want to receive newsletters anymore, it is incredibly simple to unsubscribe.
I add a coupon code at the bottom of my email to give my loyal customers a discount, and also to let them know they are part of an exclusive group.
If you have any questions let me know. You can find me at This Charming Man Cave on Etsy.
AdvertisementsBehind every successful supreme leader there’s a very rich successful investment banker. Or, for their joint appearance on The One Show, beside her. Philip looked relatively happy to be on the sofa chatting to Matt Baker and Alex Jones. Theresa could hardly have appeared more awkward if she tried.
Baker broke the ice with a gentle loosener. How hard was it being the husband of the supreme leader? Here was Philip’s moment to reveal all. To say it was a complete misery spending hour after hour with a woman whose only conversation was ‘strong and stable’. Instead he chose to remain loyal. “There’s give and take,” he said. “I get to choose when to put the bins out.” Philip is clearly a man whose sense of humour doesn’t get many chances to shine.
“There are boys jobs and girls jobs,” simpered Theresa. Immediately we were right back in a 1960s chat show. A world where men were boys and women were girls. She didn’t specify what the girls’ jobs were. Other than being supreme leader.
Jones then asked about why the supreme leader had changed her mind on her walking holiday in Wales about holding an election. Theresa couldn’t really come out and say, “What would you have done if you found yourself 20 points ahead in the polls?” so she muttered something about doing the country a favour. “What was the drive back to London like?” asked Baker. The supreme leader gave this some thought. The traffic had been quite light on the A5 all things considered but there had been a bit of a snarl up on a contraflow on the M1 outside Luton.
Theresa May had wanted to be prime minister for years, husband says Read more
With the interview dying on its feet and most viewers thinking it a pity Philip wasn’t the prime minister, Baker announced he was going to stop talking about politics because he wanted to get to know the supreme leader a bit better. “Will we be leaving Eurovision?” he asked. The supreme leader was momentarily blindsided as Lynton Crosby hadn’t given her a script for this. “No,” she said eventually. “But I’m not sure how many points we will get.” She didn’t appear to be aware that it was a longstanding tradition for Britain to get next to none.
After a short break, the supreme leader went on to say she had met lots of different people from all walks of life while she was growing up in the vicarage but despite that had set her heart on being a Conservative MP. “It’s been said you wanted to be prime minister from a very young age,” Jones observed.
“I don’t recognise that,” the supreme leader replied.
“I only heard her saying she wanted to be prime minister when she joined the shadow cabinet,” said Philip, not altogether helpfully. The supreme leader shot him a death stare. Revealing she had had her eyes on the top job since 1999 wasn’t necessarily the look she was hoping for.
To compensate, the supreme leader went full Maybot. “The country needs strong and stable government. The country needs strong and stable leadership. I came from a strong and stable family. The country needs stability.” A look of quiet desperation crossed Philip’s face and several million people at home felt his pain. They really didn’t know how he did it.
“We’ve found some old footage of Philip from the 1980s,” said Baker. Had anyone at The One Show bothered to turn up the volume it could have been TV gold as the camera had caught Philip delivering a personal hymn to the European Union. But the moment passed silently and both Theresa and Philip breathed a little easier.
By now, Baker was looking at his watch. Even by the anodyne standards of an early evening magazine show this was desperate. Philip tried to liven things up but the supreme leader somehow managed to kill every exchange stone dead. Yes he had thought she was a lovely girl when he first met her. The supreme leader had felt much the same. “Very stable, very stable,” she said.
“This is turning into an episode of Mr and Mrs,” said the helpless Baker. It wasn’t. It was even worse. Did the red box ever make it into the bedroom? The supreme leader didn’t think it had. Though she couldn’t rule it coming into the bedroom at a later stage. As long as it was strong and stable enough.
“I do like ties. And jackets,” said Philip, trying to fill dead air.
“That’s all we’ve got time for,” sobbed a relieved Jones, as Theresa and Philip scuttled away, pleased to have got off relatively unscathed.
Five years previously Baker had made a name for himself by asking David Cameron the killer question, “How do you sleep at night?” There was no need to ask it tonight. The answer was obvious. By playing back recordings of her TV appearances.The Pew Research Center, or PRC, is in the process of exploding one of the most persistent and misguided myths to overtake American political discourse in many a long year—the idea, bandied around with abandon of late, that Washington has somehow divorced itself from the American people in becoming polarized and dysfunctional. An extensive Pew survey now makes clear that the polarization emanates from the people themselves, and Washington’s dysfunction is merely a reflection of that political reality.
The Pew survey, based on a scientific sample of some 10,000 Americans on a wide array of political views and values, was described on Thursday in a Wall Street Journal article by Alan Murray, PRC president. As described by Murray, the survey results demonstrate not only that political polarization in America isn’t merely a growing reality of national political sentiment, but a product also of deepening political passions across the political spectrum—and not just from the right.
“The majority of Americans may not be getting the politics they want,” writes Murray. “But growing minorities have taken clear sides in the political battle, see high stakes in the outcome and are filled with passionate intensity.”
The Pew data, which rely on questions Pew has posed to Americans for two decades, indicate that the percentage of American voters who adhere consistently to liberal or conservative views has doubled since 1994, from 10 percent to 21 percent. More than twice as many Republicans and Democrats express a “very unfavorable” opinion of the other party as did so two decades ago. Further, a majority of these “strong partisans” believe the other side poses a “threat to the nation’s well being.”
Pew’s ten-question index used to assess ideological views demonstrated that liberal thinking has coalesced at least as much as conservative thinking. Democrats holding consistently liberal views have more than quadrupled in twenty years, from 5 percent to 23 percent. Republicans with similarly consistent conservative views have fluctuated in number over the same period—13 percent in 1994, 6 percent in 2004 and 20 percent this year.
As Murray writes, “Those in the ideological wings remain a minority. But they are a growing minority, and more than in recent history they are driving American politics.” He notes they are more likely to vote, make campaign contributions, contact members of Congress or work in campaigns. And 38 percent of politically engaged Democrats now hold consistently liberal views, up from just 8 percent in 1994, while 33 percent of politically engaged Republicans are consistent conservatives, up from 23 percent in 1994 and just 10 percent in 2004.
Murray explains that the Pew surveys to date don’t address the causes for this “political fracturing of the American public.” He notes that speculation has focused on the rise in partisan media and negative political messaging, the coming together of like-minded people through social media, congressional gerrymandering and closed political primaries. But whatever the cause, the phenomenon is clear. The electorate, and not just Washington, has been fracturing—and the pressure is coming from both sides of the political spectrum.
This debunks a great deal of commentary of recent years, reflected perhaps most starkly in a 2012 book entitled It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism, by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein. The authors wrote, “The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”
The Mann-Ornstein thesis was based on two perceptions that have been exploded by the Pew study—that the problem was largely a Washington phenomenon and reflected a disconnect between the politics of Washington and the politics of the country; and that it was largely a product of one party that had gone berserk.
It is perhaps easier psychologically to view this polarization through the prism of villainy, as Mann and Ornstein do. But it doesn’t enhance one’s understanding of what’s going on in American politics.
What’s going on is the emergence of issues and sensibilities that are driving deep wedges through the American polity. These issues aren’t manufactured by the people who may happen to disagree with you, but rather are a product of our time and of events and developments that the American people view in divergent ways—and with growing intensity and alarm. These include social issues such as abortion and gay marriage, the role of government in the economy ( particularly with the nation now grappling with the Affordable Care Act ), the role of America in the world, the keys to the nation’s economic well-being—and most of all, immigration.
Immigration represents the epicenter of this polarization and offers an interesting picture of how one side seeks to delegitimize the other, a la Mann and Ornstein. After Virginia’s representative Eric Cantor lost his primary reelection bid this week —in large part, it seems, from the immigration issue—Democratic representative Steve Israel of New York said the result showed that the GOP was, as the Wall Street Journal put it, “out of the mainstream of most voters.” Said Israel : “I always knew the Republican Party was veering to the right. I never thought they’d be pulled this far to the right.”
How does it become a “far right” position to wish to protect U.S. borders from illegal immigration? And how does it become a “mainstream” position to accept such illegal incursions as a normal and acceptable phenomenon of the world we live in? Even as Virginians in Cantor’s district were voting, the country was beginning to grapple with the phenomenon of thousands of child immigrants flowing across the U.S. southern border, apparently in response to President Obama’s 2012 campaign statement that he would stop deporting illegal immigrants who came here as children. Though the promise did not apply to those arriving after 2007, it sent an alluring message to children of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras who were very poor and very desirous of a new life.
According to one report, the number of illegally crossing children apprehended in the United States annually before 2011 was about 6,000. Since October 2013, about “ 50,000 unaccompanied children have illegally moved into the U.S. through the Rio Grande Valley,” and next year, the total could reach over 140,000. Rather than send these illegals back across the border, the Obama administration is transporting them into the American heartland, creating processing facilities in California, Arizona and Oklahoma. The administration has asked for a $2 billion appropriation next year to handle the situation.
Arizona governor Jan Brewer has taken aim at the administration for these policies, which bid to become another American political flashpoint and another political fiasco for the president. “This is a crisis of the federal government’s creation,” she said, “and the fact that the border remains insecure—now apparently intentionally—while this operation continues full-steam ahead is deplorable.”
This is polarization in distilled form, just the sort of thing that generates the level of political asperity seen in the Pew study—and the kind of political sputtering we’ve been seeing in Washington for some time.
Our system of government is a presidential system, for good or ill, and history tells us that times such as these, when polarization and governmental dysfunction reign, can be ameliorated only through presidential leadership, the kind that creates new political paradigms that breed new clusters of political thinking and thus, new political coalitions. No president can succeed in this if he takes on the thinking of Mann-Ornstein or the antipodal outlook of the extreme Tea Party adherents. Until such a man or woman emerges, the polarization reflected in the Pew study—and Washington’s resultant breakdown—will continue to intensify.
Robert W. Merry is political editor of The National Interest and the author of books on American history and foreign policy. His most recent book is Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians.Many of you will remember the unprecedented May 2015 JW Broadcasting episode in which Governing Body member Stephen Lett disclosed a shortfall between anticipated income and expenditure.
Witnesses were urged to give of their “valuable things” to offset this shortfall and make important construction projects possible. The Bible account of Israelites parting with their gold and silver for the construction of the tabernacle was invoked as a comparison.
Even Caleb and Sophia have been enlisted by the Governing Body to urge Witness children to part with their ice cream money for “kingdom interests.”
Fast forward to the winter of 2016, and a new picture is emerging of how some of these “valuable things” have been spent. Watchtower’s new World Headquarters at Warwick is now complete a year ahead of schedule, and it is already clear that no expense has been spared on its construction. Even the drain covers, it would appear, have been customized to feature the Watchtower logo, as this picture uploaded to Instagram reveals:
In my new book, I tell of how I once wrote to Watchtower as a 20-year-old pioneer to ask about the extensive use of the Watchtower logo in literature and videos, not to mention on Kingdom Halls and Watchtower facilities. It struck me as a direct contravention of the organization’s stance on idolatry, since according to the Scriptures God’s people are not to make “any carved image having the form of any symbol.” (Deuteronomy 4:16)
I no longer have the letter I received in response, but it went something along the lines of “we don’t worship the Watchtower symbol, and anyway it’s ok because Solomon’s temple had pomegranate sculptures on it for artistic purposes.” (Interestingly, the same reasoning can be found in a 2004 Watchtower article.)
Of course, I didn’t buy it. Any image used in a religious context could be argued as contravening the rules on idolatry expressed in Deuteronomy, and no appeals to ornamental fruit on Solomon’s temple could change that. I was, however, somewhat relieved when, about ten years later, rules were introduced to the effect that Kingdom Halls were no longer permitted to display the Watchtower symbol. I was an elder at the time, and it seemed a step in the right direction.
Now, it seems, the organization of 2016/2017 |
wanted to propose because he didn't want to miss out so he arranged a more traditional proposal a few weeks later.
I guess we technically both proposed to each other but I did it first! We got married in September.
The big surprise: Flavia Massucatto - Sorocaba, Brazil
Image copyright DeJota Foto e Video
There is a bar called Berlin in Sorocaba which Diogo and I always frequented. There is a big square in front of the bar so I decided to propose there.
On the night of the proposal, I arrived at the bar with Diogo and some friends who knew about the surprise.
Then I invented an excuse and left the bar. I went to the square where all our family and friends were hiding with heart balloons, photographers, and a microphone and sound system.
I'd already agreed things with the owner of the bar - a waiter came to the table and told Diogo his car was involved in a crash outside. So he left the bar to check on his car - and to his surprise, saw all of our family and friends there, and me proposing to him.
Image copyright DeJota Foto e Video Image caption Diogo left the bar expecting to see his car damaged...
Image copyright DeJota Foto e Video Image caption...and instead encountered his family and friends - and a proposal from his girlfriend
I was very very nervous but very happy too. I didn't get down on one knee because I was wearing a dress but I was very sincere.
Diogo was always a special man for me - he is a great person, a great son, a great brother and a great friend. I thought he deserved a special moment.
He was surprised - he told me that he never thought I would propose. It was so exciting and cute, and a few months later, we got married.
The pizza proposal: Jenny Fawson - Briton currently living in Bochum, Germany
Image copyright Jenny Fawson
Simon and I were going home after a weekend with married friends.
We were walking along the main road in the dark and the rain, and trying to figure out what takeaway to get. We were deciding between McDonald's and Pizza when I just said, "Should we get married?"
I felt a little nervous as I asked but it was very spontaneous - you feel a rush, a bit of a release, and it's very exciting.
Simon was surprised, but he said "Yes" and we kissed. Then we went home and sat at home eating pizza, both a bit stunned and overwhelmed by what had just happened!
We'd talked about marriage early on in our relationship, but we both knew that he was ready and I needed some more time, so it was probably always me who'd have to propose.
Seeing friends who had been married for a few years and seeing how it had worked for them made me look afresh at marriage and decide to revisit the idea.
Nearly derailed by a snowstorm: Emily Vana - Pittsburgh, US
Image copyright Emily Vana Image caption Emily Guhl and Emily Vana (right)
My fiancee, Emily Guhl, is more traditional than me, so I felt it was important to her for me to get down on one knee and propose.
I spent a long time saving up money for the ring. We're pretty aware of each other's finances and pay all our bills together, so if a large amount of money went missing she would have known.
We are both originally from Chicago, so I planned a weekend back there for the two of us in January 2015.
Emily loves skylines, so we booked flying lessons with a private plane and I was going to propose to her in the air. However, it being Chicago, a giant snowstorm derailed that plan.
We ended up going down to the planetarium, which has the most amazing view of the skyline. I set up my phone to take automatic pictures, and got down on one knee and proposed.
Image copyright Emily Vana
It was definitely nerve-wracking - not because I wasn't sure what Emily would say, but because I felt so much pressure to do something memorable.
It ended up working out well - we're getting married in April.
'I proposed with a fruit pastille' - Kimberley Evans, Cambridge, UK
Image copyright Kimberley Evans
Nicholas and I were on holiday in Croatia and decided to go up this mountain path. Two and a half hours of climbing later there were stunning views, and we decided we wouldn't go any further.
We sat down, and it was just beautiful. The view was fantastic, we were all on our own, and I realised this was the perfect moment.
So I asked him: "Do you want to get married so we can do this more often?"
I didn't have anything prepared because I hadn't planned to propose to him - so I proposed with a fruit pastille!
I didn't have time to be nervous. I went from thinking, "This would be a perfect time to ask," to asking him, in the space of about two seconds.
Image copyright LinaandTom.com
When we walked back down the mountain we talked about all the other various proposals we'd thought about that didn't happen.
I had thought about making a cake and having it written on the cake, and we had both thought of proposing at a gig we went to before our holiday but they didn't play our song.
Everyone was really happy we were engaged, although apparently one of my aunts was horrified because women proposing isn't the done thing, apparently!
Plenty of people have asked him if he felt surprised I proposed and he said both yes and no because somehow it just felt right.
Wedding photographs courtesy of Akio Iwano Photography, Callum Pinkney Photography, DeJota Foto e Video and LinaandTom.com
For one day only
Image copyright Paul Popper/Popperfoto
Throughout history it has been traditional for men to propose to women, but once every four years, on 29 February, women were "allowed" to propose to men. Test your knowledge about this leap year tradition with our quiz.
Why did women only get one day to propose?
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.Ras Abu Aboud Stadium
Client: Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy
Location: Ras Abu Aboud Road
Size: 120.500
Spectators: 40.000
Fenwick Iribarren together with Schlaich Bergermann Partner and Hilson Moran were commissioned by the Supreme Committee to design Ras Abu Aboud Stadium. It will be the first ever demountable, transportable and reusable stadium in the World & the third stadium FIA has developed for the Qatar 2022 World Cup. The stadium has a capacity of 40.000 y and its structure is based on shipping containers which can be easily assembled or disassembled as required
Following the World cup, the stadium can be dismantled by section or in parts and be transported to other host cities for the next World Cup, helping make it more sustainable and financially viable for other countries.(UPDATED) A memorandum circular prohibits government officials from entering casinos 'in view of its negative effect on the public perception of government service'
Published 6:54 PM, September 06, 2017
MANILA, Philippines (2nd UPDATE) – Presidential Communications Assistant Secretary Mocha Uson performs at a bar inside a casino even if this is against President Rodrigo Duterte's own memorandum circular.
Rappler confirmed with the staff of Bar 360, a bar on the ground floor of Resorts World Manila's casino, that Uson has been performing there almost every week.
In fact, Uson's last performance was on Tuesday, September 5, confirmed a service ambassador of the establishment in a phone call with Rappler on Wednesday.
The staff said when Uson cannot make it to the Tuesday performances, the group performing is referred to as Mocha Babes instead of Mocha Girls.
A Bar 360 event poster on the Resorts World website promotes the Mocha Girls' upcoming performance on September 12.
There are also Facebook videos of her performance and Facebook photos of patrons of Bar 360 in which they are posing with Uson.
Bar 360 is located on the ground floor of Resorts World's gaming area and is surrounded by slot machines.
An Office of the President memorandum circular prohibits government officials and employees from being seen inside a casino.
Memorandum Circular Number 6 states that if any government official or personnel enters a casino, it will be considered "conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service."
Signed by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, the order states that penalties should be imposed "in view of its negative effect on the public perception of government service."
The document reiterates an older Memorandum Circular, signed in 1986, which directs "all heads of ministries, bureaus and offices, government-owned or controlled corporations and local governments, including the AFP, to reiterate the prohibition against officials and employees under them from going to the casinos."
In the 2016 memorandum circular, heads of government agencies are ordered to "remind and reiterate" the prohibition to their personnel and to impose penalties.
According to a Malacañang source, Secretary Martin Andanar, Uson's superior, knows that she performs at gigs as part of Mocha Girls, and has given her his permission.
Aside from performing at Resorts World, Uson supposedly also has gigs at places like Cowboy Grill and Punchline Comedy Bar.
It is not clear, however, if Andanar knows that Uson performs inside casinos. He is yet to respond to reporters' requests for comment.
Resorts World Manila management said in a statement that it asks those who perform to comply with all government regulations.
"Resorts World Manila has advised its entertainment providers to strictly comply with all relevant laws and regulations," they said. – Rappler.comHollywood stars love nothing more than lecturing the American people on how we should vote and how we should live our lives. Since Donald Trump won the presidential election, Hollywood A-listers have been acting like they are disgusted with the American public and as if they are better than all of us. Now, however, a major Hollywood pedophilia scandal is finally on the precipice of blowing wide open:
The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating a rumored Hollywood pedophile ring after Corey Feldman filed a formal police report identifying the men he claims sexually abused him as a child. 'Corey Feldman filed a report with the Los Angeles Police Department. There is no further information at this time, and his report is being investigated,' a spokesperson told DaillyMail.com on Tuesday. Feldman revealed he had filed a report on Monday. 'IMPORTANT CAMPAIGN UPD8: I JUST COMPLETED A FORMAL SIT DOWN INTERVIEW W @LAPDHQ SPECIAL DIVISION, & GAVE THEM ALL THE INFO I KNOW! THIS WAS OFFICIALLY THE 1ST FORMAL REPORT EVER TAKEN ON ANY OF MY CASES, AS SBPD NEVER FOLLOWED UP BACK IN 1993, & HAS NO RECORD OF MY COMPLAINTS,' wrote an animated Feldman on Twitter. He then added: 'THE LAPD WILL BEGIN AN OFFICIAL INVESTIGATION NOW! THINGS R HEATING UP, IM PRAYING 4 SAFETY!'... Feldman said on The Dr Oz Show last Thursday that his former assistant Jon Grissom was the first to take advantage of him in the 1980s, adding that the man still posts photos of him online. 'This guy on his My Space page and his Facebook page has got pictures of me and Corey Haim,' Feldman said during the interview. 'He still taunts it and flaunts it.' Dr. Oz then revealed that Grissom, who is now living in Mexico, has a long history of criminal behavior. 'Everything from assault, theft, drugs … in 2001 he was arrested on child molestation charges … he was found guilty in 2003 and served time in prison,' said an attorney forthe program in a video posted to Facebook. Feldman also named former child talent manager and convicted sex offender Marty Weiss, who had revealed in the past. The actor has told multiple media outlets last week that he reported members of a supposed Hollywood pedophile ring back in 1993 with the Santa Barbara Police Department.
Hollywood actors and actresses love to rail against Trump and his supporters, yet they themselves have been turning a blind eye to a pedophilia ring for decades.
Modern entertainers seem to think it is their duty to speak out about politics and tell their fans how to vote. For example, top actress Meryl Streep was a major Hillary Clinton supporter who has spent the past year speaking out against Trump and those who voted for him like it is her job. Meanwhile, Streep praised Hollywood rapist Harvey Weinstein as a "God" when she accepted her last Academy Award, and gave a standing ovation at the Oscars one year to director Roman Polanski, who was convicted of raping a 13 year-old girl in the 1970s. Streep loves to lecture Americans about issues that have nothing to do with her, yet she, until now, refused to speak up against the evil happening right in front of her in her own industry.
It's time that Hollywood celebrities take a good, hard look in the mirror and do some self-reflection. Instead of bashing Americans for voting for Trump and forcing leftwing causes down their fans' throats, perhaps they should stop enabling the horrific behavior that is happening right in their own backyards.
What do you think about this? Sound off in the comments section below.SEOUL -- LG Display said Thursday that it had started mass production of OLED light panels, targeting premium automakers that want to use the latest display technology for rear lights in their vehicles, and capitalizing on their flexibility to provide a wealth of new design opportunities.
"Our key market is the automotive sector, which is very interested in adopting OLED light panels in its back lights," said Park Sung-soo, a vice president at the company, in a press briefing. "Our first product is installed in Mercedes-Benz's S-Class Coupe."
The announcement comes as LG Display is expanding its OLED panel technology into the mobile phone sector, beyond the TV display market where it dominates. The company has almost 100% market share of the OLED TV panels sector, and plans to reach into the mobile OLED panel market, following its local rival Samsung Display.
LG said that it had invested 150 billion won ($136.5 million) in setting up its Generation 5 production line in South Korea's southeastern industrial city of Gumi, producing 15,000 sheets of 1,100mm to 1,250mm size per month. This is about 30 times the capacity of the previous Generation 2 line, which produced 4,000 sheets of 370mm to 470mm per month.
LG Display's OLED light panel
Park said that the company was also in talks with two other German automakers, but declined to name them. He was confident that the company would enjoy more demand from automakers as self-driving technology is developing quickly. "There will be huge markets for interior lights for autos as people will enjoy more activities when autonomous driving is possible."
The company aims to post 200 billion won of revenues from the panels by 2019, according to Park. He added that they planned to increase production capacity by 90,000 sheets later, if they can draw more orders from manufacturers.
New OLED lighting products are being sold by under a new brand, Luflex, a blend of the words "lux" and "flexibility," according to the company.
The company said that OLED light panels offered high commercial potential because they were kinder on the eyes than fluorescent and LED lighting, and emitted light that was similar to sunlight, as well as offering great uniformity in their luminescence.
"That is why our OLED light panels are selling well among parents who care about the eyes of their children," said Bruce Yoon, head of the company's OLED light sales team. "They are willing to pay more for the products as they understand it is better for their children."(CNN) Three of the four people who have been indicted in connection to a massive hack of Yahoo accounts are now on top of the FBI's Most Wanted list for cyber crimes.
The Department of Justice announced Wednesday that four individuals had been indicted after the hack affected at least 500 million Yahoo accounts. One of the defendants, Karim Baratov, 22, was arrested in Ancaster, Ontario, on Tuesday.
The remaining three -- including two officers of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) -- are wanted for computer hacking, economic espionage and other criminal offenses in connection with a conspiracy.
In recent years, the US started to publicly "name and shame" countries and people behind the proliferation of cyber intrusions targeting US companies and government networks in an effort to discourage them from conducting such attacks.
Here are the top five FBI's Most Wanted for cybercrimes -- all of them are from foreign countries.
Alexey Belan has been indicted by the FBI.
Belan is one of the four charged in connection with the Yahoo hack and has been indicted three times for crimes relating to computer intrusions.
Wanted for: Conspiring to commit computer fraud and abuse, accessing a computer without authorization for the purpose of commercial advantage and private financial gain; damaging a computer through the transmission of code and commands; economic espionage; theft of trade secrets, access device fraud; aggravated identity theft; and wire fraud.
Background: Born in Latvia, Belan has Russian citizenship and is known to hold a Russian passport. He speaks Russian and may travel within Russia, Greece, Latvia, the Maldives and Thailand. He was last known to be in Krasnodar, Russia.
Reward: $100,000
Accused hackers Igor Sushchin, left, and Dmitry Dokuchaev are officers of the Russian Federal Security Service.
Dokuchaev is one of the four charged in connection with the Yahoo hack and is alleged to have worked for the Russian FSB, assigned to FSB's Center for Information Security -- also known as Center 18. Center 18 investigates cyber and high-technology crimes and is the Russian government's eyes and ears on hacking.
Wanted for: Conspiring to commit computer fraud and abuse; accessing a computer without authorization for the purpose of commercial advantage and private financial gain; damaging a computer through the transmission of code and commands; economic espionage; theft of trade secrets; access device fraud; aggravated identity theft; and wire fraud.
Reward: none listed
Sushchin is one of the four charged in connection with the Yahoo hack and is alleged to have worked for the Russian FSB. The indictment alleges that he and Dokuchaev "protected, directed, facilitated, and paid their co-conspirators to collect information through computer intrusions in the United States and elsewhere."
Wanted for: Conspiring to commit computer fraud and abuse; accessing a computer without authorization for the purpose of commercial advantage and private financial gain; damaging a computer through the transmission of code and commands; economic espionage; theft of trade secrets; access device fraud; and wire fraud.
Background: Sushchin is alleged to be a Russian FSB officer of unknown rank and is also alleged to have served as head of information security for a Russian company, providing information about employees to the FSB. He was last known to be in Moscow.
Reward: none listed
He is not among those charged in the Yahoo hack. Bogachev was last known to be living in Anapa, Russia.
Wanted for: Conspiracy to participate in racketeering activity; bank fraud, conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act; conspiracy to violate the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act; aggravated identity theft; conspiracy; computer fraud; wire fraud; money laundering; and conspiracy to commit bank fraud.
Background: in a scheme using a malicious software on victims' computers that captures bank account numbers, passwords and PINs which were used to steal money from their accounts. Federal authorities say Bogachev led a gang of cyber criminals in Russia and Ukraine, and have stolen more than $100 million with their botnet. He was indicted in 2014. Bogachev is wanted for his involvement in a scheme using a malicious software on victims' computers that captures bank account numbers, passwords and PINs which were used to steal money from their accounts. Federal authorities say Bogachev led a gang of cyber criminals in Russia and Ukraine, and have stolen more than $100 million with their botnet. He was indicted in 2014.
Reward: $3 million
On January 21, 2016, a grand jury in the Southern District of New York indicted seven Iranian nationals for their involvement in conspiracies to conduct a coordinated campaign of distributed denial of service ("DDoS") attacks against the United States financial sector and other United States companies from 2011 through 2013. Each defendant was a manager or employee of ITSecTeam or Mersad, private security computer companies based in the Islamic Republic of Iran that performed work on behalf of the Iranian Government, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Each defendant worked for Iranian private security computer companies that performed work on behalf of the Iranian Government, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Wanted for: Conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.
Background: A group of Iranian hackers were indicted in January in connection to a 2013 computer intrusion of a small New York dam and A group of Iranian hackers were indicted in January in connection to a 2013 computer intrusion of a small New York dam and a series of cyberattacks on dozens of US banks. The Iranian hackers targeted financial institutions in 2013 and 2014 including JP Morgan, Wells Fargo and dozens of other banks, US. investigators found.
Reward: none listedA former Roman Catholic monastery in the town of Troisvaux in Nothern France has been transformed into an asylum centre as the number of migrants in Calais starts to rise once again.
Opened in August, the new emergency asylum centre accommodation houses up to 100 beds for the growing number of asylum seekers returning to Calais after the destruction of the infamous migrant camp, known as the Jungle, last year.
The creation of the centre, formerly Belval Abbey, is an attempt by the French government to relieve the pressure on the city of Calais, L’Express reports.
The monastery was originally built in the early 20th century and was home to 80 Trappist Cistercian nuns who became locally famous for their cheese making. The last nuns left the abbey in 2012, though a local organisation took over the production of cheese.
The abbey is now home to migrants from countries including Eritrea, Somalia, and Chad, many of which are attempting to cross the channel to the UK.
Claude Picarda, who runs the centre and works with the association La Vie active, said: “Here they can stay, sleep, eat properly and take stock of their situation.” She added that some of the migrants were rejected asylum seekers from Germany and other European countries.
“Many remain convinced that they will succeed in moving to England,” he said.
Twenty-two-year-old Ibrahim, who was born in Chad but grew up in Saudi Arabia, said: “We are well received here, it is much better than in Calais. We have showers and toilets, and we have three meals each day.”
Not all the migrants were happy about staying in the rurally-located Abbey. Somali asylum seeker Ahmed complained: “There is no network, no internet, and the first city is an hour’s walk away. It’s like a prison here.”
Director Picarda noted that there were no rules about the migrants coming or going as the pleased. “It is important that their coming here remains voluntary,” he said.
Calais: Migrants Have Already Made 17,000 Attempts on Britain’s Borders in 2017 https://t.co/he4uDIO2VF — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 8, 2017
Local residents are also not keen on the asylum home. The mayor of the town, which has only 50 residents, said he received several concerned phone calls while one local said: “It’s all a bit strange that we did this in an ancient abbey when some of them are not of our religion.”
The number of migrants heading to Calais has drastically increased in recent months despite many attempts by the French government to relocate them.
In June of this year, a van driver was killed after migrants put tree trunks on the road and nine Eritreans were later arrested. Only six weeks later, another driver was attacked when he was smashed in the head with a brick by migrants who then stole his vehicle.
Last month, it was estimated that there had been over 17,000 attempts by migrants to board vehicles in Calais to sneak into the UK.Warren Ellis is a longtime comics writer, famous for his dark worldview and fascination with futuristic technology and Colleen Doran is an artist known for her detailed art style on both her own series A Distant Soil and other works like Neil Gaiman’s Sandman (where she also served as inspiration for the character Thessaly).
Ellis and Doran have worked together in the past on series like Orbiter and now they’re reteaming for a new kind of webcomic, called Finality, due out next year from LINE Webtoon. The story follows middle-aged detective Felicity Rockall, the “world’s greatest criminal investigator,” working her epic last case alongside young agent Amy Ash.
Ellis tells EW that he intended Felicity “to be the sort of brilliant, unsettling lunatic that we’re always happy to see men portray,” and describes her dynamic with the younger Amy as “somewhere between mother and daughter, Holmes and Watson, Gen X and millennial, violent mental patient and extremely resentful carer.” Like many Sherlock Holmes stories, Finality is told mostly in flashback from Amy’s perspective after events, as she tries to put the pieces together on Felicity’s last case.
“Warren writes very good, very solid characters,” Doran tells EW. “He writes the kind of people that would engage you, not because they’re glamorous or because you’re waiting to see them on a movie screen, they engage you because they’re smart and interesting and quirky. They look very believable, and that’s quite fun to draw. They have normal human bodies, Amy is younger and more robust, but it’s nice to have a middle-aged woman protagonist who looks like a middle-aged woman protagonist.”
“I don’t have any special insight beyond having spent 48 years surrounded by women who can think rings around me and are just as capable of eccentricity as men — also, let’s face it, working with one, hi Colleen – and I hope to get some of that joy and madness down on the page,” Ellis tells EW.
Finality is intended as a 26-issue weekly series, set to debut on LIVE Webtoon sometime in 2017. Ellis and Doran both have experience in webcomics (they’ve even worked on one together, Super Idol), and with this one, they’re trying something new: Making it readable on mobile devices.
“My favorite thing is still that it’s essentially free to the audience that owns a smartphone, and I like the serialization – it’s like giving the reader a little gift once a week,” Ellis says.
“It’s tricky for me as the artist because I work in a very detailed style, and I’m having to strip it down to its essentials and moderate my very detailed work a bit so it can be read,” Doran says. “I’m trying to go for a look people don’t expect from me. I’m thinking Alex Thoth, I’m thinking that strong block of black to convey information instead of lots of details. Lots of film noir areas of black and white, and extreme angles. I think that’s the best way to keep the work readable on devices while still conveying a great deal of information with very little visual information.”
Look for Finality in 2017.Swaroup Anand, 23, from Bangalore, is fully conscious as he undergoes open-heart surgery. An epidural to the neck, administered at the city’s Wockhardt Hospital, has numbed his body. Dr Vivek Jawali pioneered the technique ten years ago and has recently released a tutorial on DVD which gives a step-by-step guide to the procedure – sorry, but you can only get a copy if you’re a surgeon or an anaesthetist.
Lead surgeon Dr Vivek Jawali had performed more than 600 operations this way since 1999.
‘The patients are drowsy so they can be aroused but are also able to drift into sleep. ‘If we need them to cough or breathe more deeply to clear air from their heart they can respond. This makes the procedure a lot easier to perform,’ Dr Jawali said.
As the patients are awake the doctors also have a better idea of how the body is reacting to the surgery from their respiratory system to their brain function.
Dr Jawali added that patients did not report feeling afraid during the operation.
‘We give them headphones so they can listen to their favorite music,’ he further added.
The surgeon said performing coronary bypasses on conscious patients also reduced mucas in those with poor lungs, kept their blood vessels dilated and better preserved their organs.
History:
The first UK heart bypass while the patient was awake was performed at Harefield Hospital in Middlesex in 2003.
The first US awake cardiac surgical procedure was performed in University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) in 2000.WASHINGTON—Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney outlined his vision of U.S. national security policy on Tuesday, challenging President Barack Obama over everything from classified information leaks to his handling of the war in Afghanistan.
Speaking to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno, Nev., Romney challenged Obama on what Democrats believe is one of Obama's strengths as he seeks re-election. The former Massachusetts governor was also trying to counter administration claims that he is inexperienced and unprepared for leadership on the world stage.
Here are some of the central tenets of Romney's plan:
DEFENSE
Romney wants to reverse the military spending cuts made since Obama came into office, maintaining defense funds at a minimum of 4 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. That level could slide below 4 percent based on current spending cuts under consideration. Romney is also calling for a 67 percent increase in new naval vessels, an additional 100,000 active troops and enhanced missile defense investments.
IRAN
Like Obama, Romney says Iran cannot be allowed to become capable of building nuclear weapons. But Romney wants to present a clearer military threat to the Islamic republic. He'd order the regular presence of an aircraft carrier in the Eastern Mediterranean and Persian Gulf and look to increase military coordination with U.S. allies in the Arab world and Israel. On sanctions, Romney says he'd withhold exemptions from countries such as China that continue to purchase significant amounts of Iranian oil. He'd also seek an indictment of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for incitement to genocide, though under what tribunal is unclear.
AFGHANISTAN/PAKISTAN
Romney says he won't politicize decisions on troop levels and withdrawal timetables. He'll call for a review of the transition in Afghanistan, but with the same goal as Obama of ending U.S. combat operations in 2014. The pace and scale of withdrawal, however, would be based on conditions on the ground and the advice of military commanders, he says. Afghan President Hamid Karzai would be pressed harder to crack down on corruption, fight the drug trade and advance democracy; Pakistan's government would be pushed to sever links between its intelligence services and militant groups fighting the U.S. across the border in Afghanistan.
CHINA
Romney wants more military capabilities in the Pacific to challenge Beijing's growing influence in East Asia. Romney says he'll also get tougher with the communist government on its human rights record, respect for religious freedom and minority rights. And on trade, he'll threaten to formally declare China a currency manipulator, punish government subsidies by setting higher tariffs on Chinese products. He says he'll create an international coalition to prevent technology reaching China because it doesn't respect intellectual property rights.
MIDDLE EAST
Like Obama, Romney promises support for groups and governments that advance democracy, economic opportunity and human rights. Romney says he'll oppose any extension of Iranian or "jihadist" influence. Wants to convene a world summit to help nations in transition.
ISRAEL
Romney says he'll restore the U.S.-Israel relationship, making the Jewish state his first foreign destination as president. He pledges increased military assistance to Israel. The Palestinians face a reduction in aid if they pursue statehood at the United Nations or establish a unity government that includes Hamas.
SYRIA
Echoes Obama's demand that President Bashar Assad must leave power. But Romney says he'd be prepared to arm opposition groups that are aligned with U.S. interests. And he says he'll assure the opposition of American support when it gets the chance to forge a post-Assad government.
RUSSIA
Romney wants to reset the Obama "reset" in relations with the Kremlin. He says he'll review the New START agreement that reduced the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals and check Russia's expansionist behavior by helping Central Asian states and European countries reliant on Russian energy. Romney wants greater civil society exchange with Russians to challenge the "authoritarian" practices of the government.
LATIN AMERICA
He wants to encourage greater trade with democracies, while countering Iran's interest in the region and helping contain drug gangs. Romney says he'd improve coordination of intelligence among U.S. allies to combat narco-terrorists and prevent Hezbollah from making inroads. He vows to complete a high-tech fence along the U.S.-Mexican border. But he also proposes greater U.S.-Mexican military training cooperation and intelligence sharing to combat drug cartels.
NORTH KOREA
Romney is championing harsher sanctions on the nuclear-powered nation. These would include tougher penalties on banks working with the government and companies engaged in commercial shipping in and out of North Korea.
© Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.The Capitol dome in Washington. (Susan Walsh/Associated Press)
Republicans should be on the lookout. While we try to muddle through repealing and replacing Obamacare, Democrats are sharpening their message on health care. In their race to the left, Democrats are increasingly calling for a full-fledged single-payer system. And considering Republican credibility on repeal-and-replace is damaged, if not shot, the Democrats’ message will be compelling to a lot of voters who sense nothing but confusion from the GOP. The momentum is shifting, and the stakes are getting higher for Republicans.
As we all know, in politics, a bumper sticker beats an essay. With the “single-payer, universal health care” catchphrase, Democrats are beginning to use their simple “bumper stickers” more frequently. And it’s not just talk. Last Thursday, the liberal California state Senate voted to support a plan calling for the enactment of a single-payer system. The New York Times also reports that “a number of the party’s potential 2020 presidential contenders, including Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California, have signaled support for some version of universal government care.” It looks as though there will probably be a consensus position among Democrats running in 2020 in support of a single-payer system.
In the House of Representatives as well, 112 of the 193 Democrats have co-sponsored Rep. John Conyers Jr.’s (D-Mich.) proposal for a single-payer system. “Until recently,” the New York Times reports, “the bill had attracted a fraction of that support.”
This new reality begs the question: Could it be that Republicans are on the brink of defending Obamacare as the only practical alternative to the Democrats’ march toward socialized medicine? On its surface, single-payer, universal health care will be hard to beat in the face of rising premiums and onerous deductibles that Republicans can’t seem to do anything about. A lot of voters will think that Democrats are trying to give them free health care and that Republicans are against it.
Looking back to last year’s presidential race, it was easy for Republicans to dismiss Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) call for single-payer, universal health care. After all, the Democratic National Committee opposed him and his far-left ideas just as much as Republicans did. But the State of California — however liberal it may be — is not a rogue, one-off former candidate trying to uproot and destroy the status quo.
At a time when Democrats appear ready to coat their fleet of environmentally friendly and eco-conscious vehicles with “single-payer, universal health care” bumper stickers, I don’t even know what the GOP bumper sticker says.
Republicans are bogged down trying to fix the broken Obamacare system while Democrats advance a simple, albeit misguided message. So, how should the GOP fight back?
As has been the case for much of 2017, Republicans need presidential leadership to guide the way forward. The White House must do more than simply be willing to sign what the GOP-led Congress sends to the president’s desk. The president needs to define Republican priorities on health care and explain what they mean to families throughout the country. Otherwise, we will become overwhelmed and labeled as the party with no solution.
If Republicans don’t act fast, Democrats will pitch their plan for single-payer, universal health care as a choice between something that costs individuals less vs. more, that is simpler vs. more complicated, that leads to greater equality vs. more inequality. And in this fight, Republicans cannot just become the party of no. We cannot just complain about how hard the process is in the face of a growing liberal tsunami of single-payer nirvana.
The question for Republicans is: How will this all play out? If Republicans fail to stand up and speak with clarity, we may be forced to defend the remnants of Obamacare as the best option to ward off socialized medicine. The public senses confusion, and the Democrats sense an opportunity. Time is running out.Over the course of 2015, I became convinced we're winning the GMO debate.
And paradoxically, what convinced me was the experience of facing off against pro-GMO lobbyists in person and in print.
What did they say to convince me? Here's a quick guide.
1. Everyone hates Monsanto
In Europe at least, even the most die-hard promoters of GMOs refuse to defend Monsanto and claim to despise the company. Even Vivian Moses, chairman of the industry-funded pro-GMO information service Cropgen, writing today on how the "biotech industry is winning the war" on GMOs, concedes that
"Monsanto was cast as the prime villain for seeking to import GM soya into Europe... Certainly the industry remains unpopular in some quarters: Monsanto in particular is still seen by activist protesters as a large and visible target."
So, the GMO enthusiasts say, we should forget about Monsanto and embrace 'public good' GMOs instead. The problem with that is in the real world it is Monsanto that is the dominant force in the marketplace.
In any case it makes little difference whether it's Monsanto or a public research institution that owns the patent on a GMO. The profit motive rules either way and takes precedence over issues of public health, the environment, and scientific integrity.
Through intellectual property mechanisms, the public research institutions that develop GMOs effectively become indistinguish |
rimal bone.
Histology [ edit ]
Like the nasolacrimal duct, the sac is lined by stratified columnar epithelium with mucus-secreting goblet cells, with surrounding connective tissue. The Lacrimal Sac also drains the eye of debris and microbes.
Function [ edit ]
It serves as a reservoir for overflow of tears, in which the lacrimal sac pumps inward and outward driven by the orbicularis muscle during blinking.
Imaging [ edit ]
The lacrimal sac can be imaged by dacrocystography, in which radiocontrast is injected, followed by X-ray imaging.
Additional images [ edit ]
Medial wall of left orbit.
Left orbicularis oculi, seen from behind.
The lacrimal apparatus. Right side. (Lacrimal sac visible at upper right.)
The tarsi and their ligaments. Right eye; front view. (Lacrimal sac visible at middle right.)
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
This article incorporates text in the public domain from page 1028 of the 20th edition of Gray's Anatomy (1918)The Bears should prepare for the Saints defense Monday night to send pressure in passing situations with Rob Ryan's unit disguising coverages in the secondary to set some traps for quarterback Jay Cutler.
As shown here, the Bears have their Posse/11 personnel on the field (three wide receivers, one tight end, one back) in a 2-by-2 Doubles formation with running back Matt Forte offset to the closed side of the field in a shotgun alignment. The Saints counter with a 3-3-5 nickel sub-package and rush five while dropping six into coverage. Cutler must identify the pressure, find his primary targets and read the underneath defenders to avoid trouble versus the Saints "gold" scheme.
The blitz
This is only a five-man pressure from the Saints, but the key is the overload look to the open (weak) side of the formation with strong safety Jamarca Sanford (SS) and nickel back Corey White (N) rushing off the edge. This allows the Saints to slant (or "scoop") the defensive front to opposite gaps while brining secondary pressure versus left tackle Jermon Bushrod. The Bears must identify the pre-snap alignment of both Sanford and White to slide the protection with Forte (R) in a "scan" technique to account for a possible free runner to Cutler's blind-side. The Bears have the numbers to block up this blitz, but a mistake in protection will result in a hit on the quarterback.
Setting trap to open side
To the open side of the formation the Saints are playing a "gold" (or "trap") scheme with cornerback Keenan Lewis (RC) in a "soft squat" technique (no jam, sink) to get his eyes inside to the No. 2 receiver, Josh Morgan (H). Lewis will sink with the No. 1 receiver, Marquess Wilson (X), and read the break of Morgan on the option route. This allows Lewis to jump the outside cut while dropping Wilson to free safety Pierre Warren (FS) over the top. If Cutler fails to read Lewis squatting underneath, this can result in a "pick-six" for the Saints if the ball is forced to Morgan.
Bennett on "hot" read
Cutler can target Martellus Bennett (Y) on the seam route if the quarterback wants to throw "hot" to the tight end versus the pressure. This is nothing more than an inside "pop" pass with Bennett taking a vertical release up the field and getting his head around to play the ball. However, in this blitz, the Saints are showing two inside, vertical hook defenders with Mike linebacker David Hawthorne (M) and Will linebacker Curtis Lofton (W). Both linebackers "match" to the No. 2 receivers (Y/H) and carry the vertical release up the field. Cutler has to account for the inside defenders and throw this ball quickly to Bennett before the throwing window closes.
'Thumbs' technique vs. Jeffery
If the Bears block up the blitz and give Cutler time to identify his primary targets, the quarterback can look to hit Alshon Jeffery (Z) on the out route to the closed side of the formation versus the "thumbs" technique. In this situation, cornerback Patrick Robinson (LC) gains depth and plays over the top of Jeffery with Sam linebacker Parys Haralson (S) buzzing underneath the No. 1 receiver. Given the cushion that Jeffery has to work on the vertical stem, Cutler can make this throw outside of the numbers when he puts some air under the ball to avoid the linebacker driving to the inside hip of the receiver.
Opportunities vs. Ryan's defense
The Saints have underachieved on defense because of poor discipline, poor tackling and the inability to produce impact plays. And early last week, coach Sean Payton benched former first-round safety Kenny Vaccaro. There will be opportunities for Cutler, Forte, Jeffery and Bennett to win matchups against this defense. Whether it is pressure package or a base front, the Bears must stay aggressive against a team that still is playing for a ticket to the playoffs.
Special contributor Matt Bowen spent seven seasons in the NFL as a strong safety. He covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.
Twitter @MattBowen41Hillary Clinton locked up the Democratic presidential nomination June 6, making her the first woman to lead a major American political party. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)
Update: It happened a day early, according to the Associated Press, which called Hillary Clinton the winner of the Democratic presidential primary on Monday night. According to AP’s count, she has now crested the 2,383 delegates she needed:
Clinton has 1,812 pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses. She also has the support of 571 superdelegates, according to an Associated Press count. The AP surveyed all 714 superdelegates repeatedly in the past seven months, and only 95 remain publicly uncommitted. While superdelegates will not formally cast their votes for Clinton until the party’s July convention in Philadelphia, all those counted in her tally have unequivocally told the AP they will do so.
Some of the networks are also calling it for Clinton now, though her campaign prefers to save the celebration for Tuesday, apparently.
The original post follows:
At some point early Tuesday evening, Hillary Clinton will pass the threshold of delegates she needs to clinch the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.
This is a subject of great consternation to rival Sen. Bernie Sanders, who both directly and through surrogates has repeatedly suggested that media outlets who point this out are irresponsibly abdicating their duty to their audiences. But it’s not a complicated issue. If you accept that Donald Trump has clinched the Republican nomination, you should similarly accept that Clinton will seal her party’s nomination on Tuesday.
The sticking point is the Democratic Party’s superdelegates, a big collection of mostly party officials who will roll up to the convention in Philadelphia able to vote for whomever they want. The vast majority of that group has said it plans to vote for Clinton. Since they can’t actually vote until July, though, Sanders insists that their intentions not be considered, and if you don’t consider them, Clinton won’t secure the nomination right after New Jersey votes Tuesday. Instead, she’ll simply be very, very close to clinching after the voting ends, and she’ll make it official at the convention.
Sanders’s argument is weak, at best. There are, in fact, superdelegate-type delegates on the Republican side — people who are “unbound” to any candidate — but the Democrats have far more. In total, about 15 percent of the total delegate pool at the Democratic convention will be made up of people who can vote for anyone they want.
That large percentage is the main reason that Clinton “hasn't been able to put Sanders away,” as that weird recurring assessment of the state of the race phrases it. To get a majority of all of the Democratic delegates without superdelegates — 2,383 — you’d need to win 58.8 percent of the pledged delegates. That means winning about 58.8 percent of all votes cast, thanks to the Democrats’ proportional system. To date, Clinton has won about 56 percent of the votes cast (per U.S. Election Atlas’s tally), just shy of enough to put the race away without superdelegates weighing in.
Trump, on the other hand, has won about 41 percent of Republican votes, but the non-proportional system the Republicans use has allowed him to cobble together more delegates for each state win. But even so, when the Associated Press reported that Trump had sealed the GOP nomination at the end of last month, it was including the votes of those unbound delegates. On Tuesday, Trump will pass the margin of bound delegates he needs to clinch officially — but the AP was very comfortable calling it for him without his having done so.
(Trump was also helped when, after the Indiana primary in early May, his two remaining opponents stopped pretending that they had a shot at winning the nomination. That was the point at which he became the “presumptive” nominee, a status that Clinton could have claimed at any moment had Sanders similarly dropped out.)
For all of his complaints about how the media is on the brink of unfairly handing Clinton the nomination on Tuesday, Sanders has done a remarkably good job of creating the sense that he’s still in this thing. Since March 15, the day that Clinton won Florida, Ohio and North Carolina and took a lead of more than 300 pledged delegates, Sanders has won more states, including a string of seven in late March, bringing him to within 208 pledged delegates.
But since March 15, the point at which it became obvious that he couldn’t catch up, he’s eaten into Clinton’s lead by only about 25 delegates total. Including estimates for Puerto Rico, which voted Sunday — and which Clinton won, giving her a second win in a row — Clinton’s lead is now at an estimated 289 pledged delegates.
In other words, since the New York primary and Sanders’s second attempt to argue that his campaign has the momentum, the two candidates have been about equal in the number of delegates won. And, therefore, about equal in the number of votes.
Sanders has been helped by the sense that state wins are meaningful, when they aren’t. Clinton has a lot of big wins in big states and close wins in smaller ones. Sanders has big wins in small states, where fewer people vote and where he earns fewer delegates.
Perhaps in part because it creates a sense of importance, a number of observers have agreed with the Sanders campaign argument that a win for him in California would hold enormous significance for the race. There’s no practical sense in which that’s true; if he were to win, recent polling suggests that the win would be narrow, essentially splitting the delegates in the state. Sanders hopes to use a win of any size in California as an argument that he’s got the will of the party, but the win will come the same night as a loss in New Jersey and a week before a loss in the District of Columbia — and as Clinton’s lead over Sanders at a national level has started to widen. The rhetorical argument is, at best, iffy.
Which is why it comes back to the superdelegates. Sanders's campaign is desperate that the superdelegates be ignored for now — and that Clinton not be said to have clinched in the way that’s been said of Trump — so that he can theoretically spend the next month telling those same party insider superdelegates that because of a small win in California they should ignore Clinton’s pledged delegate and popular vote leads and make Sanders the nominee. So far, making a similar argument but without the feather that California would add to his cap, Sanders has not managed to convince any of Clinton’s superdelegates of the worthiness of doing so.
And that, at its heart, is the thing. We spent months wondering if Trump would secure the GOP nomination because it looked like that party’s contest might also come down to delegates who could vote for anyone they chose. And on the Republican side, there was reason to think they might: Trump was disliked by party insiders and wouldn’t have a majority of votes from his party’s voters. But a well-timed surge in the Northeast and his party’s rules giving more delegates to the winner came to his aid. Still, a revolution against Trump was, however, conceivable.
A similar revolution by the Democrats against Clinton and against the party majority that voted for her to be the nominee is not conceivable. Sanders hasn’t made much headway at all in the pledged delegate count since March 16, and it’s not clear why a tie in California would change that.
Of course Sanders doesn’t want the media to acknowledge the moment that Clinton will hand him a loss. But, just as the numbers made the result clear for Trump, when New Jersey’s votes come in on Tuesday — unless Sanders wins the state with about 80 percent of the vote — the result will be just as clear for Clinton.Da Vinci's Demons Season 1 Blu-ray And DVD Will Hit Shelves In September By Jessica Rawden Random Article Blend Da Vinci’s Demons, is a hodgepodge of truth and retellings related to the life and times of Leondard Da Vinci. The series initially appeared on the subscription cable network back in Da Vinci’s Demons: The Complete First Season, which will be available for purchase beginning on September 3.
As the Blu-ray and DVD trailer notes, Da Vinci’s Demons is largely a show about 25-year-old Da Vinci and his seemingly endless talents across numerous mediums, including painting, sculpting, and inventing a variety of interesting devices that could be used in the city of Florence. The trailer also shows the trouble Da Vinci gets into during some romances, as well as his entangelements with politics in the area. Florence and the Vatican aren’t getting along, and Da Vinci may be the key to his city’s salvation.
Starz was so taken with the original drama that the network has already Magic City, the network wasted little time renewing the drama, signing on for Season 2 after the ratings for the premiere episode were
While the anticipation is already building for the new season, Starz and Anchor Bay have actually put together what seems to be pretty nice Blu-ray and DVD sets for Da Vinci’s Demons: The Complete First Season. Numerous audio commentaries will be available, with writer, creator, executive producer, and director David S. Goyer and actors Tom Riley, Laura Haddock, Blake Ritson, David Schofield, and Tom Bateman hanging out to share some thoughts and memories from the episodes. Other bonus features include spotlights on Riley’s Da Vinci character and some basics, like deleted scenes. You can check out the full list of extras, below.
Da Vinci’s Demons Blu-ray and DVD Bonus Features Audio Commentaries
“Mastering Da Vinci”
“Constructing Da Vinci”
“Dressing Da Vinci”
Worldwide Fanfare
Deleted Scenes Starz’s new series,, is a hodgepodge of truth and retellings related to the life and times of Leondard Da Vinci. The series initially appeared on the subscription cable network back in April and wrapped up earlier this month with an action-packed closing episode that left plotlines wide open for a second season. If you loved the new period drama or simply don’t have Starz and want to give it a shot, Starz and Anchor Bay Home Entertainment are putting together a Blu-ray and DVD set for, which will be available for purchase beginning on September 3.As the Blu-ray and DVD trailer notes,is largely a show about 25-year-old Da Vinci and his seemingly endless talents across numerous mediums, including painting, sculpting, and inventing a variety of interesting devices that could be used in the city of Florence. The trailer also shows the trouble Da Vinci gets into during some romances, as well as his entangelements with politics in the area. Florence and the Vatican aren’t getting along, and Da Vinci may be the key to his city’s salvation.Starz was so taken with the original drama that the network has already signed on for a second season of the series. In fact, similar to, the network wasted little time renewing the drama, signing on for Season 2 after the ratings for the premiere episode were very high. The network is also showing confidence in its series by signing on several comic book scribes. According to Screen Rant, Jonathan Hickman and Matt Fraction will be penning episodes of the series during its next round at bat.While the anticipation is already building for the new season, Starz and Anchor Bay have actually put together what seems to be pretty nice Blu-ray and DVD sets for. Numerous audio commentaries will be available, with writer, creator, executive producer, and director David S. Goyer and actors Tom Riley, Laura Haddock, Blake Ritson, David Schofield, and Tom Bateman hanging out to share some thoughts and memories from the episodes. Other bonus features include spotlights on Riley’s Da Vinci character and some basics, like deleted scenes. You can check out the full list of extras, below. Blended From Around The Web Facebook
Back to topMicrosoft has revealed that the now defunct 3D Realms’ side-scrolling title Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project is heading for an Xbox Live Arcade release.
The title, originally released in 2002 for PC, offers 24 levels of single-player action spanning from the depths of Chinatown to the depths of Space, with lots of weapons, baddies and boss monsters in tow as well.
No release date or pricing has been announced as of yet, but looks like we’ll be hearing about it soon. From the Xbox Live page description:
Duke Nukem is back in Duke Nukem Manhattan Project™! New York City is being overrun by a mutant menace and it’s time to de-worm the Big Apple. This explosive 3-D action game features the politically incorrect action hero defending the city that never sleeps, and its babes, from the evil Mech Morphix across 24 levels from Chinatown to Space. A super-sized collection of weapons, enemies and bosses await. As Duke would say, “Babes, bullets, bombs. Man, I love this job!”UFC Hall of Famer Chuck Liddell is talking like he’s about to make a comeback in the Bellator cage. But if he does, it won’t be as simple as just signing a fight deal.
“I’d have to talk to Viacom about it,” Bellator President Scott Coker told MMAjunkie, referring to the promotion’s corporate parent. “He’d have to go through a battery of tests, and it would be a longer process than he would be fighting in January.”
Liddell (21-8 MMA, 16-6 UFC) recently welcomed a matchup with three-time UFC title challenger and Bellator star Chael Sonnen (30-14-1 MMA, 1-1 BMMA), prompting more speculation about ending his retirement seven years after a trio of knockout losses ended his UFC career.
But Coker said he hasn’t even spoken to Liddell about fighting as of late. Instead, he’s interested in having the ex-champ work with Bellator behind the scenes, as he was when rumors of a comeback first surfaced.
“I’ve got to reach out and see if (Liddell would) like to do some fan fest stuff for us and be in the community, but that’s it,” Coker said. “There’s no fight for him.”
Asked whether he’s completely ruled out the idea of a Liddell return, Coker said, “We really haven’t even had that conversation.”
Whatever agreement Liddell and Sonnen might have worked out on their own, it sounds like Coker will need convincing – and for good reason. Liddell’s most recent losses demonstrated a decreased capacity for taking punches to the head, a stark reversal from his earlier career when his chin was a huge advantage.
UFC President Dana White expressed concerns for Liddell’s health and declared his career was over after a knockout loss to Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at UFC 97. But Liddell convinced White to let him make one more octagon walk, signing on to fight ex-champ Rich Franklin at UFC 115. After a spirited exchange late in the first round, Franklin caught Liddell with a right to the jaw and sent him flopping to the canvas.
Recently on social media, Liddell has shown off an improved physique to indicate he’s close to fight shape. But he wouldn’t just have to convince Coker he’s able to fight. He would need to submit medical paperwork to prove he’s healthy enough to do it professionally.
For more on Bellator’s upcoming schedule, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Aug. 17, 2014, 8:03 AM GMT / Updated Aug. 17, 2014, 9:54 AM GMT
One person was critically injured and seven were arrested as violence broke out after a midnight curfew was imposed on the St. Louis suburb rocked by the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black teen. Clashes erupted shortly after the curfew went into effect, with tear gas and the sound of gunshots hitting the streets of Ferguson, Missouri as dozens of protesters stayed out in the driving rain.
Missouri State Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson said at an early morning press conference that one person was shot near the protests and is in critical condition, adding that a police car was fired upon. Johnson said the canisters of smoke and tear gas were used to reach the victim of the shooting, “and not in relation to the curfew.” It was not clear why or how the person was shot, and the shooter was still at large, police said.
Johnson said police used “proper response tonight to maintain officer safety and public safety,” even though he had vowed during an earlier press conference not to use tear gas and armored trucks, but rather communication to disperse crowds at midnight. The strict curfew was enacted by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon on Saturday in an attempt to ease the tensions in Ferguson, which erupted over the death of Michael Brown and sparked protests and looting.
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- Cassandra VinogradNew York Jets superfan Fireman Ed, who for decades has fueled home crowds with his famous "J-E-T-S!" cheer, has decided to "R-E-T-I-R-E!"
Ed Anzalone, better known as Fireman Ed, has been a Jets fan since 1975. Debby Wong/US Presswire
Ed Anzalone, who created a stir Thanksgiving night when he left MetLife Stadium at halftime of the Jets' 49-19 loss to the New England Patriots and deleted his Twitter account, announced Sunday night that he no longer will attend home games as Fireman Ed.
The hits just keep coming for the 4-7 Jets, who became a national laughingstock with a mistake-filled performance on national TV.
Anzalone, in a guest column for Metro New York, explains that the Jets' poor season isn't the reason why he has decided to hang up his fireman's helmet. He writes he left the game because "confrontations with other Jets fans have become more common, even though most Jets fans are fantastic."
He says he also left early during the previous home game, a 30-9 loss to the Miami Dolphins.
Anzalone cites his loyalty to embattled starting quarterback Mark Sanchez as the cause of the confrontations.
"The stadium has become divided because of the quarterback controversy," he claims. "The fact that I chose to wear a Mark Sanchez jersey this year, and that fans think I am on the payroll -- which is an outright lie -- have made these confrontations more frequent. Whether it's in the stands, the bathroom or the parking lot, these confrontations are happening on a consistent basis."
Fireman Ed always used to wear No. 42 (Bruce Harper's old jersey), but he switched to Sanchez in a show of support. During the 2010 season, Anzalone, who rarely attends road games, flew to Pittsburgh and sat near the Jets' bench because he wanted to be there for the then-slumping Sanchez.WOW! BIG LEAGUE Support Rockets Ivanka’s Brand to the TOP of List Angry Liberals CAN’T Ignore! [VIDEO]
Ivanka Trump’s perfume line is hitting high numbers since shooting up to the top of Amazon’s bestseller’s list. As the first daughter is facing major boycott efforts from the left and their liberal buffoons, it is Ivanka’s supporters that are countering the nonsense with a reverse boycott of their own!
It’s the #BuyIvanka campaign.
As many know, Nordstrom publicly and loudly publicized that their department store was going to drop Ivanka Trump’s clothing line. There were many online who praised this move and considered it a victory in their #GrabYourWallet campaign. A campaign that was orchestrated to get consumer’s to stop buying any Trump branded products.
Trending: The 15 Best Conservative News Sites On The Internet
Which is interesting…isn’t it the conservatives that work for a living? Nordstrom and many other retailers picked the wrong side if they want to keep sales up. Anyhow…
As mentioned there were many who joined that boycott including: TJ Maxx, Sears and Kmart, who also dropped Ivanka’s clothing line, shoes and also her accessories…what grown-ups.
However, their efforts have failed and have only created a counter reaction that they will soon regret if they don’t already.
It is outselling Jennifer Lopez’s scent, as well as Estee Lauder, Sarah Jessica Parker and Britney Spears brands, as well.
Just received my Ivanka Perfume yesterday. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/aUTgBJFncA — Cutie1 for Trump45 (@cmrose999) February 16, 2017
Of course, when all of this went down, President Trump did not bother hiding his disapproval of Nordstrom after they pulled that stupid number on them.
He believes it was politically motivated.
My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017
“The luxury department store chain denied that the move was in response to a #GrabYourWallet campaign,” NBC News reported.
“We made this decision based on performance,” a Nordstrom spokesperson said. “Over the past year, and particularly in the last half of 2016, sales of the brand have steadily declined to the point where it didn’t make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now.”
If we are to assume that what Nordstrom says is true, then the decline in sales could have nothing to do with the quality of the line itself, but the political views of a percentage of Nordstrom’s customers…again, IF we are assuming they are telling the truth.
Now, a video has hit the Internet this week that has seriously gone viral, because…it shows them going into a Nordstrom’s location to cancel their account and announcing that they will be shopping at Dillard’s instead. Yes, hilarious.
These ladies made it quite clear the move was based on Nordstrom’s decision to stop selling Ivanka Trump’s merchandise.
Check this out:
Funny how the Left never punished Chelsea for the actions of her father. Pathetic, petty, and pretentious.
Today's Democrat. #BuyIvanka — Michelle 🇺🇸 (@michelle4trump) February 12, 2017
Well folks, based on Ivanka Trump’s perfume sales on Amazon, which is also the carrier for her clothing line, this push to punish the First Daughter has virtually failed…politics or no politics, it seems Ivanka has the hearts of many.
Conservatives don’t take to the streets in protest and act the fool.
They don’t need to. They are smart.
You Might LikeMaking the'mouse'
"This isn't my artist album.
This is a fucking mix CD."
Behind the mask
"My idea of hell [is] being in
the middle of a dancefloor like that."
Not an RA commenter
If you listen to the recorded output of Deadmau5, the last word that will come to mind is "complicated." Joel Zimmermann, the man inside the mask, is a hitmaker—a producer who aims to please his legions of fans. And judging by his string of hits on Beatport over the past few years, he's done just that. In a Beatles-esque feat last year, for instance, Zimmermann had five of the top ten tracks on the download store's chart.With that kind of success comes a whole host of detractors. When RA ran a review of Zimmermann's latest single earlier this year, one commenter memorably claimed that he was "the Dane Cook of techno; bland, inoffensive and popular with people who don't know any better," while another asked us to never review another Deadmau5 record again. Let alone do a feature on him.Which, of course, only made us want to talk to him more. And when RA caught up with him earlier this month in New York, Zimmermann was interesting, opinionated and much more complex than we ever thought. He talked candidly in advance of his upcoming dates at matter The Warehouse Project and Amsterdam Dance Event about the sweat that goes into making his tracks sound effortless, his unique live set-up and why his upcoming mix CD,, contains little new material. And why his vision of hell is akin to being in a crowd at one of his own concerts... Did we mention it's complicated?More like who. My uncle, who was more or less the black sheep of the family, was into all things technical. He did some university stuff with computer programs when they were only a little bit more powerful than a pocket calculator. He was always the guy that the family would call to fix the computer.Nah. I was playing MS Golf and Minesweeper. And getting blown away by the amazing effects that Corel Draw could provide. At the same time, my parents were sending me to piano classes. I went to a school for eight years in Niagara Falls, where I got a lot of classical music pounded into my head.The practical part, sure. Not so much the performance bit. Back then, it was no problem to get up on stage and do something, but I think I fried my brain at some point because I can't play anymore. It's so fucking weird. It's like, when was the last time you were on a bike? It doesn't matter—you can get on it and pop a wheelie or whatever. With things like that, though—that require intricate motor skills—you just forget.Absolutely fucking not. I hated it. I was that little bad-ass kid at the piano school that never listened to it.Skinny Puppy, Steely Dan, Tears for Fears, that sort of stuff.Yeah. My dad was one of those first people to be suckered by the Columbia House deal where you could buy 12 albums for a penny or whatever it was. So, we got U2, Tears for Fears, War, Steely Dan, there was some Metallica in the mix. It was a weird collection.Are you sure? Because then I'm one contradictory son of a bitch. I think the point that I was trying to make was that you'll never complete anything. I'll never be 100% happy with any production. I can go back and make any production that I've done better. That's just the process of what makes you an artist.Absolutely. I would love to revisit "Complications." It's something that you just can't go back to, though. You can. But it doesn't feel right for me.No. There was one track called "I Remember" that I did with Kaskade, which was based on a track that I never released called "I Forget." It had been more of a cinematic segue-type thing, not dance music at all, which is something that I'll throw together every month—just some 50 second long thing. So I went back to that track and realized that if we expanded it, and added a vocal it might work.Absolutely. I'd love to do a soundtrack to a movie. I don't even want any credit, I just want to do it for my own personal satisfaction. Because, you know, aside from being a club conductor/electronic music maker guy, I'm also very keen on sound design and transparent recordings. That's the goal. That's my goal.Something that is very clear. Where you hear every nuance in the way that is mixed. Transparency applies to engineering, the placement of certain sounds, the honing in on and the lessening of certain frequencies. And mastering, which is really an art. A lot of guys don't do their own. Which is fair play because I drive myself fucking crazy when I have a great idea for a track and I can't quite dial it right because of the way that I've put the track together.I master as I make it, so it's a really difficult thing. I think a lot of guys are starting to do that now, which is neat. But traditionally speaking, back when say Josh Wink ruled the planet, people were just taking their stuff to wherever and it wasn't done properly. It was all a case of making it as loud as they could without fucking up the grooves. I love listening to early dance music, but listen to the audio fidelity of "Pump Up the Jam" next to a slamming Shlomi Aber track, you know? And that's all due to levels of technology becoming more accessible.It's like the asshole who bought the first iPhone and smashed it on purpose. It's like, "Ahhh! It's such a great track! What are you doing? Treat it right!" I'm just too strict on quality control to let that happen. That's why things with a deadline, like remixes, are such a thorn in my side sometimes. I'm really against that idea of "I don't care what you have to do, you need to bring me a polished thing by this date."Well, this isn't my artist album. This is a fucking mix CD. I'll blag it before you assholes on the message board do. Yes, it is a mix CD. Yes, half of the tracks are already out and you've heard them many times before, but in my defense I did sneak in eight tracks that have been unreleased or won't be released for a while. It's music for my fans, those who wanted a CD, a tangible good. In this day, that's such a rare thing to come by.Yeah. For lack of a better explanation, it's a modern art installation piece gone functional. When you get it, it comes in a box with a power supply and a USB cable. No manual, no logo stamped on it. It's a piece of wood with some buttons. I think the reason the guy who made it does that is because you're forced to be innovative with it. You have to make your own software for it.The one that I have is a 16x16 grid where each button will light up, and that's it. But with that, you can build your own sequencer and have each button doing a different thing. So Steve [Duda, my partner in BSOD] built this monster of an application called MOLAR, which is an extended version of MLR. Steve really has a thing for complicated machinery, so he set it up so that we can load in wav data and slice that up. It basically allows you to sequence a feed, MIDI triggers or wav data playback to a channel. You can permutate it in so many different ways that you can really jam on it.Every show is different. I'll make 150 loops or something and just chuck them into the directory. One of the things that I've found is that you can do a dance music live PA for hours and it'll sound like shit, so you've got to dodge it a bit because you can't bring all of your hardware up there on stage. You have to make some compromises, but you might as well make it fun, right?It's heinous. And I'm such a sucker for it too. It doesn't destroy my life at all. I'm not making music for people that think I suck. I'm making music for people who either appreciate music or don't appreciate music, but can kind of take it in.The internet is such a fucked-up bizzaro land. I'm not exaggerating when I say that of all of the places that I've gone, I've had a great fucking time and not one fucking person comes up to me and says, "You suck!" And then I get home. And I hop on these message boards and see, "Yeah, he's such a dickhead. I saw him at this thing once and…" And then they'll make up this midget polar bear story, you know what I mean?I think I'm an easy target. Fair play to them: Maybe I'd do the same thing if I was in their shoes. Anonymity + an opinion + an audience? It's a recipe for… But, you know, I'm the same way. You should see me playing Counter-Strike.I don't take any of it seriously. And, of course, after reading this people'll be like "Well, you should take it seriously. We're your customers." Well, contrary to your belief, you're.0001% of my success, so… People don't get successful because they get hated on by everybody. People get successful because people appreciate what you do and they support it. And they tell a friend. And that friend tells a friend.In retrospect, I would have liked to have developed as an artist so that I could have been that underground dude. Take Shlomi Aber. He's not making too much noise, he's not wearing a big fucking head, he's just in there. But if he comes around and does a crossover track? Welcome to the dark side. You have to be careful with that stuff if that's kind of the way that you want to present yourself. It's just…I'm not out to be a superstar DJ. It's just the way it fucking happened. I'm not going to take it all back and retract my Deadmau5 identity, go back to my humble underground roots. Contrary to popular belief I wasunderground. I was in my Mom's basement tooling away on Impulse Tracker on a 386 just doing Nintendo music until some Loop Library company hired me as a producer.I wasn't a scenester. I didn't go to many clubs.I didn't. I don't follow it. I don't care for the who's whos and what's whats. I'm interested in two things: music and technology. I'm not interested in clubs, I'm not interested in being in the middle of a 80,000 person crowd and "having the time of my life." That's my idea of hell. Being in the middle of a dancefloor like that.Right. But I've got my little area, in |
joined the agreement, some states have adopted legislation to reduce CO 2. California, for example, has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the 1990 level by 2020 (AB 32, Global Warming Solutions Act, 9-27-06). Some legislators are now wondering how this can be accomplished. Before our country commits to spending billions (probably trillions) of dollars on CO 2 reduction, we need to consider what light the Bible can shed on this issue.
Exactly why are global warming advocates so concerned about burning fossil fuels and the harvesting of forests? It must be kept in mind that global warming advocates are predominantly evolutionists. Al Gore readily admits that he is an evolutionist (Gore 2006, p. 160). Accordingly, they believe that there was a time in the distant past when earth’s atmosphere contained a much higher percentage of CO 2 (over 21%) and no oxygen (O 2 ). They believe the earth’s atmosphere developed O 2 only as a result of photosynthesis by plants or bacteria (Bergman and Renwick 2003, p. 137). Advocates believe that forests, especially tropical rain forests, are the largest reservoir for storing carbon and generating oxygen on land. This helps explain their strong desire to protect rain forests. From an evolutionary perspective it is easy to see why preserving forests and reducing CO 2 is important, even if the projected catastrophes are unfounded or exaggerated.
Development of a Biblical Framework
Most Christians rightly believe the Bible to be their foundation for faith and practice. It determines what they believe and consequently how they behave. The Bible provides frank and absolutely reliable direction for every moral issue experienced by mankind. The biblical position on moral issues like abortion and homosexuality are clear to those who accept the inspiration of Scripture and who understand the straightforward implications of Scripture on these issues, but other issues require thoughtful study of Scripture. With respect to global warming, the Bible provides much more guidance than “creation care” concepts. The following is a proposed biblical framework for evaluating the claims of global warming.
Foundation for a biblical Interpretation
This paper accepts the verbal plenary inspiration of the Bible (all of the words in the original manuscripts are inspired), and follows a literary interpretation protocol. Passages dealing with the Creation, the Flood and the tower of Babel are treated as narrative in keeping with the historical-grammatical approach to Scripture. The Bible-science movement is keenly interested in determining the original intent of biblical passages. A joint study by the Creation Research Society and the Institute for Creation Research called Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth (RATE) illustrates this point. The study team included a Hebrew scholar, Dr. Steven Boyd, whose task was to determine if the Genesis creation verses are narrative or poetry, a critical question. If the passages are poetry then they merely illustrate a spiritual truth, but if they are narrative then they describe real events and real people. Dr. Boyd determined that Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 is narrative with a 99.996% probability at a 99.5% confidence level (Vardiman et al. 2005, p. 690).
Relevant biblical data
The Bible does not speak directly about what we call global warming. It does, however, provide a framework for evaluating the merits of global warming claims. To reiterate, the global warming discussion centers on CO 2 (the atmosphere) and trees (plants). The Bible, of course, addresses the atmosphere and plants. The biblical framework for evaluating global warming is primarily found in Genesis. The RATE study mentioned above established that Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 (the Creation account) was narrative. The study also determined that the Flood account (Genesis chapters 7 to 9) is also narrative (Vardiman et al. 2005, pp. 661 and 667). This paper will also briefly reference the dispersion of the nations at the tower of Babel in the summary. Although the RATE study did not evaluate the Tower of Babel, I believe that if the creation and the Flood passages are narrative, then the tower of Babel passage is narrative also. These passages describe real events and real people. The following sections briefly discuss passages related to the atmosphere and plants.
Creation of the atmosphere
In Genesis 1:1 we are told that “God created the heavens and the earth.” Creation obviously includes the atmosphere. In fact, if the atmosphere was not created on Day One, it certainly was in place by Day Two when God “separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse” ( Genesis 1:6–8 ). This “expanse” was the atmosphere in which the birds flew on Day Five. Regardless of the exact day, the central biblical point is that the atmosphere was created, it did not evolve. The atmosphere was intentionally designed and created by God to support life, including plants, animals, and mankind, which He subsequently created. Contrary to evolution theory, the atmosphere is not a constantly changing mixture of gases, which billions of years ago were poisonous to life but now has evolved to the point where it can support a precarious array of life. The original created atmosphere contained the right amount of CO 2 for the plants that would be created on day three and sufficient O 2 for the soon to be created animals and mankind. This is a far different atmospheric history than the evolution story. A created atmosphere has purpose, stability, and is more robust than a randomly evolved atmosphere.
Creation of plants
Aside from all the other reasons for which God may have created plants, the Bible specifically states that He made them for human and animal food, and this is largely being ignored by global warming advocates ( Genesis 1:29–30 ). Since all animals and mankind were vegetarians originally, plants were created as a reliable and sustainable source of food. As people began eating meat, they became even more dependent on vegetation as a source of food because the animals we eat all must consume multiple pounds of vegetation for each pound of meat produced. As an example, the grain conversion ratio for poultry is about four while beef is 15 (Bergman and Renwick 2003, p. 320). This means that on average a cow would need to consume 15 pounds of feed (vegetable matter) to generate one pound of meat. Consequently, as the human population grows, and as proportionately more people become meat eaters, substantially more land must be allocated for agriculture.
By the way, the areas most useful to man in producing edible plants and animals are not the forests, but the plains. The useful carrying capacity of grasslands far exceeds the useful carrying capacity of forests. Consider, for example, the millions of bison, antelope, elk and bear that once inhabited the western Great Plains. Today these plains are producing record amounts of grains such as corn and wheat, along with other edible crops. Most forests, including tropical rain forests, are climax communities. This means that new growth is nearly offset by decaying vegetation, yielding little if any net gain (Oberlander and Muller 1987, p. 240). While it is true that harvesting of forest products should be done in line with intelligent use of that ecosystem, unless forests are periodically harvested, allowing new growth and providing a useful product, they have little direct economic benefit for mankind. As the human population increases then it is reasonable to convert forests to the production of food and building material. From a creation perspective there is nothing sacred about preserving forests. They are to be efficiently and effectively managed for the benefit of mankind. Nonetheless, there is little justification for the wanton destruction of forests for short-term economic benefit. As stewards accountable to God we should manage all earth resources with a long-term, biblical, perspective.
It should also be noted that as plants began growing and covering the earth following Creation week, they were removing CO 2 from the environment. Land plants removed CO 2 from the atmosphere while marine plants removed CO 2 from the ocean. In addition, marine animals that developed carbonate shells also removed CO 2 from the ocean.
Dominion mandate
God purposely created mankind to rule over the earth, including both the plants and the animals. According to Genesis 1:26–29, man was told to: fill the earth, subdue the earth, and rule over all of the earthly creation. This mandate was repeated to Noah and his family after the flood ( Genesis 9:1–3 ). Genesis 2:15–16 further indicates that man was initially also commanded to cultivate and keep the Garden of Eden. These commands indicate that man is God’s appointed representative on the earth. Having been created in the image of God, man is uniquely separated from, and elevated above, the rest of creation. The earth was created for the benefit of man, but he is ultimately accountable to God in his exercise of this commission.
Genesis 2:11–12 identifies the location of gold, resin, and onyx. According to Genesis chapter 4, later generations raised livestock, developed musical instruments and worked with bronze and iron. God never rebuked mankind for mining, farming, ranching, or cutting trees for building projects. All of these activities are part of man’s God-given rule over the earth. Throughout Scripture, however, God has repeatedly rebuked man for disobedience to His moral commands. Eating the forbidden fruit resulted in God’s curse on both man and creation. Man’s wickedness in the days of Noah resulted in God destroying all air breathing creatures and men, except for the few saved on the ark. The Flood also entirely reworked the surface of the earth. Following the Flood, God confused man’s languages because, among other things, mankind lingered in Mesopotamia rather than filling the earth as commanded. This resulted in various language groups slowly migrating around the earth. When Israel disobeyed God’s moral commands he sent them into exile and allowed their land to grow over with thorns. Using earth resources for the benefit of mankind has never been a moral issue. Ignoring God and disobeying His commands is a moral issue.
Noah’s Flood (Destruction of the earth)
The year-long Genesis Flood ( Genesis 7:17–8:9 ) buried great volumes of plants and animals. During the Flood there were 40 days and nights of heavy rain, and the fountains of the deep were open for 150 days. These flows added significant volumes of water to the existing ocean. It is reasonable to assume that more water was added to the ocean from the fountains of the deep (150 days) than from rain (40 days). Water from the earth is warm. The average geothermal gradient is 1° F (0.6° C) for each 60 ft (18.3 m) of depth (Landes 1959, p. 169). The deeper this water originated, the warmer it would be. The Flood likely increased the temperature of the ocean. As we will see later, a warm sea following the Flood helps explain another important post-Flood phenomena, the ice age.
According to the Genesis account, the Flood waters increased for 150 days until all the high mountains everywhere on earth were covered to a depth of 15 cubits (about 22.5 ft [6.9 m]). The waters then receded for another 220 days as the present continents and mountains rose out of the ocean ( Psalm 104:6–9 ). During this time valleys and plains were eroded and the major drainage systems were established.
Noah, his family, and the animals stayed on the ark during the five months the waters were increasing, as well as the seven months while the waters were receding. God did not allow anyone to leave the ark until the earth had dried and a sufficient number of plants were growing to provide food for all life on the ark. It is important to recall that during the Flood all land plants were destroyed, yet there was sufficient oxygen in the atmosphere for all life on the ark to breathe. After the Flood plants again began growing and covering the earth, just as they did at Creation. At Creation and immediately after the Flood, plants were just beginning to cover the earth yet there was no shortage of oxygen in the atmosphere. God established enough oxygen in the original atmosphere to sustain life throughout the duration of the earth. This highlights the fact that plants are not necessary for generating oxygen. More will be said on this topic in the section on CO 2. Plants, however, are essential as food for man and animals. In addition, plants stabilize the soil, provide habitat for various animals, and are a source not only of medically useful drugs but also inspiration and beauty.
As plants again covered the earth, both on land and in the sea, they once more removed CO 2 from the environment. In a like manner, shelled animals in the sea removed CO 2. As an aside, during the Flood every man and animal on the ark would have been classified as an “endangered species” according to current definition. All animal life today is descended from one or a few pairs of animals that were carried on the ark. Plants were not endangered.
Plants buried in sedimentary rocks during the Flood now exist as fossil fuels (Groombridge and Jenkins 2002, p. 10). Coal, oil, gas, tarsand, and oilshale are all partially decomposed plant material. When fossil fuels are used today in furnaces and engines we are burning plants that lived and grew prior to the Flood. The CO 2 released during burning was taken from the pre-Flood atmosphere and ocean. Even secular scientists acknowledge that fossil fuels are remains of past plants and burning them releases energy stored long ago (Northen 1968, p. 71). The argument over burning fossil fuels versus ethanol can be reduced to a question of whether it is best to burn old plants or new plants. Burning old plants (fossil fuels) is much more efficient, and therefore “green.”
The massive fossil carbonate formations seen across the earth contain remains of pre-Flood shelled animals. Approximately 15–20% of the sedimentary rocks worldwide are carbonate (Ehlers and Blatt 1982, p. 251). Considering the total volume of fossil fuel captured in rocks, and the volume of carbonate rocks, it can be seen that a significant amount of CO 2 has been removed from the pre-Flood environment (atmosphere and ocean) and locked up in sedimentary formations. Another significant volume of CO 2 has been removed since the Flood and is tied up in plants and animals that have subsequently developed. As a result of burying a major proportion of earth’s plant and animal life, the Flood likely caused far greater changes to atmospheric gases than any current global warming scenario.
Following the Flood, God assured Noah that there would be no other worldwide water catastrophe as long as the earth remains ( Genesis 8:22 ). According to this promise, “seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” Along the same line, Peter mentions that in the last days people will say that “all continues just as it was from the beginning” ( 2 Peter 3:3–7 ). Christ also mentioned that in the days prior to His second coming all would continue routinely, “just like in the days of Noah” ( Matthew 24:37–39 ). From these verses it appears that until the tribulation occurs no worldwide catastrophe will affect the earth. Global warming is described as a worldwide catastrophe by the radical environmentalists and the media. The tribulation of Revelation certainly contains events that sound like some of the dire predictions associated with global warming. Unlike global warming, the tribulation is initiated directly by God, as judgment on sinful mankind, and is a sudden, not a gradual change. People undergoing the tribulation realize that it is from God, as a result of their sinful behavior, but they intentionally refuse to repent. We should not confuse the claims of global warming with tribulation events.
God’s control of Creation
God is in absolute control of His creation. He is the Creator (Genesis 1 and 2). God destroyed His creation in the days of Noah with a worldwide flood (Genesis 7–9). God sets the boundary for the seas ( Job 38:8–11, Psalm 104:9, Jeremiah 5:22 ) and controls the weather: lightning ( Job 28:26, 37:3 ), hail ( Job 38:22, Psalm 147:17, Haggai 2:17 ), rain ( Job 28:26, 37:6, Psalm 147:8 ), and snow ( Job 37:6, 38:22, Psalm 147:16 ). Someday God will destroy this earth and establish a new heaven and a new earth ( Revelation 21:1 ). Man is not in control of the weather and this present earth is temporary.
Summary of biblical framework
Keeping in mind that the Genesis accounts of creation and the Flood are narrative (they describe real historical events), the above discussed biblical framework can be summarized as follows:
Creation week
CO 2 and O 2 were created early in the Creation week. Neither of these gases evolved. Plants were created primarily for food. Man was given dominion over the earth. The earth was created for man’s use, enjoyment, and occupation as he honors God. Man is neither an animal nor a random accident of evolution.
Between Creation and the Flood
Following creation, plants, both marine and land, reproduced around the world. Animals with carbonate shells also multiplied worldwide. The above growth removed CO 2 from the environment and replaced it with O 2.
The Flood
The Flood added large quantities of water (likely warm) to the ocean. The Flood buried substantial volumes of plants. Plants began growing during the last half of the Flood, as the waters receded.
Post Flood
Plants and animals, both marine and land, again begin multiplying worldwide. Growing plants and shelled animals removed CO 2 from the environment and added O 2. Under the influence of temperature, pressure, and an O 2 free environment, the buried plants become fossil fuels.
Note: God is in absolute control of the earth and all it contains, not man.
As you can see, the Bible has quite a bit to say regarding atmospheric gases and plants. This biblical framework relates directly to our understanding of global warming and climate change. The atmospheric gases were created, they did not evolve. We should not expect the types of atmospheric gases to have been substantially different at creation than now. It is unlikely that the creation atmosphere contained any gases not present in the current atmosphere. Oxygen has obviously been present since creation and likely has increased as CO 2 decreased. The contribution to atmospheric gases by volcanoes from creation to the present is unknown. What is known, of course, is that CO 2 stored in plants and shelled animals that existed prior to the Flood is now stored in sedimentary rocks worldwide. The pre-Flood plants currently exist as fossil fuels and the shelled animals are contained in carbonate deposits. We also know that currently living plants and shelled animals have taken additional CO 2 from the environment. Consequently, in view of the massive volume of fossil fuels and carbonate rocks, it is highly probable that today’s atmosphere contains measurably less CO 2 than the Creation atmosphere and a correspondingly higher O 2 concentration. Polar seas are quite cold today. In the years since the Flood, the warm worldwide ocean has gradually cooled at the poles. God created the earth for man’s use. Man received a commission from God to manage the earth, including the plants and animals. This includes old plants and new plants. Man has the right to use earth resources for the benefit of mankind, but in a reasonable manner that honors God.
In Table 1 we compare creation and evolution on several issues relevant to our discussion.
Issue Creation Evolution O 2 in original atmosphere <21% 0% Source of current O 2 Created Product of photosynthesis CO 2 in original atmosphere >0.03% >21% Source of plants Created Evolved Value of plants Food Generate O 2 Purpose of earth Man’s home Purposeless Source of man Created Evolved animal Purpose of man Steward Purposeless Man’s relation to animals/plants Ruler Co-equal Source of fossil fuels Plants Plants
Creation and evolution agree on only one point. Fossil fuels were once plants. The above framework provides significantly more depth than “creation care” concepts. The value of this framework will become clearer as we consider some basic science related to global warming.
Science Related to Global Warming
Let us now consider some basic science related to global warming issues. Four topics will be discussed: glaciers, CO 2, climate, and temperature. These topics have been chosen as they are crucial to the global warming argument. We will review these sections with a Bible-science perspective. Following this we will fit the scientific data into the biblical framework previously discussed in an effort to develop a comprehensive perspective on global warming.
Glaciers
As evidence that the earth is experiencing global warming, advocates point to melting glaciers around the world. Since this is the first and strongest argument offered by Al Gore, the United Nations, and other global warming advocates, it is appropriate to spend some time discussing glaciers. The glaciers remaining around the world are remnants of the once extensive ice age. Ice ages are poorly understood (Oberlander and Muller 1987, p. 479). Although numerous evolution-based theories have been advanced to explain how an ice age is initiated, none of them are satisfactory. The most popular theory at the moment is the astronomical theory. According to this theory, small changes in the earth’s orbit, tilt and wobble combine approximately every 100,000 years to create a colder winter, especially at the poles (Dott and Batten 1988, p. 596). Proponents of this theory believe that if winters are colder then glaciers will grow and advance. Such conditions, if they actually occurred, would not start an ice age, but merely a cold-age.
An ice age is characterized by thick, extensive, ice-sheet glaciers and advancing mountain glaciers. The indispensable ingredient for a glacier is lots of snow. Massive precipitation of snow requires massive evaporation of sea water. Massive evaporation only occurs from warm water. Water evaporation increases exponentially with temperature (Oard 1990, p. 5) (see Fig.1 ). So, an ice age requires warm seas in close proximity to the poles. The only viable explanation for an ice age has been clearly and thoroughly explained by Oard (1990). Warm seas worldwide following the Flood would provide optimum conditions for initiating the ice age. It would have been like lake-effect storms greatly enhanced. Oard, a meteorologist, estimated that 500 to 700 years would have been required for the ice age to reach its maximum (1990, p. 97). During this time, more snow would have been precipitated in the winter than would have melted in the summer. Consequently, the snow cover would have increased in thickness and lateral extent. As the polar seas cooled, less evaporation would have translated into less snow and eventually snowfall would equal melting, stabilizing the extent of glaciation. Further cooling of the seas would have resulted in more melting than snow accumulation and the glaciers would have retreated. Naturally, the glacial advance and retreat would have been somewhat erratic as yearly storm events varied in intensity. Today, the polar areas are deserts due to the cold seas. The high ice plateau of Antarctica receives only about one inch (2.5 cm) of precipitation each year. Even Gore acknowledged this fact (2006, p. 176). Today’s precipitation rate does not allow sufficient time to accumulate the nearly two-mile (3.2 km) glacier thickness from a biblical time frame.
There is overwhelming evidence that glacial ice sheets once covered most of Canada, extending as far south as northern Washington, Illinois, Ohio, New York, and New England. Glaciers also covered much of Siberia and northern Europe. The massive ice sheets covering these areas melted prior to historical times. In fact, the majority of the glacial ice melted in the distant past. As corroboration that huge volumes of glacial ice melted in the past, there is strong geologic evidence that ocean levels have risen several hundred feet (61+ m) (Groombridge and Jenkins 2002, p. 35). Obviously, all this melting occurred long before mankind began burning fossil fuels on a large scale. In other words, glacial melting has been going on for thousands of years and mankind was not the cause. Most of the melting, and subsequent sea level rise, occurred long before the recent increase in atmospheric CO 2.
Incidentally, sunken Mediterranean cities also provide historical evidence for rising sea levels. For example, ancient Alexandria disappeared from history about 1,600 years ago. It was subsequently discovered in 1999 by Franck Goddio directly offshore from present Alexandria in about 15 ft (4.6 m) of water. The fortified island of ancient Tyre was destroyed by Alexander the Great in 322 BC. The ruins of ancient Tyre now lie offshore in about 20 ft (6.1 m) of water. Other Mediterranean cities could also be cited. From this evidence, it appears that over the last 2,000 years the Mediterranean Sea has risen about 1 ft (0.3 m) per 100 years. This average sea level rise is greater than estimates of the rise over the last 100 years (4–10 inches [10–25 cm]). Apparently, sea-level rise is diminishing with time. The level of the Mediterranean Sea rose because melting glaciers added water to the oceans.
In summary, Bible-science provides the only viable explanation for an ice age: warm polar seas following Noah’s Flood. It also provides a reasonable explanation for the end of the ice age and the subsequently experienced large-scale glacial melt: cooling seas. Contrary to what global warming advocates are saying, the glaciers melted because the seas cooled, not because they warmed. Since seas account for nearly 71% of earth’s surface area, and contain 1,000 times more heat than the atmosphere, they are obviously a major variable in determining the earth’s temperature and its various climates (Solomon et al. 2007, p. 389). At first glance this may sound incredible, but it is in agreement with the biblical record and science. Biblically, there has only been one ice age, and it was a direct and inevitable result of the Flood. Melting glaciers are nothing new. The impressive glacial melt experienced since the peak of the ice age was not due to increased CO 2, warming oceans, or anything man had done. Why should we now think that man is responsible for melting glaciers? Clearly, melting glaciers are not proof of global warming.
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is being described as a pollutant by global warming advocates. In 2007 the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the authority to regulate vehicular green house gases (Massachusetts versus EPA, Case #05-1120, decided 4-2-07 by a 5/4 margin). This was the conclusion of a suit filed by several states, including California, that were concerned that the federal government was not doing enough to avert a global warming disaster. After reviewing this issue, the EPA proposed regulating CO 2 as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.
What exactly is an air pollutant? In the past, an air pollutant was defined as contamination of the air by noxious gases and minute particles of solid and liquid matter (particulates) in concentrations that endanger health. Does CO 2 fit the description of an air pollutant? The following discussion will demonstrate that CO 2 is not a pollutant.
At what concentration can CO 2 be considered a health hazard (the point where it would be an air pollutant)? This is a question of critical interest to underground miners. Underground mines closely monitor the buildup of several gases which could prove hazardous to miners. Accordingly, mine safety thresholds have been established for numerous gases, including CO 2. The U. S. federal threshold level for CO 2 in underground mines is currently 5,000 ppm (30 CFR 75.321 [a]) (U.S. Dept. of Labor). During the 1940s and earlier, the threshold level was over 12,000 ppm (Peele 1941, sec. 23, p. 20). This is not a hazardous level. It is the concentration at which miners can be safely removed from the mine and the passageways ventilated. The level of CO 2 in our atmosphere could increase over 1,300% before reaching the current mine safety limit, and this level has been reduced to only 42% of the prior safe limit. Today’s atmospheric concentration of CO 2 is clearly safe for humans, and will be for over a thousand years at today’s rate of increase. It is doubtful, however, if fossil fuels will last for another thousand years.
Are there any benefits to CO 2? Carbon dioxide is naturally occurring and, rather than endangering life, it is necessary for life. Plants cannot live without CO 2 and man cannot live without plants. In addition to this indispensable benefit, there are other major benefits. Without an atmosphere containing GHGs the earth could not support life. Carbon dioxide is one of the atmospheric gases that help moderate earth’s temperature. Furthermore, for over 100 years the agricultural industry has known that CO 2 is a plant fertilizer (Northen 1968, p. 74). Some growers intentionally increase CO 2 up to ten times its normal concentration to encourage plant growth in greenhouses. This is termed “carbon dioxide enrichment.” Elevated levels of CO 2 encourage faster growth, larger and more productive fruit bearing, and increased tolerance to both heat and cold. As a result of increasing levels of CO 2, plants can extend both their growing season and the extent of their habitat. Plants need CO 2 to exist. If CO 2 levels drop to about 220 ppm plants grow very slowly, and if the concentration falls to 150 ppm growth stops entirely. There is far greater danger in lowering the CO 2 level, than in increasing the level.
Agricultural schools, and farmers, around the world have noted increased crop yields and enhanced forest growth as CO 2 has increased in the atmosphere. One hundred years ago the atmosphere contained approximately 280 ppm CO 2. Today the concentration has increased to around 380 ppm (Solomon et al. 2007, p. 137). See Fig. 2 for the concentration of atmospheric CO 2 as measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory, and Fig. 3 for a comparison of measured atmospheric CO 2 with the current safe limit for CO 2 in underground mines. Fig. 3 shows that CO 2 is far from being a pollutant that endangers the health of humans. This increased concentration is helping farmers worldwide to feed a hungry world. All plants respond favorably to more CO 2.
Is CO 2 only found in the atmosphere? The atmosphere is also in contact with the oceans. Gases are continually being exchanged between these two environments. At present the ocean contains at least 60 times more CO 2 than the air (Barry and Chorley 1987, p. 5). The ocean is a large buffer for atmospheric gases. As the ocean cools, more CO 2 goes into solution, and, as the ocean warms, it gives off CO 2. Since the post-flood ocean was much warmer than now, a large volume of atmospheric CO 2 has been absorbed by the ocean as it has cooled.
Is CO 2 the most important GHG? According to climatologists, water vapor and clouds account for about 60 to 95% of the GHG effect, while CO 2 has a much smaller effect. More importantly, many global heat budget parameters and the relationships between them are not adequately measured or understood (Kiehl and Trenbert 1997, pp. 197–208; NOAA, website FAQs). Global climate models are too imprecise, and the key input data too limited, to justify initiating major changes in world economics. Climatologists who are pushing the global warming agenda are focusing on a minor GHG component and ignoring the major contributors to the GHG effect, water vapor, and clouds.
What is the estimated contribution of CO 2 to global warming? Global warming is blamed on CO 2 increasing in the atmosphere. Is this reasonable? Over the past 100 years atmospheric CO 2 has increased 36% (from 280 ppm to 380 ppm). Over this same time interval global temperature is alleged to have increased 1° F (0.6° C). This is an increase of 0.2% (510R [283.3K] to 511R [283.9K] on an absolute scale). Even if all the increase in CO 2 is attributed to burning fossil fuels (which it is not) and the increase in temperature is due entirely to CO 2 (which is likewise not the case) the correlation between CO 2 and temperature is quite weak. At best, advocates are claiming that a 36% increase in CO 2 is responsible for a 0.2% increase in temperature.
What is the relationship between CO 2 and plants? The photosynthesis/respiration equation is as follows:
6CO 2 + 6H 2 O + energy (sunlight)→C 6 H 12 O 6 + 6O 2
This equation shows a simplified relationship between plants and the atmosphere. During daylight hours plant cells containing chlorophyll remove CO 2 and H 2 O from the atmosphere, generate a simple sugar, and give off O 2 (Northen 1968, p. 68). As you can see, if the plant removes one molecule of CO 2 from the atmosphere it will replace it with one molecule of oxygen.
Although in daylight this equation runs in both directions, during the night this equation only runs in reverse. During respiration O 2 is combined with sugar to fuel the plant’s metabolism and CO 2 and H 2 O are emitted (Northen 1968, p. 83). When a plant dies the equation runs in reverse (respiration) during the entire decay process until all the O 2 previously emitted is recaptured and all the CO 2 is returned to the atmosphere (Northen 1968, p. 435). Over their life-cycle plants generate neither excess O 2 nor excess CO 2. This is a zero-sum game, but with a lag-time measured in years.
The implications of a plant’s life-cycle are noteworthy. If over their life-cycle plants generate neither excess CO 2 nor excess O 2 then two conclusions follow: 1) plants did not generate the large volume of O 2 in our atmosphere, and 2) planting trees will not provide permanent carbon offsets. This, of course, agrees with Scripture. The atmosphere was created (it did not evolve) and plants were created as food (not a source of O 2 ).
What is the mix of gases in the atmosphere? Approximate concentrations are shown in Table 2.
Gas Symbol % Nitrogen N2 78.07% Oxygen O 2 20.94% Argon Ar 0.93% Carbon dioxide CO 2 0.04% Miscellaneous 0.02%
Currently there is about 550 times more O 2 than CO 2 in the atmosphere. One hundred years ago, when CO 2 was 280 ppm, there was 750 times more O 2 than CO 2. Obviously, converting all the CO 2 into O 2 would have a minimal impact on total O 2 concentration, but would be devastating for plant life. As you will recall, according to evolution earth’s atmosphere once contained no O 2. We are told that O 2 only exists in our atmosphere as a result of photosynthesis. As discussed above, photosynthesis converts one molecule of CO 2 into one molecule of O 2. If evolution is correct then earth’s atmosphere once contained over 21% CO 2.
Biblically, CO 2 is good. It is needed for life to exist. God created CO 2. It is a plant fertilizer, not a pollutant. The hazardous level for humans is far above concentrations attainable by burning all our fossil fuel reserves. In addition, the correlation between CO 2 and an alleged global temperature increase is weak at best and most likely spurious. Carbon dioxide is a minor GHG. It should also be remembered that the CO 2 released by burning fossil fuels was taken from the atmosphere that existed in the pre-Flood world. If the CO 2 wasn’t a problem in the lush pre-Flood earth, it shouldn’t be a problem now. Increasing levels of CO 2 are not proof of global warming.
Climate
Some global warming advocates claim that climates were relatively fixed over the last 10,000 years until man started burning fossil fuels and affecting the world’s climate. Is this really true?
Climatologists realize that climates vary over time (Groombridge and Jenkins 2002, p. 33). World climate maps are based on averages collected over a few decades in the mid-twentieth century (Bergman and Renwick 2003, p. 85). Clearly, climates have steadily been changing with time, requiring plants and animals to adjust accordingly.
Think of all the climatic change initiated by the Flood. The initial uniformly-warm world ocean generated greatly enhanced evaporation and precipitation worldwide. The results of this precipitation were not only an ice age, but also lush rainforests.
As the ice age glaciers grew they encroached on vegetated land, forcing plants and animals to migrate. Interestingly, it appears that during the ice age there was a highly productive grassland community along the fringe of the warm Arctic Ocean (Oard 2004, pp. 29–31). Ice sheets eventually covered a large percentage of the Northern Hemisphere; most of Canada and the northern states, much of Siberia and northern Europe, along with all the high mountain ranges worldwide. As these great ice sheets retreated, plant communities followed their migration. The plants were subsequently followed by animals.
The western U. S., between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, once contained numerous large lakes. Salt Lake is the remnant of one of these lakes. Archaeological finds indicate sizeable and diverse populations of people living in this region in the past. As the lakes evaporated, plant communities changed, forcing men and animals to migrate elsewhere. In a like manner, North Africa was once much wetter, supporting more cities and extensive agriculture. As the desert expanded the cities and agricultural lands were abandoned. Similar scenarios occurred on every continent following the ice age. Climate has been dynamic since the ice age requiring plants, animals, and man to adapt. From a biblical time frame (Ussher 2003), the flood occurred about 2349 BC and the glaciers began retreating approximately 1850 BC (earliest estimate of ice age peak according to Oard, and also the time of the patriarchs).
Many geologists believe that past ages were much warmer than historical times. Geological textbooks estimate some ages were as much as 25° F (13.9° C) warmer (Dott and Batten 1988, p. 593). This is evident when viewing museum dioramas, park displays and National Geographic |
son, who has long been a top Republican donor. Paulson was a key instigator in the infamous Goldman Sachs “ABACUS” trade, in which Goldman bet against its own clients, then paid $550 million to settle fraud charges with the SEC. The agency opted against pursuing charges against Paulson, who now serves on AIG’s board of directors, which is priceless. Let’s remember that Trump trashed Hillary Clinton at a rally this week for accepting money from hedge funders, telling the crowd he didn’t want hedge fund money and if he received any, he’d send it back.
Other names on the list are part of the traditional A-list of GOP money men.
David Malpass worked in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations before moving to Bear Stearns. He wrote a Wall Street Journal column telling people not to worry about the American economy in August 2007. This was right after two Bear Stearns hedge funds collapsed and a few months before Bear Stearns itself had to be rescued by the government. In 2010, he ran for Senate in New York and lost.
Steve Roth runs the real estate fund Vornado and bundled over $230,000 for Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2008 campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Harold Hamm is a shale oil magnate who gave nearly $1 million to a pro-Mitt Romney super PAC in 2012. Steve Feinberg helms Cerberus Capital Management, a major (and notoriously secretive) private equity firm that has hired such renegade populists as former Vice President Dan Quayle and former Bush Treasury Secretary Jon Snow.
Stephen Moore has been a Republican economic talking head for decades, always advocating for lower taxes, deregulation and free trade. He auditioned for jobs with Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul early in the cycle.
Tom Barrack was a personal lawyer for Richard Nixon who worked in the Reagan administration. He also raised $32 million for a pro-Trump super PAC called Rebuilding America Now.
Funny how he just happens to land a job as an adviser to Trump after that. If you were under the impression that Trump is self-financing his campaign, he is not.
These are, in other words, mostly people who have backed traditional Republican policies: tax cuts for the rich, deregulation and free trade. Trump changes his policy commitments almost daily, but he has consistently attacked free trade and supported reinstating the Glass-Steagall law to break up big banks in the Republican Party platform.
They’re also people who have spent years supporting GOP candidates that Trump is feuding with ― Romney, McCain, Cruz, Paul.
That isn’t to say there aren’t some other more unorthodox names on the list. Andy Beal is a real estate investor who also fancies himself a number theorist and offers prizes to people who can prove or disprove his ideas. Steven Mnuchin is a Goldman Sachs alum who gives heavily to both Republicans and Democrats. Peter Navarro teaches business at the University of California, Irvine, but is best known for several very critical books about China and a polemical 2012 documentary, “Death By China.”
Dan DiMicco recently published a book called American Made: Why Making Things Will Return Us To Greatness, which is generally well regarded, even if it sounds pretty Trumpy. DiMicco was CEO of Nucor, an American steel company that made a lot of money and didn’t offshore jobs in the 21st century, which is frankly pretty impressive.
Tobacco magnate Howard Lorber ― who generally supports Democrats ― and banker Stephen M. Calk round out the list of advisers.A photo provided by the Secret Service shows the drone that crashed onto the White House grounds Jan. 26. (U.S. Secret Service/via AP)
Federal prosecutors said Wednesday they will not charge the recreational drone operator whose device crashed onto the White House lawn Jan. 26, but the District resident and intelligence community worker may face a fine from the Federal Aviation Administration.
The decision, announced by the office of the U.S. attorney for the District, Ronald C. Machen Jr., came after the security breach of the executive mansion grounds focused national attention on potential threats posed by the growing use of small, unmanned aircraft.
Secret Service agents presented the results of their investigation of the case, but in a statement, prosecutors said a forensic analysis determined that the drone’s operator was not in control of the craft when it crashed.
“The decision was made following an investigation by the United States Secret Service and a review of applicable law,” the U.S. attorney’s office said. “The Federal Aviation Administration has begun a review of the incident for possible administrative action.”
The FAA bans flights by unauthorized drones within a 30-mile circle around Washington, a security measure implemented after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The aviation agency’s regulations do not make exceptions for a pilot’s lack of intent, officials said, and the FAA could propose a civil penalty of up to $1,100.
Elsewhere in the United States, amateur pilots must keep aircraft at least five miles away from airports and below 400 feet.
Shawn Usman, 31, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency employee who operated the aircraft, was unavailable for comment but is fully cooperating with authorities and wished to express his sincere apologies to all involved, especially the Obamas and security officials, his attorney said.
In a statement, James M. Garland, a partner at Covington & Burling, added: “Mr. Usman is pleased and grateful that the U.S. Attorney’s Office has decided not to pursue charges in this matter. This entire incident, while unfortunate and understandably alarming, was totally inadvertent and completely unintentional.”
In a statement, the NGA said that Usman faced no adverse action as a result of the off-duty incident, and that he remains employed as a research and development scientist who is not involved in any work related to drones.
Authorities had said Usman contacted the Secret Service about six hours after a two-foot-wide DJI Phantom “quadcopter” landed on White House grounds early Jan. 26, triggering a lockdown.
Prosecutors said the investigation determined that Usman borrowed the quadcopter from a friend. Usman told investigators he flew it around his Northwest Washington apartment and outside his window a few blocks from the White House the night of Jan. 25. About 3 a.m. Jan. 26, Usman said, he lost control of the drone and saw it climb to about 100 feet over 10th Street NW.
“The man knew that the drone’s battery was nearing the end of its charge and expected that it would crash somewhere over the Mall. He went to sleep not knowing where the drone had gone,” prosecutors said. “After he awoke to news reports of the crash on the White House grounds, he self-reported the incident to the Secret Service.”
President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama were visiting India at the time, and the Secret Service said the device did not pose a threat to the building or the first family.
The incident follows a series of security lapses at the White House that triggered a shake-up of the Secret Service leadership.
In September, a man with a knife in his pocket scaled the White House fence and ran through much of the mansion’s main floor. An armed private security contractor in Atlanta boarded an elevator with the president without authorization that same month, and new criticism surfaced over the Secret Service’s response to gunshots fired at the White House in 2011.
Meanwhile, small drones have violated a three-mile, permanent no-fly area around the White House, called the P-56 zone, four times since July, according to FAA reports.Awesome weekend of volunteering with the lovely ladies of Alpha Chi Omega. Bright and Early on Saturday morning, we were out at Growing Grounds helping them with plant maintenance, care, and prep. Looking forward to our next trip out!
We want to congratulate Brothers and all around studs John Wheeler and Luke Vickerman for placing 32 and 33 in their first spartan race this past weekend. John and Luke are already planning to do the other two races this year to complete the trifecta.
We are super excited to start off the new quarter with the upcoming Winter rush. Come stop by our booth on Dexter lawn this Tuesday for some BBQ and see what we are all about. We are looking forward to meeting everyone there!
Hope you all have a very niiiiiiice New Years!
The Brothers of Phi Psi Cal Eta hope everyone has been having a great holiday season. We are looking forward to the start of the new year and our upcoming winter rush this next quarter. More details on that will be coming soon!Microsoft released the first major update for Windows 8.1, creatively named Windows 8.1 Update, back in April as part of its regular "patch Tuesday" cycle. The update improved how the Modern UI interface handles mouse and keyboard input, and it also made some minor under-the-hood improvements.
What you may not know is that Microsoft now requires the update to be installed in order for Windows 8.1 to receive any future updates—including critical security updates like the ones issued in the most recent patch Tuesday. June 10 marked the deadline for customers to get fully up to date, according to this post on the official Windows Experience Blog.
Source: Microsoft.
If you have Windows Update set to download and install updates automatically, you should be set. If, for some reason, you don't, Microsoft has put up a page to help users check if they have the Windows 8.1 Update installed. The easiest way to check is to look at the Start screen. If there's a Search button next to your name, you have the update installed.
Given the critical nature of patch Tuesday security updates, we wouldn't recommend skipping this one.The arbitration rulings for the remaining six eligible starting pitchers came down Tuesday, with Toronto Blue Jays right-hander Marcus Stroman, Houston Astros right-hander Collin McHugh, and Tampa Bay Rays right-hander Jake Odorizzi all winning their respective cases.
PITCHER TEAM REQUEST TEAM OFFER 2017 SALARY McHugh HOU $3.85M $3.35M $3.85M Odorizzi TB $4.1M $3.825M $4.1M Stroman TOR $3.4M $3.1M $3.4M
Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander Taijuan Walker, St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Michael Wacha, and Milwaukee Brewers right-hander Chase Anderson all lost their cases.
PITCHER TEAM REQUEST TEAM OFFER 2017 SALARY Anderson MIL $2.85M $2.45M $2.45M Wacha STL $3.2M $2.77M $2.77M Walker ARI $2.6M $2.25M $2.25M
All six pitchers were arbitration-eligible for the first time.
Three relievers - Dellin Betances, Brad Brach, and Tony Watson - will have their hearings this week.I've been re-watching the movies and watching the Clone Wars series and studying the extended canon of books and video games and stuff lately and I've learned a few things. Simply put they are special and here's why.
C3PO: C3PO was built by Anakin (this should speak volumes). When C3PO was built, Anakin was a young prodigy and had the ability to build or fix anything according to dialogue in Episode 1. He builds C3PO FROM SCRATCH, meaning 3PO wasn't built on an assembly line like other Human Protocol Droids of his kind. He was built by the most powerful Jedi of all time (arguably). Anakin has the highest count of Midi-clorians of any known being, he's lonely, he's a genius and he builds a custom made EMOTIONAL droid that goes on to be one of the most decorated droids in the entire galaxy. I think this makes him special. With all his brilliance, Anakin gave him emotion and threepio becomes a legend.
R2-D2: R2 seemed to have started out as a typical R unit. I'm unsure of his origins but by a stroke of luck he's the only droid that survives the concentrated fire of the separatist blockade in Episode 1. He goes on to receive accolades from Amidala and somehow one thing leads to the next and years later he comes into a partnership with Anakin. I say partnership because Jedi's aren't allowed to own possessions. R2 ends up fighting the entire clone war as Anakins personal R2 unit. The Clone Wars series teaches a lot about R2. In one episode R2 falls into enemy hands and we learn that he has NEVER had his memory erased. And here we arrive at what makes R2 special. He has NEVER had his memory race, even after the clone wars. Anakin sees R2 as a friend and chooses not to erase his memory. R2 thus expresses free will, creative thinking, even emotions such as fear and joy not to mention he has a memory that extends all the way back to his creation. Memory is closely linked to emotion. R2 is also extremely lucky. I think all this clearly makes him special. And again, he becomes just as much of a legend as Threepio.
So to answer the question, yes I believe they're clearly special, though it depends on how you define special. Both of them are made of metal and wires and circuits and the matter of sentience is certainly arguable, but, they clearly have humanlike qualities and display numerous examples of Heroics. I think it would be crazy to say there's nothing special about them when Anakin clearly saw something in them.This article provides the ways of saying mother in different languages. Check out how to say mom in different languages.
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Mother in Different Languages
The first word that a child learns to speak is mother. The word signifies care, love, concern and sacrifice. It doesn't matter what the language is, the love and affection represented by this single word remains the same every where and in every language. When you are in pain, the first word that comes out of your mouth is "momma", which simply means that the first person you remember in pain is that of your mom. It also serves to reflect that the word is so soothing that merely by saying it; you experience an alleviation of your pain. This ordinary word has the power to make you feel secure in the hardest of times. Are you wondering how people around the world say the word'mother'? If yes, the go through the following lines and learn how to speak mother in different languages.
Language Mother Afrikaans Moeder, Ma Albanian Nënë, Mëmë Arabic Ahm Belarusian Matka Bolognese Mèder Bosnian/ Bulgarian Majka Brazilian/Portuguese Mãe Chechen Nana Croatian Mati, Majka Czech Abatyse Danish Mor Dutch Moeder, Moer English Mother, Mama, Mom Finnish Äiti French Mère, Maman German Mutter Greek Màna Hawaiian Makuahine Hindi Ma, Maji Hungarian Anya, Fu Icelandic Móðir Indonesian Induk, Ibu, Biang, Nyokap Irish Máthair Italian Madre, Mamma Japanese Okaasan, Haha Judeo/Spanish Madre Latin Mater Macedonian Majka Marathi Aayi Mongolian eh Norwegian Mamma or Mor Persian Madr, Maman Polish Matka, Mama Portuguese Mãe Punjabi Mai, Mataji, Pabbo Romanian Mama, Maica Russian Mat' Serbian Majka Slovak Mama, Matka Spanish Madre, Mamá, Mami Swedish Mamma, Mor, Morsa Swiss/German Mueter Turkish Anne, Ana, Valide Ukrainian Mati Urdu Ammee Welsh Mam Yiddish Muter Zeneize MoæLooking for news you can trust?
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Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, a top executive at the influential Family Research Council, has joined the chorus of religious conservatives touting the Syrian conflict as a prelude to Armageddon. On Wednesday, Boykin appeared on Prophetic Perspectives on Current Events, a talk show hosted by dominionist preacher Rick Joyner (see the video above). The pair discussed a passage in Isaiah 17, which predicts Damascus will be reduced to “a ruinous heap.”
“One of the scriptures that has never been fulfilled and has to be fulfilled before this age can end is that Damascus will be destroyed, never inhabited again,” Joyner explained. “What in the world could cause a city to be destroyed and never inhabited again?” Boykin didn’t hesitate. “One of the ways Damascus could be destroyed, never to be re-occupied, would be through a chemical attack,” he replied. ” So let’s just take a scenario: The Free Syrian Army takes Damascus and Bashar al-Assad is in a desperate mode now….What would be his final act? Well it may very well be to unload all his chemical weapons on the population center there in Damascus. Destroy the city and destroy it in a way that he just kills maybe millions of people. But the byproduct is that he has residue there that could make Damascus uninhabitable and for a very long time.”
This isn’t the first time Boykin has embraced the notion that war would obliterate the Syrian capital, paving the way for Jesus’s return. He recently wrote an endorsement for Damascus Countdown, a fictionalized account of the looming biblical conflict by best-selling author Joel Rosenberg. And he has spoken at several of Ronseberg’s annual Epicenter Conferences, which plumb the Middle East’s role in biblical prophesy.
While many End-Times enthusiasts subscribe to the so-called “burden of Damascus” theory, few of them have Boykin’s pedigree. Before joining the Family Research Council—the political arm of evangelical heavyweight James Dobson’s empire—Boykin spent 36 years in the military, where he led a number of key operations, including several against radical Islamists. Here’s a rundown from Time magazine:
As a captain in 1980, Boykin vainly tried to help rescue the 53 U.S. hostages held by Iran, a secret mission that ended in flames at Desert One, killing eight U.S. servicemen. Three years later, as a major, he helped invade Grenada. In 1992, as a colonel, he led the manhunt in Colombia for drug lord Pablo Escobar… But the experience that perhaps marked him most came six months later, in October 1993, in downtown Mogadishu. He and his troops were there when 18 soldiers died in an effort to snatch a Somali warlord—a tough day immortalized in Mark Bowden’s book Black Hawk Down.
Boykin also served as undersecretary of defense for intelligence under George W. Bush. During this era, he touched off a firestorm and earned a presidential rebuke by likening the War on Terror to a religious crusade against an enemy “called Satan.”
As the American Conservative has noted, Boykin continues to believe that “Satan is gathering his forces through Islam, and in particular through Sharia law which, via Muslim agents of deception, is slowly infiltrating the United States seeking to ‘destroy the Constitution.'” He said as much in a September 2010 video for the Rick Joyner-led Oak Initiative, a radical dominionist group, which counts Boykin among its board members. In another Oak Initiative video, Boykin claimed the Affordable Care Act allows President Barack Obama to launch a personal army akin to Hitler’s Brownshirts so he can “control the population.”
These comments reflect Boykin’s view that the world is a spiritual battleground. The retired general sees his political activities at the Family Research Council, and with the secretive conservative confab known as Groundswell, as a continuation of the spiritual warfare he waged in places like Baghdad. And he plans to continue fighting until the very end. “Here’s the way I want to enter the gates of Heaven: I want to come skidding in there on all fours,” he told the crowd at the 2008 Epicenter conference in Israel. “And I want to be standing there with a ragged breastplate of righteousness and a spear in my hand. And I want to say, ‘Look at me, Jesus. I’ve been in the battle. I’ve been fighting for you.'”Boiiiiiiing
Really, they had us at "mini-trampolines for the feet" didn't they?
Shhh. Shhhhh. Close your eyes. Find that quiet and still place within yourself. There is nothing but darkness and peace. Deep breath. Calm. Caaaaaalm.
What is it you want most in life? Oh, um... what else? Oh, really? Well, what's right after that? Look, let's just skip to whatever number it is where you say "moon shoes" so we can get on with it. Yeah! That's right! Moon shoes!
For those of you too young to remember, once upon a time, we had this thing called "a space program" that was full of people called "astronauts" who went into a place called "outer space." And when they did, the gravity was different, and they would hop about like little helmeted rabbits! Hop hop hop wheeeeeee! And that was basically why someone paid for Star Wars and that was why someone made a new Star Trek movie and that was why someone made The Wrath Of Khan and THAT was the only reason why anyone cared enough to make Next Generation and THAT is why syndicated television existed and THAT is why Battlestar Galactica got to happen and that is basically why nerd culture is at an all time peak right now. See, kids? That space program was pretty darn important, wasn't it?
Anyway, these moon shoes let you jump around like a Congressman trying to avoid prosecution. As you'd expect, they've got Velcro straps and they're made one-size-fits-all, which means your kid can start space bouncing IMMEDIATELY after opening the box. Whereas astronauts take a few years of training, even assuming they get funding to build some sort of rocket.
The choice is clear. Either pay more taxes to fund NASA to the fullest so we can develop a space base and begin regular commutes to the lunar surface like in 2001: A Space Odyssey or buy these moon shoes for your kids.
Back to topJürgen Klopp believes Liverpool have saved millions by moving decisively for Joel Matip and has indicated this summer may not witness another mass recruitment drive at Anfield.
Matip became the second signing of Klopp’s reign on Monday when it was confirmed he will leave Schalke for Liverpool when his contract expires at the end of the season. The 24-year-old central defender rejected a lucrative offer to stay in Gelsenkirchen, plus interest from several European and Premier League clubs, and Klopp claims Schalke could have named their price for the Cameroon international had he remained under contract. The Liverpool manager also confirmed the pursuit of Matip was his suggestion, not that of the club’s transfer committee.
Liverpool confirm Schalke defender Joel Matip will join club in summer Read more
Klopp, who may have lost the reserve midfielder Kevin Stewart to an ankle-ligament injury suffered in training, said of Matip: “He wanted a new challenge and he’s made big steps in his development in the last few years. He’s become a really experienced centre-half – tall but flexible and quick. A perfect header of the ball, he scores four or five goals a season, and is good in the buildup.
“He was an easy choice. I know in England it is really difficult to sign a player without paying a transfer fee but I thought it cannot be a reason not to take him only because you cannot put a number behind his name. If you asked in Germany what other clubs would have paid for him had he still been under contract, you can just pick a number.
“In Germany, for a player of his quality who is out of contract, there are a lot of clubs in the running. Schalke is a big club who have played the last four or five years in the Champions League. They made him a big offer to stay, they wanted to keep him. There are probably only three or four clubs in Germany who could get Matip when he is at Schalke – Dortmund, and that’s not possible, Bayern, maybe Leverkusen and maybe Wolfsburg. Finish. The rest, no chance. Then you have to think about other countries and that is what he wanted to do, and we moved early enough.
“I knew he was thinking about doing something else because he had been with Schalke since the youth team in 2000, a long time, and he wanted to do something completely different. This was our chance but there were a lot of clubs interested in him. He can be a really good centre-half in the Premier League.”
Klopp signed the Red Star Belgrade midfielder Marko Grujic last month and he will also arrive in the summer though the manager said he has “absolutely no idea” how many will ultimately turn up for his first pre-season at the club. However, following the high turnover of the past two summers, with Liverpool adding nine players to their first-team squad in 2014 and seven in 2015, Klopp suggested there may not be a repeat.
“I don’t believe in the number of transfers but we have to make solutions and we will make solutions,” he said. “Seven sounds really a lot. We have enough strikers – five with Roberto [Firmino] – but not too many wingers, just a few young ones with great potential.
“We have to decide early and at the right moment on transfers but it is about a squad where you can play different systems and react to different situations. We went into this season with five centre-halves if you think of Joe [Gomez] and then at one stage we seemed to only have one and a half. It was like: ‘Who can we play?’ So you prepare as much as possible and look for the highest quality you can get.”
Klopp returns to Germany on Wednesday when Liverpool travel to Augsburg for their Europa League last-32, first-leg tie. As well as missing Stewart, who has impressed in recent first-team outings, Adam Lallana is also out with injury.
“Kevin blocked a shot and his ankle was not stable,” he said. “It was a bit bruised so we have sent him for a scan; we think it’s the ligament. He trained outstandingly and then this happened. That’s not too good, but Lucas [Leiva] is back.”Some things are worth the wait. Sixty-five million years in the making for Jurassic Park? Totally worth it! And while RPG publisher Chaosium hasn’t waited quite so long, the return of its in-house magazine 41 years after it was first published is still very welcome.
Wyrms Footnotes, which chronicles Greg Stafford’s World of Glorantha published its first 14 issues between 1976 and 1983. After a mere 29-year hiatus, it returned again in 2012 with Issue #15, produced by Moon Design Publications. And in 2017, Wyrms Footnotes is back again!
“Our goal is for Wyrms Footnotes to be a place where we can regularly publish articles, maps, short scenarios, background, fiction and more, exploring Greg Stafford’s World of Glorantha”, said Chaosium vice president Michael O’Brien. Loved by its fans for more than 50 years, Glorantha is the mythic setting of the role-playing games RuneQuest and HeroQuest, board games like White Bear and Red Moon, novels like King of Sartar, the webcomic Prince of Sartar, and computer games including King of Dragon Pass.
Submissions are now open for Wyrms Footnotes and anyone who would like to contribute is asked to check out the submissions guidelines page for more information.
Each issue will be overseen by a special guest editor (who may or may not be a Chaosium member of staff, but will all share a deep and abiding passion for Glorantha).
The guest editor for Issue #16 is Ian Cooper, Chaosium’s line editor for the HeroQuest RPG and author of recent Glorantha releases The Coming Storm and The Eleven Lights. Issue #17 will be overseen by long-standing Glorantha contributor and creator David Scott, who is currently helping lead a 32-week “Group Read” of the monumental Guide to Glorantha on the Chaosium forums at BRP Central. Award-winning RPG designer, author and passionate Gloranthan Sarah Newton is guest editor of Issue #18.
“Wyrms Footnotes will appear bi-annually, at least initially,” O’Brien said. “We’re happy to consider anything Gloranthan that is well-written, playable and consistent – each issue will contain a potpourri of subjects relating to Glorantha and the Hero Wars.”Students in taxpayer-funded schools in Madison, Wis. are now learning that the riots in Ferguson, Mo. are comparable to the Boston Tea Party, according to a guide that school district officials distributed to teachers, EAGnews.org reports.
The guide is designed to advise teachers concerning how to talk to students about Ferguson. One lesson to which the guide links suggests a strong parallel between the Ferguson riots and the Boston Tea Party.
The lesson comes from a Michigan social studies teacher’s August blog post.
The Boston Tea Party was a 1773 protest against taxation without representation and a seminal event leading up to the American Revolutionary War.
In Ferguson last month, residents responded violently to a grand jury’s refusal to indict white police officer Darren Wilson for killing 18-year-old black male Michael Brown. In the hours after the grand jury decision, rioters burned police cars and looted and set numerous minority-owned businesses on fire. (RELATED: Total Police Failure Brings Absolute Mayhem To Ferguson After Grand Jury Announcement)
In August, a mini-riot broke out as a local QuikTrip was looted. Several nights of protests followed.
The teacher who compares Ferguson and the Boston Tea Party is Michael Kaechele. His blog is called Concrete Classroom.
Kaechele’s blog post entitled “Ferguson vs. Boston” declares that events in Ferguson have brought “to the surface (again) the institutional racism that has always been in our country.”
“I think white privilege causes some to look at Ferguson as an excuse for criminal activity rather than a political protest,” the white social studies teacher adds.
Kaechele then presents two side-by-side images and suggests that teachers ask several questions about the images.
The image on the left is a young black man stealing several bottles of wine in the midst of the QuikTrip looting. He is wearing his pants nowhere near his waist. He is not wearing a shirt.
The image on the right is a standard portrayal of the Boston Tea Party.
“What are the issues that each side is upset about?” he suggests asking. “Why did the people in Boston dress up as Native Americans?” Also: “What stereotypes do people have about the way the man on the left is dressed?” and “Why is the image on the right called a ‘party’?”
The social studies teacher’s attempt at a coup-de-grâce, final question is: “The event on the right has been mythologized and treated as action by heroes. Do you think the event on the left will be?”
Kaechele received his own education at Grand Valley State University, according to his LinkedIn page.
The larger Madison teacher’s guide calls the Ferguson riots “a teachable moment for our students,” EAGnews notes.
School officials in Madison make a number of other interesting choices for Ferguson-related materials. The entire teacher’s guide and an associated document can be found here and here.
This instance is not the first time that social studies in America’s public schools have attempted to hijack the Boston Tea Party for modern political ends. A few years ago, and as late as 2012, teachers across Texas were using a lesson plan paid for and blessed by state education officials that depicted the Boston Tea Party as an act of terrorism. (RELATED: Texas Schools Teach Boston Tea Party As Act Of Terrorism)
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E-40, from Northern California, is widely known for creating slang, flouting the rules and knowing everybody from everywhere. 40 spoke with Microphone Check hosts Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Frannie Kelley about Lil Jon, T-Pain, Tupac and Too Short. They started their conversation talking business and in particular, the model that 40 provided New Orleans' own Master P when No Limit Records was just a twinkle in his eye.
FRANNIE KELLEY: Thank you for being here.
E-40: Thank you for letting me be here.
KELLEY: I am in particular very interested in your business savvy. And how you spread what you know to other independent businessmen that are these days viewed as never having left their region. What I'm trying to talk about is the relationship between the Bay and the South — in particular New Orleans and Atlanta. Could you tell people who don't know what your relationship with Master P is?
E-40: Oh, Master P. Me and Master P go way back. Master P started off — he from New Orleans, but I believe his mama stayed in Richmond, Calif., and so when I was doing my independent grind — started out in '88. Met P around — probably around '89, somewhere around there. He was just a eager young man wanting to make this rap game work for him. He stayed out there. He did free shows and did everything he can do to get on. He watched my blueprint and did his thang.
KELLEY: Did you guide him?
E-40: Kinda sorta. He watched. My uncle St. Charles was one of the smartest men when it come to independent music that you probably ever want to meet. From him, I learned, and he learned from me and we both took our lumps and bruises and scrapes and scratches from ups and downs. Spending money here that didn't work, but spending money there and things happened.
Word of mouth was our cheapest form of promotion. Doing free shows and going out there and networking. And talking to industry people, but also putting our CDs and cassettes in people's hands that had hella slap in their trunk, that had the big sound systems and whatnot. And reputable cats, too. So just put it this way: all the ballers. You put that CD in they hand, everybody in the hood hear it and they be like, "Who is them?" That's how it went.
The way St. Charles, my uncle, the way he came into play in the '70s, he had what they call a 45 record. Remember 45s? He had one of them out independently. When I was young I was like, "Uncle St. Charles!" We called him Uncle Chuckie. "Uncle Chuckie, Uncle Chuckie! I want to make a record one day." He was like, "OK, well, I'll be waiting." I got older.
ALI SHAHEED MUHAMMAD: What was the name of his 45? You remember it?
E-40: Oh man, one was called "Rock Me in Your Arms" and another one was called "I Heard Shots Ring from a Pole." On the other side of it — you know what I mean, at the flip side.
MUHAMMAD: I have so many visuals right now from that title.
E-40: He was spitting the soil, the hood stuff, too, but singing. And producing, too. But it wasn't rap. It was soul. He'll pull up in Millersville, at my grandmamma house, and in the trunk he have couple of boxes of his 45s. He wasn't trying to sell them; he was selling them to retailers. He just so happened to have 'em in his trunk, and I was like, "Let me get one! Let me get one!" I played it over and over and over cause I was just happy that he was my uncle with a record. So I just watched him.
He came up with this idea — this is the greatest idea ever — you all know about one-sheets, where you have name of your song and all the information: who you toured with or who you opened up for, the bar code, everything that a retailer would need to order your cassette or CD or whatever. He will put five cassettes or CDs in the package, and he made a list. He had this big book — it started off small, then it became a big old encyclopedia of all the retailers in the nation. Out there in Nebraska, Kansas City, Chicago, George's Music, Seventh Heaven up in Kansas City, all over the place. Back then it was a lot of mom and pop stores, you remember?
So he would send the one-sheet out to all these people and send our posters with it and everything. Give 'em five or six cassettes, and say, "Here, take these for free and spread the word. If you like it you can order at this number." When they ordered, they would order from a place called City Hall Records, which is a one-stop in the Bay Area. That was our main hub. Real small. When they heard our music, it just start spreading.
At first, City Hall Records wasn't — them and Music People, they was the two smallest one-stops — at first they was like, "Man, he rap too fast. His voice too squeaky." And then they was talking about my partner, my cousin B-Legit. They was like, "And he rap like he reading, and his voice too deep." It's like, man, that was our chemistry. They didn't know how we do it. He just rapped in the pocket and I rap unorthodox.
MUHAMMAD: Who was making that criticism?
E-40: It was the main people, the people that ordered it. It was Jason Blane and Robin and Walter over at City Hall Records.
MUHAMMAD: So you're getting orders but these are the people that's kinda like...
E-40: I think at City Hall Records we had somebody blocking our shine.
MUHAMMAD: Yeah, that's what I'm getting at.
E-40: One of the youngsters up in there. I know a name; I ain't gone say it. But later on, we became — all of us — became great business partners. All of us together because we made money together. After a while, few months later, St. Charles got that call from City Hall and Music People, like, "Hey, you remember those guys The Click? E-40 and them? We need 5,000 of their records. We want to order 5,000."
That's how it went. Because they couldn't stop it; it was in demand. And next thing you know we just made money together. It was cool |
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This is in sharp contrast with the South Korean film, which may have touched on a political topic, but has now reached a wider global audience. As pointed out by EJ Insight, it greatly indicates a huge difference in the mindsets of Chinese and South Korean leaders when it comes to facing their countries’ unpleasant history.
For A Taxi Driver‘s star, Song Kang-ho in the lead role, this would be his third film to have been chosen as South Korea’s foreign-language Oscar contender, following last year’s The Age of Shadows and 2015’s The Throne.
A Taxi Driver set a box office record for selling 5 million tickets in a week, the shortest time in Korean box office history. It available for streaming on OnDemandKorea.
[Featured Image by Showbox]A new poll suggests that most New York voters support their police department's aggressive antiterror tactics, despite claims from critics that the surveillance techniques violate Muslims' civil liberties.
A series of reports by the Associated Press claims that the New York Police Department’s Demographics Unit targeted only New York's Muslim community for surveillance, which included recording conversations in stores and license plate numbers of people attending mosque – even without evidence of any criminal activity.
But 58 percent of New York voters said that police acted appropriately in dealing with Muslims, according to a poll released Tuesday by Quinnipiac University. Some 29 percent disagreed.
An even greater share of New York voters – 82 percent – said that the NYPD has been effective in fighting terrorism. The poll found that more Republicans support the NYPD than Democrats, but a majority of both parties are in support.
On Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn – a Muslim area that includes many of the Syrian-owned businesses targeted by the secret investigation – several non-Muslims interviewed said they support the NYPD’s tactics.
“It doesn’t bother me if it means better security,” says Tony Sadek, owner of Damascus Pastry Shop, which was targeted by the NYPD, according to an AP report released last week.
Mr. Sadek points out that he is from Lebanon, Christian, and is the third-generation owner of the shop, which has been in the same spot on Atlantic Avenue since 1920.
Tom Fusco, an engineer who lives in nearby Cobble Hill, also supports the NYPD. “As long as the NYPD is staying within the law, then I’m OK with it,” he says. “Once they cross that line, then that would be bad.”
But Muslims interviewed on Atlantic Avenue had a different perspective.
“We left our country to live a better life, not to worry about every word we say,” says Hoda Moftah, a sales associate at Oriental Travel LTD, one of the Syrian-owned business that was under surveillance.
Ms. Moftah, whose daughter attends Barnard College and has been involved in meetings with campus Muslim groups about the NYPD surveillance, has lived in New York for 25 years.
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Hussain Sulalman, who works at Mocha Hookah, a hookah bar and café on Atlantic Avenue, says that he isn’t surprised by the reports, although he is disappointed.
"There is no real justification for doing this in just some neighborhoods.” But, he says, “I don’t like feeling like I’m being watched.”Before we get started, let me tell you a bit about myself. I will be 32 years old in a few months and I haven’t worked for almost a year. There is no need to pity me as, from a financial point-of-view, I am fine. I do not live in my parents’ basement and I need no assistance financially. For all intents and purposes, consider me semi-retired.
So how did I manage to find myself in such a fortunate position? It is simple, I got myself some FU money. To understand what that is, I need to tell you about Microsoft. See, when Microsoft started out as a company, some of the company’s employees invested. As we all know, Microsoft ended up becoming one of the world’s biggest software companies and those employees who invested at the start were now sitting pretty.
Where it gets interesting is what those employees then did. They did not quit their jobs. Instead they started coming to work wearing badges that went something along the lines of “FU I’M MADE.” So basically what they did was send a message to their bosses that they do not want to quit, but that they also did not need the job. This basically gave them all the power to choose what kind of working life they wanted. As soon as it stopped being fun, they could just quit.
So that is where the term ‘FU money’ comes from. It all has to do with having the financial sense to save and prepare for a time when you may not be finding yourself content in your professional life. It is a similar place at which I found myself a little under a year ago. Luckily I had the foresight to know that day would eventually arrive so I started preparing for it.
For 5 long years I saved as much of my monthly income as I possibly could. I made a budget and I lived by it religiously. Most importantly, though, I made NO debt. We live in a world which constantly makes us believe that debt is a necessary evil. Let me tell you now, it is not. I have done perfectly fine without it for almost 10 years.
Yes, maybe it does mean that you have to use your iPhone 5 for 4 years. Yes, maybe it does mean that you will have to drive around in a 20-year-old car. Yes, maybe it does mean that you can only go out once a weekend and not twice. But it is all about keeping your eye on the prize. Every choice you make is going to have pros and cons. The only difference is that some choices are going to have more long-term pros and cons than others.
Thus it is for you to decide what is more important, struggling a bit now or struggling a lot later. I know it is difficult to choose a reward that you will only get years from now over an instant reward, but when you get that long-term reward it is just so much more satisfying. I promise you.
Just follow these simple rules and you will have your own bit of FU money in no(ish) time:
Budget: This can be the hardest part but it does not have to be. I, personally, use a program called “You Need A Budget 4,” YNAB4 for short, which is available on the other Steam. It does all the hard work for you. All you have to do is keep your receipts and, once a day, sit down and enter all your transactions. YNAB will do the rest. If you are well-versed in spreadsheets, you can make your own little budget in Excel or Google Docs. Stick to your budget: As I did, religiously. There is no use in having a budget if you don’t use it. You do not understand how much stress you can remove from your life by just creating a budget and sticking to it. Got a trip you want to take? Budget for it. Decide when you want to take the trip and figure out how much it will cost. Divide that amount by the months left and you will have a number you need to save each month. When the time arrives, you get to go on this trip and truly enjoy it as you did not have to make any debt to pay for it. Furthermore, sticking to a budget will mean you will ALWAYS have a lot of spare cash for use in emergencies. Have 2 bank accounts: One needs to be for every-day usage and the other one for saving, such as that trip you want to take. The savings account’s card always stays home! You do not carry it around with you because you will be tempted to use it. Avoid debt like the plague: Like I mentioned before, we are raised to believe that debt is unavoidable and necessary. Again, it is not. Not making debt just means you will probably have to wait a month or two more before you can buy something. Just get rid of your credit cards. If you cannot buy something cash, then do not buy it. You will survive, trust me. Save: And with this I mean as much as you possibly can. Under no circumstance am I saying you need to live as if you are homeless. After all, you are only young once so enjoy life, but in moderation. You do not need to buy a new phone every year. You do not have to go out every Friday and Saturday night. You do not always have to have the most expensive whatever. Sometimes it is okay to buy cheap and in bulk. Change the way you think: This is really important. You have to change the way you think about money. Many people look at money and immediately consider all the ways they can spend it. What you should be doing instead is think of ways you can grow it. Educate yourself about investing and always be thinking of ways you can make your money work for you instead of you working for it.
So that is just about all this 31-year-old fart is gonna lecture you on. I will part with you on the following note:
You will be surprised how quickly 10 years can pass you by. Don’t be caught with your head up your ass.
Thank you.
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Good blog post, but I respectfully disagree.
Are We The Worst Ever?
Learn How To Read And Write Using Hangul (Korean Alphabet): Lesson 3Honolulu City Councilmen Ernie Martin and Joey Manahan contend their proposal to subsidize the expansion of a Christian evangelical megachurch in Kalihi will benefit the community, despite criticism that it’s unconstitutional.
Martin and Manahan have suggested providing $250,000 of taxpayer funds to help New Hope Oahu’s $10 million capital campaign to renovate and expand its Sand Island headquarters.
Ken Silva, a pastor and spokesman for New Hope Oahu, said the money will pay for the construction of a new 400-seat auditorium that will be used for overflow seating during the church’s five weekend worship services.
He estimated that up to to 6,000 people attend the church’s services in Kalihi, and said those who can’t fit into the existing auditorium sit outside under a tent in the parking lot.
The new auditorium is just one part of a plan to expand the church’s facilities, which are envisioned to include new bathrooms, a 270-stall parking structure, an expo center, a dining café and a resource center.
Eric Pape/Civil Beat
But University of Hawaii constitutional law professor Andrea Freeman said Tuesday that paying for the expansion of a church would make the city vulnerable to lawsuits.
“It’s not constitutional,” she said. The government “cannot favor one religion over the other by providing funds unequally or supporting one religion over others.”
Both Martin and Manahan filed their budget requests Monday and declined interview requests Tuesday. The City Council is in the midst of crafting the fiscal year 2017 budget and plans to present a draft to Mayor Kirk Caldwell in June.
Martin, who chairs the Council and is considering running against Caldwell for mayor this fall, proposed “at least $250,000 out of current expenses shall be appropriated for the expansion of New Hope Oahu’s Center for Hope Capital campaign.”
His office released a statement Tuesday stating that the city has previously funded faith-based organizations such as Catholic Charities of Hawaii, the Salvation Army and St. Francis Healthcare Foundation of Hawaii.
“The New Hope Ministries on Sand Island is a multi-use facility providing community outreach programs to service the homeless, needy veterans, youth with special needs, victims of domestic abuse and those in need of marriage and family therapy,” said the statement attributed to Martin. “These services are available to all, without regard to any religious affiliation.”
The statement did not mention that the funding would be used to construct new church facilities.
A Question Of Church And State
Brent White, a law professor at the University of Arizona who previously worked as an attorney at the Hawaii American Civil Liberties Union, said the government may help fund a social service provided by a religious institution.
But he said it’s illegal to use public money to build a church.
“If what we’re talking about it is giving a church money so that they can build a place of worship. … It’s hard to imagine any scenario in which that will be constitutional,” White said.
It’s not the first time that New Hope has gotten entangled in the issue of separation of church and state. The watchdog group Hawaii Citizens for the Separation of Church and State sued the church in 2013, alleging New Hope shortchanged the state $5.6 million by using public schools without paying enough rent. The church paid $775,000 to settle the suit.
One of the plaintiffs, Holly Huber, moved to Michigan from Hawaii three years ago. But she said she’s very concerned about the idea that the Honolulu City Council would subsidize New Hope’s new facilities.
“It’s appalling that these two Council members would want to fund a church building when the city is so short of funds for all these other public purposes,” Huber said. “How is it possible that these Council members have no concept of the constitutional separation of state and church or what’s a good use of taxpayer dollars?”
New Hope’s Capital Campaign
Silva from New Hope said in addition to hosting weekend worship services, New Hope uses the Sand Island facility for over 20 ministries. Those are outreach programs to particular groups that involve proselytizing about the Christian religion and providing community services, such as clothing and meals for homeless people.
The church moved to Sand Island after getting sued by Huber’s group. “When we could no longer meet at Farrington (High School), we definitely needed a place to meet,” Silva explained.
New Hope has been actively soliciting funding for its capital campaign from its members as well as from private donors. Silva said the organization made presentations to both Manahan and Council Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi. Kobayashi, who leads the budget committee, didn’t include the $250,000 in her budget proposals, and did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Dan Gluck, an attorney at the Hawaii branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in an email Tuesday that religious organizations can apply for government contracts “so long as those organizations don’t use government funds for religious purposes.”
“This particular budget request is not very clear as to how these funds would be used, though there’s a troubling implication that public tax dollars would be used to fund religious operations,” he said. “Right now, though, this is just a proposed amendment to the budget, and the ACLU is confident that the City Council and its attorneys will vet this proposal thoroughly and resolve any potential constitutional concerns.”
Silva said the church is simply seeking available funding for its capital campaign as a qualified nonprofit.
“Just because we’re a religious organization, we shouldn’t be discriminated against, because we are qualified to access these funds,” he said.
Who Benefits?
Manahan, who represents Kalihi, also defended the proposal in a statement Tuesday, contending that the renovation of New Hope’s facilities would help benefit the community.
“Benefits to the City include dozens of new parking stalls for public use at no charge; more revenue as the revitalization of the Sand Island industrial area generates new business activity for area businesses; and the stated mission of New Hope to fully engage in helping us manage our homeless crisis and housing shortage,” the statement from Manahan said.
But Silva said the church hasn’t decided yet how parking spots will be allocated and what kind of public access will be allowed.
“We need 100 percent of our parking lot on the weekend,” Silva said, noting that it’s possible neighboring businesses could rent out parking spots during the weekdays.
The proposal has at least one city Council member feeling uncertain. Councilwoman Kymberly Pine said she doesn’t recall a similar budget proposal in the four years since she’s been at the City Council.
She thinks it would set an “unusual precedent” and wonders whether it would invite other churches to seek funding.
“What if the Buddhist church wants an expansion?” she asked rhetorically.
But despite her misgivings, she said it would be hard to vote against the funding.
“New Hope is very popular,” she said, noting that many constituents worship there.
Silva said the church has up to 10,000 attendees at its six locations island-wide.
“It would be up to residents to come and protest against it,” Pine said.Lowest possible energy of a quantum system or field
Not to be confused with Zero Point (photometry)
Zero-point energy (ZPE) is the difference between the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical system may have, and the classical minimum energy of the system. Unlike in classical mechanics, quantum systems constantly fluctuate in their lowest energy state due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.[1] As well as atoms and molecules, the empty space of the vacuum has these properties. According to quantum field theory, the universe can be thought of not as isolated particles but continuous fluctuating fields: matter fields, whose quanta are fermions (i.e. leptons and quarks), and force fields, whose quanta are bosons (e.g. photons and gluons). All these fields have zero-point energy.[2] These fluctuating zero-point fields lead to a kind of reintroduction of an aether in physics,[1][3] since some systems can detect the existence of this energy. However this aether cannot be thought of as a physical medium if it is to be Lorentz invariant such that there is no contradiction with Einstein's theory of special relativity.[1]
Physics currently lacks a full theoretical model for understanding zero-point energy; in particular the discrepancy between theorized and observed vacuum energy is a source of major contention.[4] Physicists Richard Feynman and John Wheeler calculated the zero-point radiation of the vacuum to be an order of magnitude greater than nuclear energy, with a single light bulb containing enough energy to boil all the world's oceans.[5] Yet according to Einstein's theory of general relativity any such energy would gravitate[citation needed] and the experimental evidence from both the expansion of the universe, dark energy and the Casimir effect show any such energy to be exceptionally weak. A popular proposal that attempts to address this issue is to say that the fermion field has a negative zero-point energy while the boson field has positive zero-point energy and thus these energies somehow cancel each other out.[6][7] This idea would be true if supersymmetry were an exact symmetry of nature. However, the LHC at CERN has so far found no evidence to support supersymmetry. Moreover, it is known that if supersymmetry is valid at all, it is at most a broken symmetry, only true at very high energies, and no one has been able to show a theory where zero-point cancellations occur in the low energy universe we observe today.[7] This discrepancy is known as the cosmological constant problem and it is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in physics. Many physicists believe that "the vacuum holds the key to a full understanding of nature".[8]
Etymology and terminology [ edit ]
The term zero-point energy (ZPE) is a translation from the German Nullpunktsenergie.[9] The terms zero-point radiation or ground state energy are also sometimes used interchangeably. The term zero-point field (ZPF) can be used when referring to a specific vacuum field, for instance the QED vacuum which specifically deals with quantum electrodynamics (e.g. electromagnetic interactions between photons, electrons and the vacuum) or the QCD vacuum which deals with quantum chromodynamics (e.g. color charge interactions between quarks, gluons and the vacuum). A vacuum can be viewed not as empty space but as the combination of all zero-point fields. In quantum field theory this combination of fields is called the vacuum state, its associated zero-point energy is called the vacuum energy and the average energy value is called the vacuum expectation value (VEV) also called its condensate.
Overview [ edit ]
Kinetic energy vs temperature.
In classical mechanics all particles can be thought of as having some energy made up of their potential energy and kinetic energy. Temperature, for example, arises from the intensity of random particle motion caused by kinetic energy (known as brownian motion). As temperature is reduced to absolute zero, it might be thought that all motion ceases and particles come completely to rest. In fact, however, kinetic energy is retained by particles even at the lowest possible temperature. The random motion corresponding to this zero-point energy never vanishes as a consequence of the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics.
Zero-point radiation continually imparts random impulses on an electron, so that it never comes to a complete stop. Zero-point radiation gives the oscillator an average energy equal to the frequency of oscillation multiplied by one-half of Planck's constant
The uncertainty principle states that no object can ever have precise values of position and velocity simultaneously. The total energy of a quantum mechanical object (potential and kinetic) is described by its Hamiltonian which also describes the system as a harmonic oscillator, or wave function, that fluctuates between various energy states (see wave-particle duality). All quantum mechanical systems undergo fluctuations even in their ground state, a consequence of their wave-like nature. The uncertainty principle requires every quantum mechanical system to have a fluctuating zero-point energy greater than the minimum of its classical potential well. This results in motion even at absolute zero. For example, liquid helium does not freeze under atmospheric pressure regardless of temperature due to its zero-point energy.
Given the equivalence of mass and energy expressed by Einstein's E = mc2, any point in space that contains energy can be thought of as having mass to create particles. Virtual particles spontaneously flash into existence at every point in space due to the energy of quantum fluctuations caused by the uncertainty principle. Modern physics has developed quantum field theory (QFT) to understand the fundamental interactions between matter and forces, it treats every single point of space as a quantum harmonic oscillator. According to QFT the universe is made up of matter fields, whose quanta are fermions (i.e. leptons and quarks), and force fields, whose quanta are bosons (e.g. photons and gluons). All these fields have zero-point energy.[2] Recent experiments advocate the idea that particles themselves can be thought of as excited states of the underlying quantum vacuum, and that all properties of matter are merely vacuum fluctuations arising from interactions of the zero-point field.[10]
The idea that "empty" space can have an intrinsic energy associated to it, and that there is no such thing as a "true vacuum" is seemingly unintuitive. It is often argued that the entire universe is completely bathed in the zero-point radiation, and as such it can add only some constant amount to calculations. Physical measurements will therefore reveal only deviations from this value.[11] For many practical calculations zero-point energy is dismissed by fiat in the mathematical model as a term that has no physical effect. Such treatment causes problems however, as in Einstein's theory of general relativity the absolute energy value of space is not an arbitrary constant and gives rise to the cosmological constant. For decades most physicists assumed that there was some undiscovered fundamental principle that will remove the infinite zero-point energy and make it completely vanish. If the vacuum has no intrinsic, absolute value of energy it will not gravitate. It was believed that as the universe expands from the aftermath of the big bang, the energy contained in any unit of empty space will decrease as the total energy spreads out to fill the volume of the universe; galaxies and all matter in the universe should begin to decelerate. This possibility was ruled out in 1998 by the discovery that the expansion of the universe is not slowing down but is in fact accelerating, meaning empty space does indeed have some intrinsic energy. The discovery of dark energy is best explained by zero-point energy, though it still remains a mystery as to why the value appears to be so small compared to huge value obtained through theory - the cosmological constant problem.[6]
Many physical effects attributed to zero-point energy have been experimentally verified, such as spontaneous emission, Casimir force, Lamb shift, magnetic moment of the electron and Delbrück scattering,[12][13] these effects are usually called "radiative corrections".[14] In more complex nonlinear theories (e.g. QCD) zero-point energy can give rise to a variety of complex phenomena such as multiple stable states, symmetry breaking, chaos and emergence. Many physicists believe that "the vacuum holds the key to a full understanding of nature"[8] and that studying it is critical in the search for the theory of everything. Active areas of research include the effects of virtual particles,[15] quantum entanglement,[16] the difference (if any) between inertial and gravitational mass,[17] variation in the speed of light,[18] a reason for the observed value of the cosmological constant[19] and the nature of dark energy.[20][21]
History [ edit ]
Early aether theories [ edit ]
James Clerk Maxwell
Zero-point energy evolved from historical ideas about the vacuum. To Aristotle the vacuum was τὸ κενόν, "the empty"; space independent of body. He believed this concept violated basic physical principles and asserted that the elements of fire, air, earth, and water were not made of atoms, but were continuous. To the atomists the concept of emptiness had absolute character: it was the distinction between existence and nonexistence.[22] Debate about the characteristics of the vacuum were largely confined to the realm of philosophy, it was not until much later on with the beginning of the renaissance, that Otto von Guericke invented the first vacuum pump and the first testable scientific ideas began to emerge. It was thought that a totally empty volume of space could be created by simply removing all gases. This was the first generally accepted concept of the vacuum.[23]
Late in the 19th century, however, it became apparent that the evacuated region still contained thermal radiation. The existence of the aether as a substitute for a true void was the most prevalent theory of the time. According to the successful electromagnetic aether theory based upon Maxwell's electrodynamics, this all-encompassing aether was endowed with energy and hence very different from nothingness. The fact that electromagnetic and gravitational phenomena were easily transmitted in empty space indicated that their associated aethers were part of the fabric of space itself. Maxwell himself noted that:
To those who maintained the existence of a plenum as a philosophical principle, nature's abhorrence of a vacuum was a sufficient reason for imagining an all-surrounding aether... Aethers were invented for the planets to swim in, to constitute electric atmospheres and magnetic effluvia, to convey sensations from one part of our bodies to another, and so on, till a space had been filled three or four times with aethers.[24]
However, the results of the Michelson–Morley experiment in 1887 were the first strong evidence that the then-prevalent aether theories were seriously flawed, and initiated a line of research that eventually led to special relativity, which ruled out the idea of a stationary aether altogether. To scientists of the period, it seemed that a true vacuum in space might be completely eliminated by cooling thus eliminating all radiation or energy. From this idea evolved the second concept of achieving a real vacuum: cool it down to absolute zero temperature after evacuation. Absolute zero was technically impossible to achieve in the 19th century, so the debate remained unsolved.
Second quantum theory [ edit ]
In 1900, Max Planck derived the average energy ε of a single energy radiator, e.g., a vibrating atomic unit, as a function of absolute temperature:[25]
ε = h ν e h ν / ( k T ) − 1, {\displaystyle \varepsilon ={\frac {h
u }{e^{h
u /(kT)}-1}}\,,}
where h is Planck's constant, ν is the frequency, k is Boltzmann's constant, and T is the absolute temperature. The zero-point energy makes no contribution to Planck's original law, as its existence was unknown to Planck in 1900.[26]
The concept of zero-point energy was developed by Max Planck in Germany in 1911 as a corrective term added to a zero-grounded formula developed in his original quantum theory in 1900.[27]
In 1912, Max Planck published the first journal article[28] to describe the discontinuous emission of radiation, based on the discrete quanta of energy. In Planck's "second quantum theory" resonators absorbed energy continuously, but emitted energy in discrete energy quanta only when they reached the boundaries of finite cells in phase space, where their energies became integer multiples of hν. This theory led Planck to his new radiation law, but in this version energy resonators possessed a zero-point energy, the smallest average energy a resonator could take on. Planck's radiation equation contained a residual energy factor, one hν/2, as an additional term dependent on the frequency ν, which was greater than zero (where h is Planck's constant). It is therefore widely agreed that "Planck's equation marked the birth of the concept of zero-point energy."[29] In a series of papers from 1911 to 1913,[30] Planck found that the average energy of an oscillator to be:[27][31]
ε = h ν 2 + h ν e h ν / ( k T ) − 1. {\displaystyle \varepsilon ={\frac {h
u }{2}}+{\frac {h
u }{e^{h
u /(kT)}-1}}~.}
Einstein's official 1921 portrait after receiving the Nobel Prize in Physics
Soon, the idea of zero-point energy attracted the attention of Albert Einstein and his assistant Otto Stern.[32] In 1913 they published a paper that attempted to prove the existence of zero-point energy by calculating the specific heat of hydrogen gas and compared it with the experimental data. However, after assuming they had succeeded, they retracted support for the idea shortly after publication because they found Planck's second theory may not apply to their example. In a letter to Paul Ehrenfest of the same year Einstein declared zero-point energy “dead as a doornail”[33] Zero-point energy was also invoked by Peter Debye,[34] who noted that zero-point energy of the atoms of a crystal lattice would cause a reduction in the intensity of the diffracted radiation in X-ray diffraction even as the temperature approached absolute zero. In 1916 Walther Nernst proposed that empty space was filled with zero-point electromagnetic radiation.[35] With the development of general relativity Einstein found the energy density of the vacuum to contribute towards a cosmological constant in order to obtain static solutions to his field equations; the idea that empty space, or the vacuum, could have some intrinsic energy associated to it had returned, with Einstein stating in 1920:
There is a weighty argument to be adduced in favour of the aether hypothesis. To deny the aether is ultimately to assume that empty space has no physical qualities whatever. The fundamental facts of mechanics do not harmonize with this view... according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an aether. According to the general theory of relativity space without aether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense. But this aether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable media, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it.[36][37]
Heisenberg, 1924
Kurt Bennewitz and Francis Simon (1923)[38] who worked at Walther Nernst's laboratory in Berlin, studied the melting process of chemicals at low temperatures. Their calculations of the melting points of hydrogen, argon and mercury led them to conclude that the results provided evidence for a zero-point energy. Moreover, they suggested correctly, as was later verified by Simon (1934),[39][40] that this quantity was responsible for the difficulty in solidifying helium even at absolute zero. In 1924 Robert Mulliken[41] provided direct evidence for the zero-point energy of molecular vibrations by comparing the band spectrum of 10BO and 11BO: the isotopic difference in the transition frequencies between the ground vibrational states of two different electronic levels would vanish if there were no zero-point energy, in contrast to the observed spectra. Then just a year later in 1925,[42] with the development of matrix mechanics in Werner Heisenberg's famous article "Quantum theoretical re-interpretation of kinematic and mechanical relations" the zero-point energy was derived from quantum mechanics.[43]:162
In 1913 Niels Bohr had proposed what is now called the Bohr model of the atom,[44][45][46] but despite this it remained a mystery as to why electrons do not fall into their nuclei. According to classical ideas, the fact that an accelerating charge loses energy by radiating implied that an electron should spiral into the nucleus and that atoms should not be stable. This problem of classical mechanics was nicely summarized by James Hopwood Jeans in 1915: "There would be a very real difficulty in supposing that the (force) law 1/r2 held down to the zero values of r. For the forces between two charges at zero distance would be infinite; we should have charges of opposite sign continually rushing together and, when once together, no force would tend to shrink into nothing or to diminish indefinitely in size"[47] This resolution to this puzzle came in 1926 with Schrodinger's famous equation.[48] This equation explained the new, non-classical, fact that as an electron moves close to a nucleus its kinetic energy necessarily increases in such a way that the minimum total energy (kinetic plus potential) occurs at some positive separation rather than at zero separation; in other words, that zero-point energy is essential for atomic stability.[49]
Quantum field theory and beyond [ edit ]
In 1926 Pascual Jordan[50] published the first attempt to quantize the electromagnetic field. In a joint paper with Max Born and Werner Heisenberg he considered the field inside a cavity as a superposition of quantum harmonic oscillators. In his calculation he found that in addition to the "thermal energy" of the oscillators there also had to exist infinite zero-point energy term. He was able to obtain the same fluctuation formula that Einstein had obtained in 1909.[51] However, Jordan did not think that his infinite zero-point energy term was "real", writing to Einstein that "it is just a quantity of the calculation having no direct physical meaning"[52] Jordan found a way to get rid of the infinite term, publishing a joint work with Pauli in 1928,[53] performing what has been called "the first infinite subtraction, or renormalisation, in quantum field theory"[54]
Paul Dirac 1933
Building on the work of Heisenberg and others Paul Dirac's theory of emission and absorption (1927)[55] was the first application of the quantum theory of radiation. Dirac's work was seen as crucially important to the emerging field of quantum mechanics; it dealt directly with the process in which "particles" are actually created: spontaneous emission.[56] Dirac described the quantization of the electromagnetic field as an ensemble of harmonic oscillators with the introduction of the concept of creation and annihilation operators of particles. The theory showed that spontaneous emission depends upon the zero-point energy fluctuations of the electromagnetic field in order to get started.[57][58] In a process in which a photon is annihilated (absorbed), the photon can be thought of as making a transition into the vacuum state. Similarly, when a photon is created (emitted), it is occasionally useful to imagine that the photon has made a transition out of the vacuum state. In the words of Dirac:[59]
The light-quantum has the peculiarity that it apparently ceases to exist when it is in one of its stationary states, namely, the zero state, in which its momentum and therefore also its energy, are zero. When a light-quantum is absorbed it can be considered to jump into this zero state, and when one is emitted it can be considered to jump from the zero state to one in which it is physically in evidence, so that it appears to have been created. Since there is no limit to the number of light-quanta that may be created in this way, we must suppose that there are an infinite number of light quanta in the zero state...
Contemporary physicists, when asked to give a physical explanation for spontaneous emission, generally invoke the zero-point energy of the electromagnetic field. This view was popularized by Victor Weisskopf who in 1935 wrote:[60]
From quantum theory there follows the existence of so called zero-point oscillations; for example each oscillator in its lowest is not completely at rest but always is moving about its equilibrium position. Therefore electromagnetic oscillations also can never cease completely. Thus the quantum nature of the electromagnetic field has as its consequence zero point oscillations of the field strength in the lowest energy state, in which there are no light quanta in space... The zero point oscillations act on an electron in the same way as ordinary electrical oscillations do. They can change the eigenstate of the electron, but only in a transition to a state with the lowest energy, since empty space can only take away energy, and not give it up. In this way spontaneous radiation arises as a consequence of the existence of these unique field strengths corresponding to zero point oscillations. Thus spontaneous radiation is induced radiation of light quanta produced by zero point oscillations of empty space
This view was also later supported by Theodore Welton (1948),[61] who argued that spontaneous emission "can be thought of as forced emission taking place under the action of the fluctuating field." This new theory, which Dirac coined quantum electrodynamics (QED) predicted a fluctuating zero-point or "vacuum" field existing even in the absence of sources.
Throughout the 1940s improvements in microwave technology made it possible to take more precise measurements of the shift of the levels of a hydrogen atom, now known as the Lamb shift,[62] and measurement of the magnetic moment of the electron.[63] Discrepancies between these experiments and Dirac's theory led to the idea of incorporating renormalisation into QED to deal with zero-point infinities. Renormalization was originally developed by Hans Kramers[64] and also Victor Weisskopf(1936),[65] and first successfully applied to calculate a finite value for the Lamb shift by Hans Bethe (1947).[66] As per spontaneous emission, these effects can in part be understood with interactions with the zero-point field.[67][12] But in light of renormalisation being able to remove some zero-point infinities from calculations, not all physicists were comfortable attributing zero-point energy any physical meaning, viewing it instead as a mathematical artifact that might one day |
ett Ellison, Brian Leonhardt, David Morgan, Mycole Pruitt
Projected to make the final cut(4): Kyle Rudolph, Rhett Ellison, Mycole Pruitt, David Morgan
Analysis: The Vikings kept four tight ends last year. With the loss of Chase Ford, that opens up the spot for David Morgan. He will make the team purely on his blocking skills. He will be good insurance in case of injury.
Defensive Tackle
Currently on the team: Linval Joseph, Shariff Floyd, Tom Johnson, Shamar Stephen, Theiren Cockran, Kenrick Ellis, Isame Faciane, Toby Johnson
Projected to make the final cut(4): Linval Joseph, Shariff Floyd, Tom Johnson, Shamar Stephen
Analysis: The backups in this group will be important as we lost Joseph last year for a number of games. If he can stay healthy all season, this group should be as strong as ever.Defensive End
Currently on the team: Scott Crichton, B.J. Dubose, Everson Griffen, Danielle Hunter, Zach Moore, Brian Robison, Justin Trattou
Projected to make the final cut(4): Everson Griffen, Danielle Hunter, Brian Robison, Justin Trattou
Analysis: We will roll with the same members that we did last season minus Crichton. We will use his spot to take on another player in another position group.
Line Backer
Currently on the team: Anthony Barr, Audie Cole, Jake Ganus, Chad Greenway, Eric Kendricks, Edmond Robinson, Brandon Watts, Kentrell Brothers, Emmanuel Lamur, Travis Lewis, Stephen Weatherly
Projected to make the final cut(6): Anthony Barr, Eric Kendricks, Chad Greenway, Audie Cole, Emmanuel Lamur, Kentrell Brothers
Analysis: With the team addressing this position group in both free agency and the draft, there will be some new blood this year. This also being the last year for Chad Greenway, this year will be the tryout for someone to step in and take his spot next season. Brothers was one of the best inside linebackers in college football last year and could let Kendricks move back to the outside. I am excited to see our linebacker corps this year.
Corner Back
Currently on the team: Keith Baxter, Captain Munnerlyn, Terence Newman, Jabari Price, Eric Rawls, Xavier Rhodes, Marcus Sherels, Trae Waynes, Mackensie Alexander
Projected to make the final cut(6): Xavier Rhodes, Captain Munnerlyn, Terence Newman, Trae Waynes, Mackensie Alexander, Marcus Sherels
Analysis: A lot of fans were scratching their heads when they hear Alexanders name called in the second round of this years draft, but more talented cover corners is never a bad thing to have. I hope that Waynes has grown enough to get the starting job opposite Rhodes. I expect Alexander to get some backup minutes at nickel corner behind Munnerlyn. With Munnerlyn’s contract up next season, Alexander could be groomed to be his replacement if he proves to be too expensive.
Safety
Currently on the team: Antone Exum Jr., Anthony Harris, Jayron Kearse, Andrew Sendejo, Harrison Smith, Michael Griffin
Projected to make the final cut(5): Harrison Smith, Michael Griffin, Andrew Sendejo, Anthony Harris, Jayron Kearse
Analysis: As the Vikings still search to find the right compliment to Harrison Smith, they did not draft one until the seventh round. Jayron Kearse has all the measurables and has said to be impressive in the first days of the rookie minicamp. I expect him to be groomed into a serviceable backup this year and possibly a started later down the road.
Special Teams
Punter: Jeff Locke
Kicker: Blair Walsh
Long Snapper: Kevin McDermott
Projected to make the final cut(3): All of the above
Analysis: As we do not have a punter signed to our 90 man roster as of yet, I will say that Locke makes the team. If Nick O’Toole can come in and blow some away in his workout, there is a good chance he could beat out Locke for the starting punter job. I hope so at least. Locke has been painful to watch.
Final Word: This team does not have a lot of room for change. There is talent everywhere. This is a great problem to have. We will have to make some cuts this year that will be head scratchers. This team will continue to grow and get better. I see another step forward from Bridgewater with new weapons around him and an upgraded offensive line. Let’s get ready for another great season! SKOL!Only a few have felt and experienced Google’s latest Nexus 7 tablet, but modifications and hacks for the highly anticipated tablet have started to sprout like mushrooms. Among these modifications is a mod that lets users experience a full tablet user interface (UI) on the Nexus 7, instead of the default phone UI that it comes with.
While critics are beginning to scrutinize every detail of the Nexus 7, the ever hardworking devs from XDA Developers are doing their homework to improve the Nexus 7 experience. The modification to enable a full tablet UI on the device is a tweak that they have developed. It’s easy to implement and one can easily restore the default if needed. The process involves changing the LCD value of the tablet. No flashing is required.
If you want to learn about it, see the instructions and requirements below.
Warning
The instructions in this guide are intended for use with the Google Nexus 7. Applying these instructions on another device or model may produce undesired outcomes.
The information in this guide is provided for instructional and educational purposes only. There is no guarantee that these instructions will work under your specific and unique circumstances.
Use these instructions at your own risk. We shall not hold any responsibility or liability for whatever happens to you or your device arising from your use of the info in this guide.
Read and understand the whole guide first before actually performing the instructions.
Requirements
Instructions
Method 1
Install a file explorer app such as ES File Explorerand enable the app’s root access option. In ES File Explorer, for example, go to Settings and enable Allow Mount Rewritable and Root Access. Using your file manager app, go to /system and you will find the build.prop file. Copy the file and paste it to another folder to serve as a backup file. Make sure you remember where you copied it to. Open the original build.prop file in a text editor and look for “ro.sf.lcd_density”. ES File Explorer has its own text editor called ES Text Editor. The original LCD density value should be set to 213. Change it into 175 or lower. Save the build.prop changes that you made by pressing the Menu key. Once done, you may now restart your Nexus 7 to boot into full tablet UI mode.
Method 2
Download and install the BuildProp Editor app. Open the app and navigate to /system. Open the build.prop file. Locate the line with “ro.sf.lcd_density.” The original LCD density should be 213. Change it to 175 or below to get the tablet UI. Save the file and reboot your tablet.
Method 3
Download and install ROM Toolbox Lite from the Google Play Store. Launch the app. Go to Performance and press the build.prop editor. Locate the line with “ro.sf.lcd_density.” Change the DPI to 175 or below. Once done, tap OK and close the app. Reboot your Android tablet.
Using the Nexus 7 in full tablet UI will definitely make the whole Jelly Bean experience better. Look out for new mods for this device! Enjoy!Mindfulness as a psychological aid is very much in fashion. Recent reports on the latest finding suggested that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy is as effective as anti-depressants in preventing the relapse of recurrent depression.
While the authors of the paper interpreted their results in a slightly less positive light, stating that (contrary to their hypothesis) mindfulness was no more effective than medication, the meaning inferred by many in the media was that mindfulness was superior to medication.
Mindfulness is a technique extracted from Buddhism where one tries to notice present thoughts, feeling and sensations without judgement. The aim is to create a state of “bare awareness”. What was once a tool for spiritual exploration has been turned into a panacea for the modern age — a cure-all for common human problems, from stress, to anxiety, to depression. By taking this “natural pill” every day, we open ourselves up to the potential for myriad benefits and no ill-effects, unlike synthetic pills, such as anti-depressants, whose potential for negative side-effects we are all aware of.
We don’t know how it works
Mindfulness has been sold to us and we are buying it. After all, thousands of studies suggest that it produces various kinds of measurable psycho-biological effects. However, despite what is commonly propagated, the idea that science has unequivocally shown how meditation can change us is a myth. After examining the literature from the last 45 years on the science of meditation, we realised with astonishment that we are no closer to finding out how meditation works or who benefits the most or the least from it.
The few available meta-analyses report moderate evidence that meditation affects us in various ways, such as reducing anxiety and increasing positive emotions. However, it is less clear how powerful and long-lasting these changes are — does it work better than physical relaxation for example? Or than a placebo? The evidence on this is contradictory and inconclusive.
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy is an eight-week group therapy programme blending cognitive education with mindfulness techniques. It was designed specifically as a treatment to help prevent individuals who have experienced recurrent depression from further relapse. As well as weekly group sessions, participants are encouraged to engage in daily mindfulness meditation at home throughout the course. This mindfulness therapy is growing in popularity, with recent calls for it to be more widely available on the NHS.
Yet we still can’t be sure what the active ingredient is. Is it the meditation itself that causes the positive effects, or is it more to do with learning to step back and become aware of our thoughts and feelings in a supportive group environment? And why does it only work for some?
Side effects
Mindfulness is presented as a technique that will have lots of positive effects – and only positive effects. It is easy to see why this myth is so widespread. After all, sitting in silence, focusing on your breathing or being aware of the flow of thoughts and feelings would seem like a fairly innocuous activity with little potential for harm.
But considering that many of us rarely sit alone with our thoughts, it isn’t hard to see how this might lead to difficult thoughts and emotions rising to the surface for some people – which we may, or may not, be equipped to deal with. Yet the potential for emotional and psychological disturbance is rarely talked about by mindfulness researchers, the media, or mentioned in training courses.
And here we come to an important point. Buddhist meditation was designed not to make us happier, but to radically change our sense of self and perception of the world. Given this, it is perhaps not surprising that some will experience negative effects such as dissociation, anxiety and depression. However, like the small print on medication, these “side-effects” in some individuals are not what the creators of this pill are concerned with promoting.
For some, penicillin is life saving; for others, it induces a harmful reaction. Just because your friend or family member responds to a pill a certain way, does not mean you will respond in the same way. The same is also true with mindfulness: for some, it may be very effective or it may not work at all, for others, there may be harmful effects.
Mindfulness has been separated from its roots, stripped of its ethical and spiritual connotations, and sold to us as a therapeutic tool. While this may not deny its power as a technique to change our state of consciousness and with implications for mental health, it arguably limits its “naturalness”, as well as its potential – at least as originally intended.
Many Buddhists are critical of the use of mindfulness for purposes which are very different from the radical shift in perception they aim for — the realisation of “emptiness” and liberation from all attachments. Instead, as Giles Coren recently claimed, this technique has been turned into a McMindfulness which only reinforces one’s egocentric drives.
The idea that each of us is unique is a cornerstone of individual-based therapy. But with mindfulness-based approaches there is little space for one’s individuality, in part because it’s a group practice, but also because there has been no serious attempt to address how individuals react differently to this technique.
So if you go into it – as with taking any other kind of pill – keep your eyes open. Don’t consume mindfulness blindly.Hospitals frequently make medication errors with child patients due to the heavy workload of nurses, distraction and poor communication, a new Canadian study suggests.
Serious errors when administering drugs to children are the most common medical error involving children, according to previous research. Drugs approved for adults are often used for children under the age of 12, although they aren't formulated for pediatric use.
The delivery of a single medication involves up to 40 steps with room for error, previous research suggests. ((CBC))
When Kim Sears, an assistant professor of nursing at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., and her colleagues anonymously surveyed nurses at hospitals affiliated with universities across the country, nurses said four young patients died because of some medication errors during the three-month study.
In total, 372 errors were reported, including 245 errors and 127 instances where an error was caught before the drug was administered.
The errors included giving children medication at the wrong the time, the wrong dose or the incorrect drug.
Administering medications to children involves basing the dose on the child's weight.
"Different places use different kinds of math calculations, but there needs to be a standardized approach used," Sears said.
Her other recommendations were that "the areas that nurses are giving the medications are well lit and clutter free and nurses aren't distracted while they're preparing the medications."
Nurses may prepare medications from a cart or in a chaotic area of the unit where housekeeping interrupts to mop the floor and where other health-care professionals, patients and visitors are often asking questions, Sears said.
"Pediatric medication administration errors are occurring frequently and are ultimately devastating to children and their families," the study's authors concluded in the January issue of the Journal of Pediatric Nursing.
To make the administration of medications safer, the researchers' recommendations included:
Increasing training for future pediatric nurses
Improving communication between doctors, nurses and pharmacists including during training.
Standardizing medication delivery, such as stocking drugs that are dangerous to children away from common drugs.
Sears called it the first study she knows of in Canada to ask nurses to record errors and near misses when they occur.
She encouraged hospitals to share their experiences and best practices with front-line staff and with each other.
The study was funded by a nursing research fellowship at the University of Toronto.Nanny State June 7, 2010
It can be a very effective technique in debate to take your opponent’s statement and reword it to make your own point. Steven Landsburg shares with us what he would have written if he had been the writer for a New York Times article on New York State’s proposed minimum wage law for nannies (emphasis added):
New York state may soon become the first state to restrict employment opportunities for nannies. The state Senate passed a bill this week that would prohibit New York’s approximately 200,000 household workers from accepting any position that does not include paid holidays, overtime pay and sick days. Opponents say the step will bring unnecessary hardship to thousands of women—and some men—who have found employment because of labor markets that operate freely, except for constraints imposed by the federal minimum wage.
Yes, if only they wouldn’t pass this minimum wage law, we could get back to the free market. As Kevin Carson might say, “Jesus, vulgar much?”:
Vulgar libertarian apologists for capitalism use the term “free market” in an equivocal sense: they seem to have trouble remembering, from one moment to the next, whether they’re defending actually existing capitalism or free market principles. So we get the standard boilerplate article arguing that the rich can’t get rich at the expense of the poor, because “that’s not how the free market works”–implicitly assuming that this is a free market. When prodded, they’ll grudgingly admit that the present system is not a free market, and that it includes a lot of state intervention on behalf of the rich. But as soon as they think they can get away with it, they go right back to defending the wealth of existing corporations on the basis of “free market principles.” […] See, laborers just happen to be stuck with this crappy set of options–the employing classes have absolutely nothing to do with it. And the owning classes just happen to have all these means of production on their hands, and the laboring classes just happen to be propertyless proletarians who are forced to sell their labor on the owners’ terms. The possibility that the employing classes might be directly implicated in state policies that reduced the available options of laborers is too ludicrous even to consider. In the world the rest of us non-vulgar libertoids inhabit, of course, things are a little less rosy… …the general legal framework (as Benjamin Tucker described it) restricted labor’s access to its own capital through such forms of self-organization as mutual banks. As a result of this “money monopoly,” workers were forced to sell their labor in a buyer’s market on terms set by the owning classes, and thus pay tribute (in the form of a wage less than their labor-product) for access to the means of production.
Charles Johnson understands the effects the state has on the labor market:
government-imposed distortions of the markets in labor, capital, land, and ideas (inter alia) artificially constrain opportunities for people to make a living for themselves, distorting the labor market to keep disproportionate power in the hands of a small and privileged class of rentiers. Without those market distortions, a law against paying workers $4 an hour would matter about as much as a law against selling pork-chops in Mecca — objectionable on principle, but mainly negligible as a strategic matter, due to a dearth of identifiable victims.
But none of this is to imply that I disagree with Landsburg about the destructiveness of the minimum wage. I’m nuanced like that. Charles again:
But as long as those coercive distortions are substantially in place, we do have to keep in mind how bosses will predictably react to additional coercive counter-distortions that are piled on top to correct for the predictable effects of the first distortion, without actually changing anything about the root causes. And with the predictable patterns of reaction in mind, and their current position of power within the labor market, I don’t think we have to turn into a bunch of vulgar Friedmaniacs or Misoids to agree with them that the effects of keeping, or worse, raising legally-enforced price floors on labor are going to be generally quite destructive, and most destructive to those who need most badly to find a place to sell their labor… …in spite of fact that the anti-minimum-wage argument has mainly been promulgated with a vulgar libertarian tone, the thing for left libertarians to do in response is not to kick it back down to the bottom of the priorities ladder, but rather to take it up themselves and re-conceptualize the debate — to treat minimum wage laws and the rest of coercively protective labor legislation as of a piece with government licensure cartels, zoning laws, the health and building codes favored by the Public Interest and Private Property Values racket, etc., as an integral part of the corporate liberal system of coercive power, which coercively ratchet up poor folks’ fixed costs of living while coercively ratcheting down their opportunities to scratch up a living.
So, yes, Steve, it ain’t a good thing. But can’t we say so without also saying completely ridiculous things like “except for constraints imposed by the federal minimum wage,” labor markets “operate freely”?
AdvertisementsThis article is not about being the perfect well-balanced partner or being the best husband or father. True, balance is key to a good long-term relationship and yes, sometimes, you have to suck-it-up. But, most guys that have been raised in this feminist era are way too submissive, if not … plainly feminine. This new trend of extreme pussyfication, cause them plenty of problems with women and is the root of many other deeper issues that plague’s our modern societies.
If you have clicked a link to this article, there is a good chance you have already noticed that hot women who are passionately in love rarely happen to be with that super nice, generous and romantic guy.
Yes, the man they love is an Alpha, which could be perceived as an asshole/douche/selfish-pick if you just do not get what is going on.
To have great relationships with women you must be The Man.
A good injection of pure Alpha directly into the bloodstream is what most modern guys need in order to balance things the right way and that is what this article intends to do.
On your path to glory
You are on a mission, on a path to glory. You might be building a business, climbing up the ladder of an organization or doing some research that will revolutionize the world one day.
One thing for sure you are a value creator with the gods on your side.
What you are after will one day worth a fortune and your name will be glorious.
Certainly, in order to be sane and balanced you will take time to enjoy life while on your path, but as a man on a mission, you will not let anything distract you from that path.
For you, being the main production unit in this venture, it is important that you put your own well being first and be attentive to your own needs. If you want your mind and body to be a perfectly well-tuned machine capable of anything, you need to take care of it. It is of the upmost importance because the challenges that are coming to you will be great…
That is why you will put yourself first.
At one point you will have to recruit a team, to be surrounded by good people, in order to reach glory. There is no way around it. You will have to use the production capacity of other people to propel yourself and to make this mission a success.
A way or another, you will become inter-dependent with those people and lead them to accomplish objectives.
If any of those followers would compromise the mission or become a liability, you will have to let them go and that includes people who have the purpose of helping you to keep good moral, happiness and sanity, like your woman.
Even if she has a special place, she is just like the other member of your team, an instrument of glory.
You do not chase women.
You are definitively on a schedule and don’t have any of your precious time to waste, especially not chasing women. That would break your focus and lead you into decadence.
You have enough to worry about, with your mission.
While attending social gatherings, to release tension and have fun, you definitively keep an eye open to find the people that you will need to accomplish your goal. Like an undercover recruiter for the CIA, you are looking for some talents.
You will invite some people in and others will be drawn to follow you by your commitment, passion, and intensity.
That includes women.
They are all welcome to tag along if they bring you something valuable to the mission and that can include love, sex, and moral support.
In the beginning, before any sprouts of success start to manifest, you could be lonely and in need of sexual intimacy in order to function properly. Probably, no women would naturally and effortlessly come to you at that early point and if this cause a problem because of your high testosterone level, you will have to fix this minor issue.
You can use online dating, has it is efficient, to find a dating partner/fuck-friend and fix the issue.
Why make things complicated when they can be so simple.
Understanding, this temporary fix should be just enough to solve the matter and put things in motion in a way that will lead to the situation to resolve itself with time.
She can tag along … if you like what she doing.
When a woman will decide to follow you on your quest and want you to share your glory with her, it means that consequently, you will become her leader. She will take her signals from you and not the contrary. Anyway, it is in women’s nature to transform themselves for their leader, as they are highly adaptable.
You, on your side, you hold your frame of mind and stay strong as an oak tree, demanding what you need from her, affection, moral support, sex, etc…
Prioritize your agenda first.
You don’t put her has a priority and change all your life for her.
You’re a man on a mission.
You keep your routine, you train your body like a Spartan to be strong and healthy, you read to keep your mind sharp, you network to find new team members, you work to make things happen.
At the end of the day or the week, when you are done killing it, there is a place in your schedule for some fun, relaxation, and love. That when you take some good time with her. That’s it.
Your world, your set of rules.
To achieve glory, you need discipline and focus. You need to live by a code of honor and a set of rules. You need those rules to stay on track.
You cannot live by her rules, otherwise, you will lose your way.
If she wants to follow you on your path, she must adapt to your code and rules. If she argues or fights about it, if she wants to change you or your destination, you just leave her behind and continue on your way.
Your focus is unbreakable.
You will see, if you are concerned about yourself first, she will be concerned about you first. If you focus on your mission, she will support you with your mission. She will react to you, it is in her nature.
Always, be real.
You don’t apologize for being yourself and doing what you do.
You don’t pretend you like what she does if you’re not.
You don’t say Yes if, in fact, you think No.
You don’t lie to protect her feeling.
You don’t fake it if she’s bad in bed.
You don’t react to her mood swings, as you are the focused force who’s moving in the right direction.
You are real, honest and respect yourself first, then respect her… if she deserves it.
Bold and confident
You take smart and calculated risks but you are bold. To much boldness is better than not enough. You are what you think you are and what you do, so you think big and act big.
You are confident that you will pull it off. There will be some problems, sure, but you will solve them one at the time.
You are completely unafraid of being selfish or perceived has a self-centered prick. You know you are destined for glory. If she thinks you are a douche because you are strong, motivated, disciplined and focused. This is not your problem; she can grow-up, keep it for herself or leave.
Time to play, do it like there is no tomorrow
When it’s time for play, sex, and love, you’re a go-getter to. You cannot allow yourself to lose this precious time by being wishy-washy and dull. You do what you want, feel and need to do with intensity! The first thing you know, you will be back to business and your body and mind really need this playtime, whether it’s in the bedroom or not.
Again, you take the lead, you do what you want and you do it in a bold and unafraid manner.
Don’t be afraid to lose her
You don’t live in fear. Life is too short, and your way to busy doing your things to live in fear.
Why would you fear to lose her anyway?
If she doesn’t like you or what you do, this is a bad thing for you and will only create problems that will demoralize and slow you down.
If she not happy or not loyal, it kind-of defying her own purpose in your life, isn’t it?
You just let her go without hesitation, a little break never hurt as you will have more time to put with your friends and business partners. Anyway, another one is probably waiting to take her place and in fact, most of the time new women will often be the catalyst that will renew your creative energy and passion.
You also know something else; in life, you only move forward, the next one is always a better one.
Sometimes, you catch yourself thinking that you might, in fact, be a demi-god, do not question your sanity; it’s probably just your instinct revealing the truth about yourself.
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Chuck
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Recommended Strength Training ProgramThe most successful people seldom procrastinate. If something needs to be done today then today is the day they will do it.
Procrastinators tend to work from behind, always trying to catch up because of the too many times they did the easy thing rather than the necessary thing. Successful people have developed the skills and discipline required to avoid procrastinating and because of that they tend to work from the front. They always look to be a step ahead and because of that they accomplish more with less stress on their lives.
Think about that for a minute. Procrastinators accomplish less and have more stress. People who don’t procrastinate accomplish more and have less stress.
So why would anyone procrastinate? I guess we all have our individual reasons. I can tell you I seldom put off doing the things I like or the easy things in life. It’s the challenging stuff, often the most important stuff, that I put off.
But I’ve found ways to limit my procrastinating. Here is a couple of ideas that might help you do the same:
Set goals that matter! It’s amazing what the average person can accomplish when they really want something. It’s almost a certainty that if you don’t have goals that matter to you then you are not as productive as you could be. You most likely use procrastination to keep yourself from doing things that matter to other people but not to you.
Balance is a key to avoiding procrastinating. Without balance in your life the hard jobs get harder. Work can only “matter” for so long and if you’re only working because you have to work then the hard jobs soon become nearly impossible. So set goals in all areas of your life, not only work related areas.
Reward Yourself! When you accomplish something worthwhile, especially something challenging that you may have been putting off, then reward yourself. Give yourself a little treat, just make sure that the “little treat” doesn’t include putting off another challenging task.
The most successful people procrastinate far less then the average person. They do the hard jobs first. In fact, they do the hardest job, the thing they least want to do, before they do anything else. They subscribe to Brian Tracy’s theory that once you accomplish the hard job, everything else becomes easier to do.
If, at any particular point in time, you’re not doing the most productive thing you can be doing then you’re not doing the thing you should be doing. You might just be procrastinating.
Success waits for no one. If you can do “it” today, then make today the day you do “it.”26.10.2011
Fraunhofer-Forscher: Die Umweltzone ist komplett unnütz
Fraunhofer-Institut untersuchte wissenschaftlich: Keine Verbesserung der Luftsituation. Stickstoffdioxidemissionen werden demnach nicht minimiert
Wie bei des Kaisers neue Kleider komme sich Dr. Matthias Klingner vom Fraunhofer-Institut für Verkehrs- und Infrastruktursysteme aus Dresden, manchmal vor. „Es traut sich keiner so richtig zu lachen.“ Doch Gründe zum Lachen über Entscheidungen der Politik zum Thema Umweltzonen gebe es genug. Denn: „Die Umweltzonen sind nicht nur wirkungslos für die Belastung durch Feinstaub, sondern auch durch Stickstoffdioxid.“
Gestern wurde bei der Ulmer Industrie- und Handelskammer (IHK) ein von ihr in Auftrag gegebenes Gutachten vorgestellt, das denn Sinn der Umweltzonen nicht nur in Frage stellt sondern wissenschaftlich widerlegt. Bereits vor einiger Zeit errechnete das Fraunhofer-Institut wie berichtet, dass mit den Umweltzonen die Feinstaubelastung nicht verringert werden könne. Viele Befürworter entgegneten dann: ja, aber sie verhindern immerhin die Belastung durch Stickstoffdioxid. Doch laut den gestern veröffentlichten Ergebnissen ist auch das nicht der Fall.
Die wichtigsten Ergebnisse in Kürze: Umweltzonen leisten bisher keinen nachweisbaren Beitrag zur Verminderung der Feinstaubwerte. Und: Die Plakettenregelung in Umweltzonen orientiert sich nur am Feinstaubausstoß der Fahrzeuge. Für andere Schadstoffe können die Regelungen nicht angewendet werden. Im Gegenteil: Die derzeit gültige Plakettenregelung der Umweltzonen führt demnach bei Stickstoffdioxid zu einem höherem Ausstoß.
Dies hat technische Gründe: Denn selbst modernste Dieselfahrzeuge und leichte Nutzfahrzeuge der Abgasnorm Euro 5 bzw. Euro V (grüne Plakette) stoßen zwar weniger Feinstaub, allerdings bedeutend mehr Stickstoffdioxid aus als ältere mit roter Plakette. Zufahrtsbeschränkungen bewirken daher einen Zuwachs des Stickstoffdioxidausstoßes von bis zu zwei Prozent. Und auch die Nachrüstung eines Partikelfilters wirkt kontraproduktiv. Dadurch erhalten nämlich ältere Diesel-Fahrzeuge zwar eine gelbe oder grüne Plakette. Dies aber nur zum Preis eines erhöhten Stickstoffdioxidausstoßes. „Es besteht ein Zielkonflikt: Eine Reduzierung des Feinstaubausstoßes ist derzeit nur durch eine Erhöhung des Stickstoffdioxidausstoßes zu erkaufen“, so Klingner, der sich wie „ein Rufer in der Wüste“ vorkomme. Denn für die verantwortlichen Politiker sei es nicht bequem, zuzugeben, dass sie ein falsches Instrument für richtige Ziele einsetzen. Es gebe auch nicht wirklich jene von der Politik oft vorgebrachte europapolitische Verpflichtung für Umweltzonen: „Nur was auch einen echten Effekt erzielt, wird von der EU verlangt.“
Die nächsten Fahrverbotsstufen sollen kommen
Die Verantwortlichen täten laut Klingner gut daran, endlich die wissenschaftlichen Ergebnisse anzuerkennen: Umweltzonen bewirken keine Verbesserung der Luftsituation.“
Es gebe andere Maßnahmen, die wirkungsvoller sind. So liege das größte Schadstoffminderungspotential bei Stickstoffdioxid im Verkehrsfluss. Bei flüssigem Verkehr ist der Stickstoffdioxidausstoß je nach Straßentyp und Geschwindigkeit um 29 bis 55 Prozent geringer als bei Stopp & Go. Oberstes Ziel müsse daher eine weitere Verbesserung des Verkehrsflusses sein. Auch der Schwerlastverkehr trage überproportionale Schuld an den Emmissionen: das Aussperren von nur 1100 schweren Lastern aus der Innenstadt führe zu den gleichen Einsparungen wie wenn man gleich 30 Prozent aller Ulmer Autos ein Fahrverbot erteilen würde.
Jedoch wird in den nächsten Jahren durch die geplanten innerstädtischen Baustellen der Verkehr an verschiedenen Stellen eingebremst. Es muss daher mit mehr Stopp and Go gerechnet werden. „Vor diesem Hintergrund sollte aus unserer Sicht noch einmal darüber nachgedacht werden, die nächsten Fahrverbotsstufen einzuführen“, sagt Otto Sälzle, Hauptgeschäftsführer der IHK Ulm. Die IHK Ulm fordert daher die Stadt Ulm und das Regierungspräsidium Tübingen auf, die Plakettenreglung nicht zu verschärfen.
Andere effektive Maßnahmen wie die Sperrung der Zinglerstraße für den Schwerlastverkehr, die auch die IHK Ulm seit langem vorgeschlagen hat, wurden bislang noch immer nicht umgesetzt. Auch hat die IHK Ulm das selektive Durchfahrtsverbot für Laster auf der B 10 befürwortet. (heo)
Mehr zum Thema:
Deutsche rüsten alte Diesel kaum mit Rußpartikelfiltern nach
Schon wieder Feinstaubalarm: Kommt jetzt das Fahrverbot für Stuttgart?
Themen FolgenIts been the norm for several generations now, so we hardly even notice it. But its insidious. Its the curtailment of our freedom to move.
I live in India, but Im currently in Japan visiting my in-laws. On the way back to India, Id like to swing through China, just for three days, to visit my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. But in order to do this, I need a passport with a Chinese visa in it. I do not have the freedom either to leave the jurisdiction of the Japanese Government without an inspection of these documents or to enter the jurisdiction of the Chinese Government without these documents. So I look up the location of the Consular Section of the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo and make my way to it.
After walking through a metal detector and having my bags and pockets searched, I am free to board the elevator to the third floor of the building. I walk out and am greeted by multiple counters, each sporting long lines, plus a waiting room filled with people holding numbers or frantically filling out visa applications. I had printed and filled out mine at home, so I stepped into the first line. When I reached the window, the woman behind it informed me that since I was a non-bussinessperson American, I was not allowed to get my Chinese visa processed there. Americans (engaged in non-business travel) must obtain their visas through an external travel agency.
I left the building more than a little perturbed. These are the hoops of government, I thought |
of Hyderabad. The JNU row and Rohith Vemula's suicide have both sparked great debate in the country about the freedom of speech, the right to dissent, police brutality and overreach.
According to The Indian Express, the slogan of the protests is "humein chahiye azaadi, hum chheen ke lenge" (We want freedom and we will snatch it). The protest is being organised by Joint Action Committe (JAC) for Social Justice and Hyderabad Central University (HCU). The report also points out that students from TISS, TIFR, Mumbai University will join the protests.
According to Mid-Day, a number of students from across Mumbai universities and colleges have started a petition seeking the immediate release of Kanhaiya Kumar.
Others accused of sedition and branded as "absconding" by the Delhi police, Umar Khalid and others will also be moving the High Court seeking security to surrender.
With inputs from agencies
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.How do you not notice a 17th-century castle hiding in plain sight in the middle of your town? That’s a question the people of Clones, Co Monaghan, are asking themselves following the discovery of a four-storey plantation castle behind a terrace on the main street.
A 1741 drawing of Clones, held in the National Library, shows many ruins and archaeological features, including an impressive castle. However it was thought that all that was left of the building was subsurface remains.
That was until local volunteer historian George Knight and Monaghan county heritage officer Shirley Clerkin took a wander down behind the now obviously named Castle Street.
Clambering over brambles and barbed wire, they found themselves at the base of a four-storey four-sided tower sitting on a large plinth, covered in ivy.
“Clones is built on top of a drumlin, it’s a very steep drop and the castle is before the next slope,” says Clerkin, adding that she once stood on top of a church right beside the castle and had not noticed it.
Several massive stone walls have now been revealed. They form part of an investigation to uncover the truth about the site, which was recently purchased by Fáilte, a support group for prisoners, which supported an application by Clones Community Forum to the Heritage Council grants scheme to employ an archaeological team to start figuring out the extent of the castle.
Fáilte has been clearing back the site following instructions from the archaeological team in preparation for an open day next week as part of Heritage Week, the first day that the castle is on view to the public.
“What we think we have here are remnants at least three storeys high, with musket loops all the way up,” Clerkin says. “There’s also a tunnel going underneath the steps.”
She believes it was possibly the townhouse of a prominent planter family, the Lennard-Barrets.
Even if the unusual topography of Clones and the heavily overgrown site contributed to the castle lying hidden for so long, it seems remarkable that there was no local folk memory of its existence.
Clerkin says some people had believed the site contained the ruins of an old piggery, but she also makes the point that “you’re dealing with a Border town here. Things are not spoken about.”
Another contributory factor is that the population of Clones has dwindled in recent decades, she adds. None of the houses that make up the 18th-century terrace on Castle Street is now in residential use. The new discovery however highlights the Border town’s particular historical resonances.
“Clones is a very interesting place,” Clerkin says. “We have a motte-and-bailey, a high cross, a round tower and a Georgian terrace. What we were missing was a plantation castle.
“Why would you go to a folk park to see a recreation of all this when you have the real thing here?”
The Clones Plantation Castle open day is on Thursday, August 25th, from 12pm-4pmPowerColor just let the cat out the bag and showcased its upcoming water-cooled R9 390X 8GB Devil at ComputeX. The company’s new flagship custom cooled variant of the R9 390X will feature a hybrid cooling setup very much like the R9 295X2. With a large fan channeling cool air onto the VRMs and a 120mm radiator cooling the GPU itself.
The design looks very aggressive and will without a doubt appeal to a lot of gamers. Powercolor went for a mix of silver, black and red with a bold engraved “Devil” in a diamond shape to the left of the large fan. Powercolor has not revealed details about the clock speeds or temperatures. But we expect to see clock speeds north of 1100Mhz for the GPU and 6000Mhz for the memory.
PowerColor Unveils Water Cooled R9 390X 8GB Devil At Computex
As with other R9 390X cards the card will feature an updated version of the Hawaii XT GPU with higher clock speeds in addition to 8GB of GGDR5 that’s also clocked higher than the current flock of R9 290X cards.
WCCFTech AMD Radeon Fury X
AMD Radeon Fury
AMD Radeon R9 390X
AMD Radeon R9 290X
GPU Code Name Fiji XT Fiji PRO Hawaii XT Hawaii XT GPU Cores / Shaders 4096 TBD 2816 2816 Memory
4GB Stacked HBM 4GB Stacked HBM 8GB GDDR5 4GB GDDR5 Memory Frequency 1.0Ghz 1.0Ghz 6.0Ghz 5.0Ghz Memory Interface 4096 Wide IO 4096 Wide IO 512bit GDDR5 512bit GDDR5 Total Memory Bandwidth 512GB/S 512GB/S 384GB/S 320GB/S GPU Clock Speed 1.05Ghz TBD 1.05Ghz 1Ghz Compute Performance 8.5TFLOPS* TBD 5.9TFLOPS* 5.6TFLOPS Launch Price TBD TBD TBD $549
* Estimated from core count and clock speed.
The Devil 13 brand is reserved for PowerColor’s highest end offering of a specific graphics card. So there will no doubt be other versions of the R9 390X with custom air coolers as well. But none as dramatic as this one.
Despite featuring a hybrid liquid and air cooling setup the card is actually quite thick, spanning 2+ PCIE slot widths. Speaking of the water cooking setup the radiator is a thing 120mm design attached to a high static pressure quiet 120mm fan that will exhaust the warm air out of the back of the case. It appears to feature 3x 1/4″ isolated anti evaporation tubing, which also appears to be quite long so you’ll be able to install a graphics card at the bottom PCIe slot without issue.
Despite being a factory overclocked top end model, it maintains the reference 8+6 pin PCIe power configuration.
You can also clearly see in the image that powercolor has fitted the card with strengthening metal plate that begins about half an inch away from the 8-pin. The card is also fitted with a backplate that gives the card even more structural rigidity as well as a cool aesthetic look.Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
BERLIN – The spokesman for Hamburg’s Jewish community, Daniel Killy, said deteriorating security in Germany has led to a highly dangerous situation for Jews.
“No, we are no longer safe here,” Killy told the news outlet tagesschau.de on Tuesday. He said the disintegration of state power, excesses of the extreme right-wing, the loss of political credibility, and “the terrible fear of naming Islamism as such” have contributed to an insecure environment for Jews. Hamburg’s Jewish community has nearly 2,500 members.
Germany has absorbed over one million refugees from mainly Muslim-majority countries.German Jewish leaders have warned about rising anti-Semitism because the refugees are socialized in countries that are steeped in hatred of Jews and Israel.The detailed taggeschau.de report, which was authored by Patrick Gensing, an expert in extremist ideologies, wrote that anti-Semitic sentiments have diverse manifestations in Germany. He cited studies that point to “historical defensive guilt [about the Holocaust], obsessive criticism of Israel, National Socialist racism, Muslim anti-Semitism [and] Christian anti-Semitism.”Gensing wrote about a “wave of hatred” at the “hate-filled demonstrations against the Gaza War” in 2014. An Israeli couple were attacked during that period. Also, three Palestinians attempted to torch a Wuppertal city synagogue – one that had previously been burned by Germans in 1938. A local court sentenced the Palestinians to probation and stated that the act of arson was not anti-Semitic because the men sought to draw attention to the Gaza war.The regional court on Monday imposed a more severe sentence on the men – Ismael A., 29, Muhammad E., 25 and Jamil A., 19. German media protects perpetrators’ and victims’ privacy by not citing their full last names. Two of the men are from the West Bank and the other is from the Gaza Strip. It is unclear what the increased punishment is.According to a Monday Spiegel article, the approximately 2,000 Jews in Wuppertal no longer feel safe. The head of the Wuppertal Jewish community, Leonie Goldberg, said, “I thought the time of the packed suitcases was for always over.Now I am considering when we need to again pack these suitcases.”In 2015, approximately 200 German Jews made aliya. The number is considered high given that Germany’s Jewish population falls into an older age demographic.
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>><!--[if gte mso 9]> 0 0 1 122 702 Metro Media Publishing 5 1 823 14.0 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-AU JA X-NONE <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <![endif]--><!--StartFragment-->A teenager has been caught taking a disability scooter for a joyride, reaching speeds of 70km/h along a main road in Melbourne's west.
Police clocked the 17-year-old riding the motorised scooter 10km/h over the 60km/h speed limit in Station Road, Melton South about 11.10am, Saturday.
The Melton teen was spotted travelling at high speed along Station Road, Melton West. Credit:Paul Rovere
The Melton teen evaded police's initial attempts to apprehend him, before being spotted travelling "at speed" along the footpath in High Street, a police spokeswoman said.
He was arrested on Sunday morning.
The teenager will be charged on summons with a range of offences, including conduct endangering life, conduct endangering person, evading police and using an unsafe modified vehicle.
He will appear at a children's court at a later date.The Steelers stole Le’Veon Bell. It was legal and all, but it was a steal in every other sense of the word.
He was the 48th player chosen in the 2013 NFL Draft, which placed him toward the latter portion of the second round. Surely there were at least two or three better football players selected ahead of him, but go ahead and look at the list. If indeed there are, it’s not more than a few.
Bell rushed for 1,361 yards and caught 83 passes for another 854 yards in his one full season in the league, 2014, which ended on a knee injury in the final regular season game. This past year, he produced 556 yards in six games, which equates to 1,483 yards over the full season, but he again was injured along the way. He also is an exceptional blocker in the passing game.
MORE: Most burdensome NFL contracts | Fitzgerald Toussaint 'inconsolable'
Like most NFL draft picks, Bell signed an initial contract that was more or less what would have been expected for a player chosen at 48 overall: four years, $4.12 million. He has played three years of that deal, which means he owes the Steelers one more season. And, at that point, he will no longer be a steal. He will not be a deal.
He will command a significant contract, something on the order of the $40 million, five-year deals signed not long ago by DeMarco Murray and LeSean McCoy. Whoever pays Bell that kind of money will be making a common but extraordinary mistake.
What do the four teams remaining in the playoffs — Cardinals, Panthers, Broncos and Patriots — have in common? A lot, starting with excellent to legendary quarterbacks in control of their offenses.
Here’s what you might not notice:
1. Not one had a 1,000-yard rusher in the 2015 season.
2. The salary-cap hit for three of the teams’ lead backs is less than $1 million.
3. Three of the four teams won Divisional round games without a 100-yard rushing performance.
4. Three of the four won without a Pro Bowl back.
Contrast that to the importance of an elite secondary to the remaining teams. All four seminfinalists feature Pro Bowl cornerbacks. The Broncos have two.
Broncos corners Aqib Talib and Chris Harris have a combined salary cap hit of nearly $10 million. Arizona’s Patrick Peterson has a cap hit of $14.7 million. Carolina’s young Josh Norman, who was a fifth-round pick out of Coastal Carolina in 2012, was an All-Pro bargain this season at $1.5 million. The best teams are putting their money on stopping the pass.
MORE: Will Josh Norman play for the Panthers in 2016?
Norman will be an unrestricted free agent when the Panthers’ season concludes. If the Steelers are looking to invest a significant amount of their payroll into a single player during this offseason, that cash would be far better overspent on Norman to invigorate a secondary that is improved but still vulnerable than on a back who — through no particular fault of his own other than choosing to make a living as an NFL running back — was unable to finish either of the past two seasons.
Bell is not only a steal, he is a Steeler. Despite his marijuana bust and suspension at the start of the 2015 season, Bell represents the sort of player the team wants in its locker room. He is invested in the organization.
If the Steelers want to continue to move their team forward, though, they’d be best off allowing Bell to play the final season of his contract in 2016 and allowing someone else to throw good money after backs.D arkest Hour, Joe Wright’s recent film, vividly describes the closing days of May 1940, when Adolf Hitler’s blitzkrieg swept over western Europe. In Britain, despite overwhelming odds, Winston Churchill convinced his country to fight on.
It is an excellent film — both historically accurate and dramatically taut. And Gary Oldman’s portrayal of Churchill far exceeds many of those we’ve seen in recent years. But the nature of the film means that viewers necessarily miss out on fascinating background and details.
Happily, there are many good books on those frightening few days that offer a broader picture than the film. If you liked the movie and want to learn more, here are three of the best:
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. VI, Finest Hour 1939-1941
(Hillsdale College Press, 2011, 1308 pages; http://amzn.to/2hBExwT)
This is a whacking big book, yet not expensive. It’s the key volume of Churchill’s enormous Official Biography. It puts you at his shoulder day by day in May 1940, as France falls and Britain is left alone. Part two of the volume, also called “Darkest Hour,” is easily the most memorable section, walking you through a shocking a catalogue of disaster and the constant barrage of setbacks and challenges Churchill faced.
John Lukacs: Five Days in London, May 1940
(Yale University Press, 2001, 236 pages; http://amzn.to/2hDwL5P)
Unlike Gilbert’s tome, this short book can be read in a few evenings. It focuses strictly on May 23-28, 1940. The author provides a rich account of Churchill’s achievement: changing opinions, dominating events. Lukacs, an emigrant from Hungary in 1956, has a fascinating perspective on how the decisions made over the course of those days shaped the political aftermath of World War II on the Continent. More than most, he understood firsthand the nature of Marxism. Yet he shows why Nazism, in 1940, was the greater threat. Hitler, he writes, was “the greatest revolutionary of the 20th century.” His triumph would have led to what Churchill called “a new dark age,” protracted by “perverted science.” Lukacs envisions a world of atomic bombs and ICBMs held by a victorious Third Reich. Alone among the leaders of 1940, Churchill saw that world.
David Owen, Cabinet’s Finest Hour: The Hidden Agenda of May 1940
(Haus Publishing, 2017, 320 pages, http://amzn.to/2krA3wJ)
David Own, British foreign secretary in the late 1970s, uses his unique insider’s experience of cabinet government to discuss Churchill’s cabinet, focusing in on individual members’ actions and attitudes toward a truce with Germany. Historian Andrew Roberts calls this book “masterly… the greatest moment for Cabinet government and collaborative politics supported by the key contemporaneous documents. An exciting, thought-provoking read, with profound contemporary as well as historical relevance.”
Mr. Langworth is Senior Fellow for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. His latest book is WinstonChurchill, Myth and Reality.Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura suggested Tuesday that he’d be glad to be 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 running mate.
“Do you think Donald would ever think of asking me?” Ventura said during an interview on his “Off the Grid” show with former Trump adviser Roger Stone.
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Ventura said he’d support Trump for the GOP presidential nomination.
“I shocked my staff today,” Ventura said. “I came in and said, ‘You know what, as far as the Republicans are concerned, I hope Trump wins.’”
“I’m not a Republican – I’m not a Democrat either – so ultimately I’d like somebody else overall,” the former WWE wrestler added.
In his endorsement, Ventura cited Trump’s ability to frustrate the influence of political parties and the mainstream media.
“These insiders to our government, you’re right Roger, Trump has scared the hell out of them, because as you said, they can’t control him,” Ventura said.
Stone has been doing interviews this week since leaving the Trump campaign over the weekend. Stone says he quit over differences with the direction of the campaign, while Trump says Stone was fired.
Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota in 1998 as a member of the Reform Party. Two years later, Trump briefly entered the presidential race as a Reform Party candidate before dropping out due to party infighting.The judge gave the vultures the weapon they needed: Argentina had to either pay them off or renege on the default they had negotiated, ruining the country’s credit in the future and threatening its recovery.
On Thursday, Argentina finally settled for something close to the terms that Judge Griesa set. NML Capital will receive about half of the total agreement — $2.28 billion for its investment of about $177 million, a total return of 1,180 percent. (Argentina also paid the legal fees for the vultures.)
This resolution will carry a high price for the international financial system, encouraging other funds to hold out and making debt restructuring virtually impossible. Why would bondholders accept a haircut if they could wait and get exorbitant returns for a small investment?
In some ways, Argentina was an outlier. It fought aggressively for the best terms from the initial set of bondholders, setting the stage for a spectacular recovery: From 2003 to 2008, until the global financial crisis intruded, the country grew 8 percent per year on average, and unemployment declined to 7.8 percent from more than 20 percent. In the end, the creditors who had accepted the initial restructuring got the principal value in full and even 40 percent more.
Most countries are intimidated by the creditors and accept what is demanded, with often devastating consequences. According to our figures, 52 percent of sovereign restructurings with private creditors since 1980 have been followed by another restructuring or default within five years. Greece, the most recent example, restructured its debt in 2012, and only a few years later it is in desperate need of more relief.
It’s common to hear the phrase “moral hazard” when looking at countries that face crushing debt, like Greece or Argentina. Moral hazard refers to the idea that allowing countries (or companies or people) to renegotiate and lower their debts only reinforces the profligate behavior that put them in debt in the first place. Better that the debtor faces disapproval and harsh consequences. But the Argentina deal reversed the moral hazard by rewarding investors for making small bets and reaping huge rewards.
Britain and Belgium have made particular kinds of vulture suits illegal. Similar legislation, with bipartisan support, stalled in Congress in 2009. Last September, the United Nations overwhelmingly approved nine principles that should guide sovereign debt restructuring. During the debate, one ambassador apologized to actual vultures — the birds — for using the term. (One of us, Martin Guzman, made presentations to both the United Nations and to the Argentine Senate, but was not paid in either case.)Investigation finds Coffs shooting victim was unarmed
Updated
The investigation into a police shooting in Coffs Harbour has found the victim was unarmed.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning a young Victorian woman was shot in the jaw at close range as she sat in the driver's seat of a stolen car near the Coffs CBD.
The head of the Local Area Command Mark Holahan says neither the woman or her male passenger were armed.
"We now know that, after the examination of the crime scene that no other weapons were located, and we know that the lady now is still in a stable condition at John Hunter.
"We know that there were four people at the scene that night.
"Two of those people have been spoken to, and two have not.
"We know now that there was only one shot fired and the officer that had control of that firearm.
"He needs to make a number of assessments with other people to make sure he's psychologically right to continue with his duties," he said.
Topics: crime-prevention, law-crime-and-justice, traffic-offences, coffs-harbour-2450, australia, nsw, port-macquarie-2444
First posted(Reuters) – A transgender woman whose brother is an National Basketball Association player has been found slain in a Baltimore alley, police said on Thursday.
The body of Mia Henderson, 26, who was born as Kevin Long, was found shortly before 6 a.m. on Wednesday, the victim of “severe trauma,” police spokesman Lieutenant Eric Kowalczyk said.
Henderson’s brother, Reggie Bullock, was a first-round draft pick last year for the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers. Bullock played in 43 games for the Clippers during the regular season and averaged 2.7 points.
“All I can say is my brother showed me how to live your own life,” Bullock said on Twitter. “Love you so much man. Gone but not forgotten.”
Henderson’s is the second killing of a transgender person this summer in Baltimore. Kandy Hall, 40, was stabbed to death in early June.
Prostitution may have played a role in Henderson’s killing, according to police.
“We are looking into what she was doing before the tragic taking of her life,” Kowalczyk said. “We are not ruling anything out at this point.”
He declined to label the killing a hate crime. Police are also looking into possible links with the death of Hall.
(Reporting by John Clarke in Annapolis; Editing by Ian Simpson)Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass may not have been as majestically portentous as Zack Snyder's similarly themed Watchmen, but it satirised its subject with equal intelligence and a hipper sense of humour. Arriving three years ago with perfect timing to offset the slow descent into blandness of Hollywood superhero flicks, it also avoided slipping into spoof territory. Finally, it succeeded in really annoying Daily Mail readers, who got all Mary Whitehouse over 12-year-old Chloë Moretz's turn as a potty-mouthed, frighteningly lethal crime fighter.
With Vaughn stepping back to a producer's role, little-known film-maker Jeff Wadlow takes on writing and directing duties for Kick-Ass 2, the first trailer for which has just hit the web. Moretz returns as purple-tressed, pint-sized killer Hit Girl, with Britain's Aaron Taylor-Johnson also stepping back into Kick-Ass's distinctive homemade costume. Those who have read Mark Millar's comic book will know that in the sequel Christopher Mintz-Plasse graduates from scheming crimefighter Red Mist to the world's first real supervillain, The Motherfucker, following the death of his gangster dad Frank D'Amico at the hands of Kick-Ass. With Nicolas Cage's Batman-like Big Daddy also consigned to superhero heaven in the first film, Jim Carrey takes the role of unhinged crimefighter as Colonel Stars and Stripes. Fittingly for the post-Avengers zeitgeist, he's the leader of superhero ensemble Justice Forever.
The original film stood out for its Quentin Tarantino-like penchant for graphic violence, in stark contrast to the more restrained Sam Raimi Spider-Man films from which it borrowed much of its tone. An amusing segue, in which Stars and Stripes (in what could be a bravura Carrey performance, consigning all memories of his terrible Riddler to history) encourages a pitbull to gnaw on a bad guy's nether regions, hints there will no let-up this time around.
Gratifyingly, there's no graduation to sharper costumes: Kick-Ass and Hit Girl still look like last-minute invitees to a superhero-themed fancy dress party, while The Motherfucker resembles the awkward detritus of amateur night at fetish club Torture Garden. Yet by the looks of the trailer, Kick-Ass 2 will have to tread carefully to avoid aping the films it riffs on too closely. Taylor-Johnson, in particular, has buffed up so much that Dave Lizewski's geeky-teen-out-to-take-on-the-bad-guys schtick might just have a little less resonance this time around, while Moretz is a lot less shocking as a 15-year-old baby-faced killer. Might Wadlow, without the guiding hands of Vaughn and Kick-Ass co-screenwriter Jane Goldman, have given us a movie that is less a coy, postmodern riff on the current fascination for superheroes than … well, just an extremely violent comic-book film?
Millar's genius in the comic was to work out that Watchmen creator Alan Moore got it all wrong: if superheroes existed in the real world, they would not be evil geniuses, god-like freaks of nature or rich men channelling their fortunes into heroic deeds – but hapless teenage fanboys desperate to succeed with the opposite sex. The problem for Kick-Ass 2 is that the slicker it becomes, the more it risks losing the joyous veneer of half-baked heroism that helped make the first film so singularly, enjoyably offbeat.
We'll have to wait until 19 July in the UK and 16 August in the US to find out if Wadlow has avoided that particular trap. Do you expect Kick-Ass 2 to shake things up as radically as its predecessor? Or should the sequel have come out two years ago when Moretz was still cute as a button and Taylor-Johnson didn't look ripped enough to take out Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman with one arm tied behind his back?Mr. Butts
Mr. Butts is a character in Garry Trudeau's comic strip Doonesbury. When Mike Doonesbury was asked to create an ad campaign aimed at teenage smokers, he suffered a morality crisis, and the hallucinatory Mr. Butts was the result. An eight-foot-tall (2.5 meter) cigarette with a goofy smile, Mr. Butts is the anthropomorphic personification of the tobacco industry. Stylistically he is reminiscent of Zap Comix, as pointed out by J.J. when first described to her by Mike.
At first "Buttsy" only appeared in Mike's dreams, and he took them as a sign of his morality rebelling. But Doonesbury often bends the line between fantasy and reality, and it wasn't long before Mr. Butts was being treated as a real person, interacting with other characters and even testifying before congress.
Butts seems to have a very naive personality when it comes to the product he represents. He honestly can't see that there is any connection between cigarettes and cancer, and he is fully convinced that smoking will help make kids cool. He usually treats his appearances as public service announcements, addressing the audience directly to tell them "good news" about the tobacco industry.
In the real world, Mr. Butts has appeared in an animated anti-smoking commercial (voiced by Billy West), the only television appearance of a Doonesbury character other than the animated special aired in 1977 and the Larry King Live appearance of Duke on 2000-03-13.[1][2] He also appeared on hundreds of trashcans on Santa Monica, California's beaches as part of that city's awareness promotion of their new anti-smoking ordinance in August, 2005.[3]
Mr. Butts is sometimes accompanied by Mr. Jay, a large marijuana joint, along with Dum Dum (a personification of the NRA), and Mr. Brewski (a personification of the liquor industry). Trudeau often uses the appearances of these sidekicks to illustrate his own viewpoints on the legalization of marijuana.
Mr. Butts was also a pseudonym (inspired by the Doonesbury character) of a then-anonymous informant who in 1995 sent 4,000 pages of incriminating Brown & Williamson tobacco company documents to researcher Stanton Glantz. The documents were used extensively in litigation against the tobacco industry and were the basis of the book The Cigarette Papers.[4][5]Might a penguin's next meal be affected by the exhaust from your tailpipe? The answer may be yes, when you add your exhaust fumes to the total amount of carbon dioxide lofted into the atmosphere by humans since the industrial revolution. One-third of that carbon dioxide is absorbed by the world's oceans, making them more acidic and affecting marine life.
A UC Santa Barbara marine scientist and a team of 18 other researchers have reported results of the broadest worldwide study of ocean acidification to date. Acidification is known to be a direct result of the increasing amount of greenhouse gas emissions. The scientists used sensors developed at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego to measure the acidity of 15 ocean locations, including seawater in the Antarctic, and in temperate and tropical waters.
As oceans become more acidic, with a lower pH, marine organisms are stressed and entire ecosystems are affected, according to the scientists. Gretchen E. Hofmann, an eco-physiologist and professor in UCSB's Department of Ecology, Evolution & Marine Biology, is lead author of the recent article in PLoS ONE that describes the research.
"We were able to illustrate how parts of the world's oceans currently have different pH, and thus how they might respond to climate changes in the future," said Hofmann. "The sensors allowed us to capture that." The sensors recorded at least 30 days of continuous pH values in each area of the study.
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, human activities have accelerated the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide mixes with water. The two molecules combine to become carbonic acid, making seawater more acidic. As billions of molecules combine and go through this process, the overall pH of the oceans decreases, causing ocean acidification.
Acidification limits the amount of carbonate forms that are needed by marine invertebrates, such as coral, urchins, snails, and shellfish, to make their skeletons. As the concentration of carbonates decreases in acidified water, it is harder to make a shell. And, the structures of some organisms may dissolve when water chemistry becomes too unfavorable.
"The emerging pH data from sensors allows us to design lab experiments that have a present-day environmental context," said Hofmann. "The experiments will allow us to see how organisms are adapted now, and how they might respond to climate change in the future."
In this video, diver Steve Rupp visits a UCSB SeaFET sensor in very deep water under ice near McMurdo station, Antarctica. Credit: Courtesy BRAVO134M
Hofmann researched the Antarctic, where she has worked extensively, as well as an area of coral reefs around the South Pacific island of Moorea, where UCSB has a Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) project. She also studied the coastal waters of Santa Barbara, in conjunction with UCSB's Santa Barbara Coastal LTER. The research team provided 30 days of pH data from other ocean areas around the world.
The researchers found that, in some places such as Antarctica and the Line Islands of the South Pacific, the range of pH variance is much more limited than in areas of the California coast that are subject to large vertical movements of water, known as upwellings. In some of the study areas, the researchers found that the decrease in seawater pH being caused by greenhouse gas emissions is still within the bounds of natural pH fluctuation. Other areas already experience daily acidity levels that scientists had expected would only be reached at the end of this century.
"This study is important for identifying the complexity of the ocean acidification problem around the globe," said co-author Jennifer Smith, a marine biologist with Scripps. "Our data show such huge variability in seawater pH, both within and across marine ecosystems, making global predictions of the impacts of ocean acidification a big challenge."
Todd Martz, a marine chemistry researcher at Scripps, developed the sensor. "When I arrived at Scripps, we re-engineered my prototype design, and since then I have not been able to keep up with all of the requests for sensors," said Martz. "Because every sensor used in this study was built at Scripps, I was in a unique position to assimilate a number of datasets, collected independently by researchers who otherwise would not have been in communication with each other. Each time someone deployed a sensor, they would send me the data, and eventually it became clear that a synthesis should be done to cross-compare this diverse collection of measurements." Hoffman worked with Martz to put together the research team to create that synthesis.
The team noted that the Scripps sensors, called "SeaFET" and "SeapHOx," allow researchers to continuously and autonomously monitor pH from remote parts of the world, providing important baselines from which scientists can monitor future changes caused by ocean acidification.
Despite surveying 15 different ocean regions, the authors noted that they only made observations on coastal surface oceans, and that more study is needed in deeper ocean regions farther away from land.
Hofmann is the director of the Center for the Study of Ocean Acidification and Ocean Change, a UC multi-campus initiative. Hofmann participated in writing a report on ocean acidification while on the National Research Council's Ocean Acidification Committee, and she is currently participating as a lead author on the National Climate Assessment. Hofmann is a member of the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs Advisory Panel, and she is an Aldo Leopold Fellow.
In addition to Hofmann, Martz, and Smith, co-authors include Emily B. Rivest, Pauline Yu, and Paul Matson of UCSB; Uwe Send, Lisa Levin, Yuichiro Takeshita, Nichole N. Price, Brittany Peterson, and Christina A. Frieder of Scripps; Kenneth Johnson of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute; Fiorenza Micheli and Kristy Kroeker of Stanford University; Adina Paytan and Elizabeth Derse Crook of UC Santa Cruz; and Maria Cristina Gambi of Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples, Italy.
Funding for instrument development and related field work came from several sources, including the National Science Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the University of California, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Nature Conservancy, the WWW Foundation, Scott and Karin Wilson, the Rhodes family, and NOAA.
[RETURN TO TOP]
† Top image: The image shows a SeaFET pH sensor deployed underneath approximately 12 feet of sea ice in McMurdo Sound, Ross Island, Antarctica, in Oct. 2010. Scientists use these sensors to identify the natural dynamics of ocean pH in order to better understand how marine organisms may be impacted by climate change. The black object is the sensor, which is anchored to the ocean bottom using weights. Along the ocean bottom, worms and sea stars are visible.
Credit: Rob Robbins
†† Middle image: UCSB graduate student Emily Rivest positions a SeaFET pH sensor in a coral reef off the island of Moorea, in French Polynesia. The large cement posts once held up a pier that toppled over the reef; one of the fallen posts provides an anchor for the sensor. The grey bottle is used to collect seawater samples for chemical analyses that augment the pH data. The reefs surrounding the island of Moorea are home to UCSB's Coral Reef Long-Term Ecological Research site (MCR LTER).
Credit: Anderson Mayfield
Center for the Study of Ocean Acidification and Ocean Change
Ocean Acidification VideoWelcome to the |
beyond the store in any case.
The stores do not accept checks or credit cards. There is no butcher or bakery, and fruit is sold in bags to speed checkout.
Given those savings and the absence of advertising costs, Aldi officials say their discounts amount to up to 45 percent off competitors like Wal-Mart’s private-label brands. But analysts provide a lower estimate, a discount over all of about 20 percent.
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Those expecting dusty, cluttered aisles with expired dates on cereal boxes and dented tin cans might be surprised by the Aldi atmosphere.
“This is not just the knockoff, cheapo, old model of discount stores,” Mr. Johnson said.
In the Queens store, aisles are eight feet wide — standard at Aldis in the United States. Cheerful pictures of produce and cheeses adorn yellow-painted walls.
Aisles are lined with basics like hand soap, soup and bread, as well as anise-flavored waffle cookies at $2.69 for seven ounces. A pretty five-inch tall orchid sold for $5.99. And in “special values” aisles, items carried for a week or two included private-label appliances like quesadilla makers.
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“It used to be private label was really a white box with black lettering, and that’s not what private label is now,” said David Fuselier, an investor in urban grocery stores. “Now it’s private label that is attractive, that has nutritious labels on it, and that are part of the corporate strategy.”
Though almost all the products are made by Aldi, it has created hundreds of “brand names” that echo the national brands in name and design. While those enhance the store’s stock more than black-and-white generic labels would, the unknown brands have the unsettling effect of making a shopper feel as if she is on a movie set, à la “The Truman Show.” Yum, cheddar goldfish — but it’s Savoritz Sharks.
“It’s just an opportunity to give a little more character to the product,” said Bruce Persohn, who oversees the region that includes New York City for Aldi. “For our loyal customers they really become household names.”
To add to the confusion, occasionally Aldi will carry brand names, like Splenda, when it can’t find a good substitute. And it also has brands like Colgate — Mr. Persohn said it had sold private-label toothpaste at one point, but “we opted for Colgate. People just like Colgate.”
On a recent Wednesday afternoon, shoppers at the new Queens Aldi seemed a little perplexed by its quirks.
“Do these carts go outside or no?” said a woman who was trying to wrestle her cart, with three shopping bags, to a nearby parking lot. “So you need two people to come shopping with you,” she said crossly.
Two middle-aged women were looking for Milky Ways, with no luck.
“So this is all, like, no brands?” said the younger-looking of the two.
An elderly woman with a thick German accent approached an executive, asking why the store did not carry strudel. “It is strudel season!” she insisted.
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“There is a little bit of an education that comes along with shopping the store,” Mr. Persohn said.
Analysts and industry executives say that bargain shopping, which became a necessity during the recession, is now attracting all kinds of shoppers.
“With the recession, the concept of shame has gone out the window,” Mr. Fuselier, the urban-grocery investor, said. “People don’t really worry about going to a discounter.”Sonos just announced that it’ll be adding support for Apple’s new AirPlay 2 standard to its speakers next year. In addition to making it easier to play music from iOS devices, AirPlay 2 means that — much like the recently announced Alexa support — users will be able to use Siri on iOS devices and eventually Apple’s HomePod to control their Sonos systems.
AirPlay 2 also enables multi-room support for AirPlay speakers, meaning that you’ll be able to integrate Sonos devices with other AirPlay 2 speakers for a seamless experience across your home — including Apple’s HomePod, which was originally announced as a competitor to Sonos’ devices.
Unlike the original AirPlay, AirPlay 2 doesn't require special hardware anymore, but is entirely software-based, which allows for companies like Sonos to add support to their devices after the fact.Media playback is not supported on this device Four red cards from the weekend have been appealed
Rangers midfielder Ryan Jack has had the red card shown to him in Saturday's defeat by Hibernian rescinded.
Hearts have also been successful with their appeal against the red card shown to Isma Goncalves at Kilmarnock.
The striker was sent off for apparent retaliation on Saturday following an incident with defender Kirk Broadfoot, who was also sent off.
Motherwell defender Charles Dunne has had one of the two red cards he received inside a week overturned.
But 'Well failed in a bid to reverse the dismissal of Trevor Carson against St Johnstone.
The goalkeeper was one of three Motherwell players sent off in a 4-1 defeat at McDiarmid Park after handling outside his area.
Dunne's dismissal in Perth has been rescinded but his ordering off against Ross County in the League Cup stands.
Jack was sent off by referee John Beaton for his part in a flare-up with Hibs duo Dylan McGeouch and Anthony Stokes in Rangers' 3-2 defeat at Ibrox.Russia's brutality in Aleppo reflects Moscow’s perspective on warfighting, its military capabilities, and its sense of threat.
Russia’s heavy-handed conduct in the escalating conflict in Syria is a humanitarian disaster; maybe even a war crime. But it also sheds light on Moscow’s perspective on warfighting, its military capabilities, and its sense of threat. What to the West is a troubling regional conflict is, when seen from the Kremlin, a critical battle in a global conflict of existential significance.
The old ultraviolence
The approach Moscow and Damascus have taken to seizing eastern Aleppo in particular has horrified a West which has long held a view of war in which civilian casualties ought to be avoided at best, minimised at worst. The shock is not so much that the Russians are not making any efforts at sparing the innocent, but rather that they seem to be going out of their way to spread hardship, misery and mayhem, targeting aid convoys, hospitals and other basics of survival.
This should not necessarily surprise. Moscow’s methods in Aleppo are reminiscent of the devastation of Grozny in the Second Chechen War – the one fought on Putin’s watch – and even some phases of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when observers dubbed Moscow’s strategy “migratory genocide.”
But it is not inhumanity for its own sake; what is morally abhorrent may be tactically good sense. From Moscow’s perspective, a deserted and rubbled eastern Aleppo represents a victory. And its experiences have taught it that any political damage suffered today will matter little tomorrow; that the West will forgive and forget quickly enough when a new crisis emerges and it needs Moscow’s assistance. To the Kremlin, everyone is a pragmatist, and the West’s loud complaints about its methods are simply rhetorical gestures, devoid of true intent.
Brutality out of weakness
The tactics used in Syria also reflect the limits of Russia’s military capacities: the level of violence deployed reflects a lack of options as much as anything else. While Moscow’s initial deployment to Syria took the world by surprise for the efficiency with which it was conducted, it has become increasingly mired in this conflict.
Russia set out to prevent the potential collapse of the Assad regime through a display of “shock and awe” firepower intended to reverse the rebels’ momentum and reassure Syrian elites. Moscow’s big fear was a re-run of the collapse of the Najibullah government left in Kabul after the Soviets left: a tough, seemingly stable regime that collapsed suddenly once defections began. It was also, perhaps even primarily, intended to force Washington to take Moscow seriously and stop trying to isolate it diplomatically.
That kind of demonstrative intervention can be done by long-range firepower, but wars are won by the ‘Poor Bloody Infantry,’ not artillery and airpower. And despite the deployment of Russian mercenaries from what is clearly a front organisation, ChVK Wagner, and a few Spetsnaz commandos, Moscow simply lacks the capacity to send appreciable ground forces to Syria.
Its armed forces number some 922,000, but the Ground Forces only represent around 300,000 of these. And around half of these are conscripts, prohibited from being deployed into combat other than in times of formal war. Moreover, given that at least 40,000 soldiers are purportedly engaged in Crimea and the Donbas, that others need to be stationed in the turbulent North Caucasus and scattered along Russia’s lengthy border, and the need to rotate forces which have seen action, it is clear that Russia does not have enough good soldiers to mount a serious ground campaign in Syria.
It also lacks the political support for such an exercise: Russians do not care that much about the Donbas, let alone distant Syria. The very need for the Wagner front organisation demonstrates that Moscow cannot afford a high tally of official casualties.
The Motherland mobilised
More broadly, Russia’s approach to Syria connects with a wider trend in Russian military thinking, the central importance of national mobilisation. Andrew Monahan has argued that, facing what seems to be a future of increasing threats, the Kremlin is moving forward with “efforts to move the country on to a permanent war footing.” On one level, this simply means a continued emphasis on guns over butter. To this end, witness the Ministry of Finance’s recent decision to add 679 billion rubles ($10 billion) to the 2016 defence budget, while cutting welfare spending by 375 billion rubles ($6 billion).
However it is broader than that: It implies a securitisation of the whole state. In an age of “non-kinetic conflict,” when the struggle between nations is as often in the battlefield of economics and information, nothing is not a security asset. A snap military exercise in August, for example, also involved the Central Bank and the Ministries of Communications, Finance, and Industry and Trade. While soldiers were being drilled and tested on their ability to fight their battles, so were Russia’s bankers and bureaucrats.
As became clear when I was researching the ECFR report Putin’s Hydra: inside Russia’s intelligence services, there is a pervasive belief in Russia’s security community not only that Russia already is at war – an undeclared, largely covert one – with the West, but that it had been so long before Moscow even realised it. The Arab Spring, the Colour Revolutions in other post-Soviet countries, the spread of Western ideas and influences, all come together in a lurid fantasy of a conflict that Moscow must scramble to resist on every front, from the geopolitical to the ideological.
Thus, the unrestrained approach Russia has adopted in Syria is also a response to the perceived sense that this is not a local conflict which can be dealt with through limited measures, but rather one skirmish in a wider struggle of existential significance to the Motherland. All nations, after all, are capable of the most brutal of measures if they truly believe themselves at direct and serious risk.
The Syrian prism
Russia’s gratuitously brutal tactics in Syria are thus symptoms of three wider issues. Moscow is already on a war footing, seeing itself assailed both by a rising tide of instability in the world and also a covert regime change campaign from the West. In these circumstances, winning is more important than how that win is won, and the constraints are merely practical. It knows that brutal methods can work, especially in a brutal war, and it continues to believe that the West’s outrage is either hypocritical theatrics or else a passing phase that will soon enough give way to Realpolitik.
Finally, its military capabilities are far less impressive than its geopolitical aspirations. It is locked into an open-ended military, political, and economic struggle in the Donbas. It has missed its window to neatly withdraw from Syria and seems likely to be stuck there until the Assad regime falls or reaches some kind of acceptable political deal with a substantial portion of the rebels – both outcomes currently well over the horizon.
It is not that there is a string of “new Syrias” on the horizon, not least as an over-stretched Kremlin cannot afford them. Moscow has acted reactively throughout, and largely in keeping with its own logic, even though the reason why Putin chose not to take the opportunity to withdraw in March is still unclear. Nonetheless, the wartime mentality increasingly informing Russian policy is becoming something of a self-fulfilling prophesy.
The decision to abandon the ceasefire in Syria and then veto the UN resolution to stop further airstrikes on Aleppo, along with this weekend’s deployment of SS-26 Iskander-M missiles to Kaliningrad and unilateral suspension of nuclear accords with the USA, fit within a wider picture of “aggressive defensiveness.” Russia feels itself under threat and seeks to strengthen its position pre-emptively, not least before January and the expected inauguration of Hilary Clinton, expected to be a much more hawkish interlocutor. Feeling under threat, the Kremlin seeks to collect bargaining chips and to look intimidatingly confident.
The Kremlin is a rational actor, but basing its decisions on inaccurate information and a dangerously misconceived view of the world. At present the Syrians and Ukrainian are paying the price for this worldview.
Read more on: Wider Europe,Russia,The Middle East and North Africa,Syria / Iraq / Lebanon,SyriaTiffany. It’s a neighborhood in the City of St. Louis. It’s neighborhood 29 in the official ledger. It’s 10th least populated of the city’s 79, but at just 0.21 square miles it’s still relatively dense. With 5,000 residents per square mile, it just above the average residential density for the city as a whole. This past decade Tiffany lost 21% of its residents, falling from 1,340 to 1,060. In 2010, the neighborhood was recorded as having 84% black residents and 11% white.
The neighborhood derives its name from the Tiffany line, a streetcar line that once connected the Grand Avenue viaduct, Chouteau, Park and Tiffany Street (now 39th Street). Remnants of the Tiffany Streetcar Shops remain and will hopefully be preserved. The southern part of the neighborhood is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Tiffany Neighborhood District. The NEXT STL Tiffany Neighborhood Guide.
[Tiffany Neighborhood’s 2016 Needs Assessment and Action Plan – FINAL]
Tiffany neighborhood c. 1942 via National Register:
Tiffany neighborhood c. 1982 via National Register:
Like much of the City of St. Louis, Tiffany was largely built out by about 1915. The challenges of the proceeding decades would center on the desirability and maintenance of the aging brick homes. By 1982, when the Tiffany Historic District was recognized, board ups and vacant buildings appear to have been common.
What’s striking about Tiffany is that it is 1/3 of a now decades-long urban redevelopment experiment. The six square blocks immediately to the west were razed and new residential infill constructed. It was a wholesale clearance more closely matching the process of “urban renewal” than what we consider urban development. The six square blocks west of that were spared and have seen historic rehabs, adaptive reuse and contemporary infill by UIC called Botanical Grove. Those areas dropped the historic McRee Town name for the bland Botanical Heights.
Now, the six square blocks of remaining largely intact residential Tiffany is seeking a plan for its future. Residential Tiffany is in reality a different neighborhood than “Tiffany”, which is more than half owned by SSM Health and Saint Louis University to the north. To the south, the neighborhood was cleaved from Shaw by Interstate 44. Recent population loss can likely be directly attributed to the demolition of rows of homes along Rutger and Hickory Streets by SLU over the past decade. The demolition made way for the new $550M SSM medical facility set to begin construction soon.
Residential Tiffany has long been dismissed. This point was highlighted as the request to demolish the Pevely Dairy complex was put before the city’s Preservation Board. At a hearing, it was asked what input had been received from the neighborhood. The response was “what neighborhood”? If they had a sense of humor, perhaps they could have responded, “I think we’re alone now.” Most recently, the city granted SLU development rights for more than half the neighborhood, 395-acres in all, including frontage on Grand. This agreement includes broad development powers, though only those buildings designated in the agreement are free from the city’s established demolition review process.
Residential demolition by SLU:
SLU’s 395-acre development area:
But there’s good news. Park Central Development is working with the Tiffany Community Association and others to create a five-year action plan. According to Park Central, more than 100 residents recently completed a needs assessment survey. Now a draft of the Tiffany Needs Assessment and Action Plan has been produced. You can view the entire draft document here. [Tiffany Neighborhood’s 2016 Needs Assessment and Action Plan – FINAL] *added 3/25/17
Clearly, the neighborhood isn’t devoid of assets. Residents cited an active alderwoman, nearby institutions, historic housing stock, and transportation as strengths. Among the important items identified in the Action Plan, neighborhood committees focused on Development Review and Public Infrastructure, Social and Human Services, and Special Events and Neighborhood Ownership Model Activities may be formed.
From the draft needs assessment and action plan:
Current images from the NEXT STL Tiffany Neighborhood Guide:
Historic Tiffany Streetcar images via St. Louis Patina:CNET/Marguerite Reardon
The cable industry insists that it's ready and able to compete with Google Fiber when it comes to delivering ultra high-speed broadband.
Indeed, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts last week showed off a 3Gbps cable broadband connection at the industry's annual trade show in Washington, D.C. That's three times faster than Google Fiber, which itself is nearly 150 times faster than the current average broadband connection in the U.S. Armed with that capability, he confidently welcomed Google's challenge to deliver ultra high-speed broadband to consumers.
"I hope there's a demand for (Google Fiber)," he said during a keynote session at the Cable Show. "The more customers crave speed, the more the kids in the garage and the geniuses around the world can invent applications that require speed. That's the best thing that can happen to our industry. We have to embrace that competition."
But Roberts' words and one demo don't match up with the actions of his industry. The cable providers have been slow to make its speedier options broadly available, and when they do, they charge significantly higher prices that escalate as you move to faster tiers. Based on how the industry has chosen to price its service, it's clear that cable operators are not exactly encouraging adoption of ultra high-speed broadband. In comparison, Google is expanding Google Fiber to more markets, and offers a much faster connection at reasonable rates.
It's not a surprise that Google Fiber came up at the cable show. The service, which has generated a lot of buzz and piqued the interest of communities across the country, threatens to upend the cable Internet model, which has only needed to compete against one other competitor for home broadband, the similarly regulated telecom industry. The fact that Google is offering a 1Gbps connection for only $70 a month, while competitors are offering service with 20 times less capacity for roughly the same price, has spurred discussion among policy makers and consumers.
CNET/Marguerite Reardon
For now, Google Fiber remains more a curiosity than a legitimate threat. After Google announced plans to build its own gigabit-speed broadband network in 2010, it was seen more as a science experiment than a true challenge to the cable industry. But in recent months, it looks like Google plans to turn Google Fiber into a money-making business. It first launched in Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan., last summer. And this spring the company announced plans to deploy in Austin, Texas, and Provo, Utah.
Roberts made sure to note during a speech at the Cable Show that cable is up to the task of matching and even exceeding Google's offering. He emphasized that gigabit-speed downloads are already possible today using current cable technology.
Higher speeds don't come cheap on cable broadband
While Roberts is talking about hypothetical speeds, Comcast's actual -- much slower -- service is still pretty pricey.
Comcast, the nation's largest cable provider, offers its 50Mbps service at a promotional price of $60 a month for the first six months. After that, depending on the market, prices range between $59 and $75 a month. The company's 105Mbps service, which is only available in some markets and is roughly 10 times slower than Google's 1Gbps service, costs $90 a month for the first six months of service. After that the price goes up to $115 a month.
Its fastest option is a 305Mbps service, but it's limited to only a few markets and is a hefty $320 a month.
Comcast also charges a one-time $500 installation fee for this service. For Google customers subscribing to the 1Gbps service for $70 a month, installation is free.
Time Warner Cable, the only cable operator currently competing against a Google Fiber market, not-so-coincidentally offers 100Mbps service in Kansas City. Time Warner's top speed elsewhere in its territory is 50Mbps. Pricing for the 50Mbps service starts at $75 per month with an introductory 12-month offer for new customers only. The company doesn't publish on its Web site what the rate is for that service after the introductory period is over.
NCTA President and former FCC Chairman Michael Powell recently wrote in an editorial for The Hill that cable companies now offer 100Mbps broadband service to 85 percent of all American homes.
This may be true, but getting access to those higher tiers of service is expensive. For instance, where a 100Mbps service might cost a cable broadband customer $115 a month, a 20Mbps service could cost half that. Slower speeds cost even less. And in an economic environment where many consumers can barely afford cable TV service, the pricing of these services encourages consumers to buy packages with slower network connections and less capacity.
In comparison to cable, Google's pricing for its 1Gbps (1,000Mbps) service is dirt cheap, considering the capacity it offers customers. For the 1Gbps broadband service, Google charges $70 a month. This pricing is comparable to 50Mbps services offered by many cable providers.
CNET/Marguerite Reardon
And for customers who can't afford or do not see the value in a 1Gbps service, the company is offering a 5Mbps service for the first seven years for free. The only thing customers must pay for is a $300 network installation fee, which can be paid off on a monthly basis.
Phil McKinney, CEO of CableLabs, a not-for-profit research consortium funded by cable companies throughout the world, argued that it's easy for Google to build such a robust network and offer service at low prices because it's "cherry picking" the segment of the population it wishes to serve. Meanwhile, cable operators cover more than 90 percent of homes in the U.S. and because their networks are bigger, it is more expensive to serve their customers.
He has a point. Google has made it clear that when it chooses a city for its Google Fiber projects, it only picks places where local governments are willing to make deployment easy and cost-effective. The company also will only deploy the network in communities where a certain percentage of the households have committed to signing up for the service.
McKinney also said that much of the cost for delivering very high-speed service is in the fiber that must be laid to deliver the service. While cable operators haven't deployed fiber directly to individual homes, which is the most expensive, but effective, way to build a network, they have installed significant amounts of fiber in other portions of their networks.
In theory, because they already have the fiber and other infrastructure in place, increasing speeds for cable operators should only be incrementally more expensive. This is especially true when compared to Google, which is still literally in the trenches deploying fiber directly to individual homes.
But McKinney argues that because of the large scale of cable networks, it's actually more expensive to increase speeds.
Cable's big plans for the future
Regardless, the cable industry is pushing for faster service. CableLabs is already working to standardize the next evolution of technology, DOCSIS 3.1, which makes more efficient use of the network and can deliver download speeds up to 6Gbps.
"All the innovation that is happening right now plays to our strengths," Roberts said. "We think we are in a wonderful position. But we need apps that can take advantage of these speeds."
DOCSIS 3.1, which uses a different modulation technology to transmit signals over a hybrid fiber and coaxial network, is still in development. McKinney said it should be commercially available in 2015 or 2016.
While there is no question there is plenty of life and innovation left in the infrastructure that cable operators have spent more than $200 billion building since 1996, the industry has hesitated in pushing ultra high-speed services to consumers.
Even though 1Gbps or even 4Gbps service is possible today, none of the big cable operators are offering anywhere close to these speeds to consumers.
In fact, the average American broadband customer is only getting about 7.4Mbps download speeds in terms of broadband, according to a report published this spring by Akamai, which analyzed data from the last quarter of 2012. Remember that Roberts was demonstrating 10Mbps downloads as cutting-edge technology in 1996.
Still, this average speed is an improvement of about 28 percent compared with the same time a year ago. And it was good enough to help the U.S. break into the top 10 in terms of network speeds, by moving up from 12th place in terms of average speed to 8th.
Akamai's report suggests that speeds are improving for two reasons. Broadband providers have replaced old technology with newer tech, which has meant a move to DOCSIS 3.0 for cable operators. Consumers are also beginning to express a preference for higher-speed services, most likely driven by more usage of streaming video.
Do consumers even need a Gig?
But even though customers are starting to upgrade to higher tiers of service, they still aren't clamoring for superfast speeds of 100Mbps or even 1Gbps. In fact, even Google Fiber users in Kansas City say that 1Gbps is overkill. Entrepreneurs in Kansas City, who flocked to Google's first "fiberhood" and set up shop there for access to Google Fiber, say they can't use all the available bandwidth.
CNET/Marguerite Reardon
"We could easily do what we need to do on a day-to-day basis with a 100Mbps connection," said Tyler Van Winkle, director of product development and marketing for Internet search startup Leap 2.
But he admitted that having the extra bandwidth in both directions is nice to have.
"It's a real glimpse of the future," he said. "We can do batch uploads much faster. With this kind of bandwidth, we're able to support four startups in the same building with a single connection. And we're paying a lot less than what we'd pay if we got a much slower service."
On the cable side, even customers subscribing to 100Mbps services aren't using all the capacity that's available to them, McKinney said.
"There's only a small percentage of customers who come even close to making extensive use of a 100Mbps service today," he said.
With this in mind, he said he could imagine that few people would actually need 1Gbps of data capacity.
"With 1Gbps of data you could watch 400 HD movies simultaneously," he said. "Or you could stream 100 4K Ultra HD videos at the same time. There is nothing out there today that could manufacture that kind of bandwidth."
Google is building for the future
So why then is Google even offering that much capacity to consumers? Milo Medin, head of the Google Fiber project and a former executive and co-founder of @Home, a company that pioneered broadband in its early days, said recently at the FTTH Council meeting in Kansas City that such speeds are about encouraging development for the future.
"We're trying to build a business for the next 10 years, not the last 10 years," he said. "I remember a time when people thought that they'd never use 5Mbps of service. Now you do that streaming a couple of movies."
When pushed on this point, Medin told me on the sidelines of the conference in Kansas City that it costs Google the same amount of money to offer a 1Gbps service as it does a 100Mbps or 50Mbps service. With this in mind, he wondered, "Why not give consumers more capacity than they could dream of using and see what happens?"
For Google, it's not just about offering consumers access to faster broadband speeds. It's also about offering those services at an affordable price.
And here is where the cable industry and Google differ most dramatically, said Blair Levin, executive director of Gig.U, a coalition of universities looking to bring gigabit-speed broadband to college towns across the U.S. Levin, who also led the development of the Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan, said that the cable industry's business model, like most business models, was built to deliver the minimum amount of a resource, in this case bandwidth, at the maximum price for consumers. And as a result, it makes sense for cable companies to segment customers based on bandwidth needs, he explained.
In contrast, Google's business model is about how to deliver essentially unlimited data for an affordable cost. This makes sense given Google's core business. Google provides Internet services that rely on fast networks to connect millions of users to its services. The faster the networks, the more eyeballs the company attracts to its services and the longer those customers spend online, which generates higher advertising revenue for Google.
Levin says he doesn't fault the cable companies and phone companies for sticking to their traditional business models. But he argues that the model that will deliver the most benefit to the U.S. economy in terms of innovation is a business model, like Google's, which is based on abundance rather than one based on a resource scarcity.
"If America wants to lead in the bandwidth delivered economy, consumers need to enjoy a psychology of bandwidth abundance," he said. "That psychology encourages innovation on both the supply and demand side. We should want to make sure that bandwidth availability and price is not a constraint on innovation."
In other words, Levin says that cable's argument boils down to accepting that it is sufficient to follow consumer demand for bandwidth. But what the National Broadband Plan called for, and what communities offering gigabit-speed services have so far shown, is that there are great benefits to society when consumers have access to more bandwidth than they could ever imagine needing.
As Levin put it in a recent speech he gave: "Consumers never ask for products they don't know about; innovation comes from the unknown. No consumer in 1900 asked for a radio, a television, or a personal computer. And as Henry Ford noted, if he had asked consumers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
So even though Comcast's Roberts says he wants his industry to encourage innovation, unless his company and others in the industry make their superfast services more affordable, as Google has done, that innovation is likely to happen at a much slower pace.
We'll see if Roberts follows through with his bold claims. One thing is certain: Google Fiber isn't going away.Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem said that fighting takfiri groups in Syria is part of its battle against Israel.
The Iranian Tasnim Agency quoted Qassem saying that the Syrian opposition’s sacrifices aimed at protecting the region’s future generations from the Zionist takfiri project which aims to loot their sovereignty.
Qassem made his remarks during a meeting on Friday with a partisan delegation from Syria which met him to express gratitude and thanks for Hezbollah’s sacrifices in Syria.
He hailed the steadfastness of the Syrian people and army which he said was confronting the Zionist takfiri project, adding that the defeat of this scheme in Syria will lead to a similar fate in Lebanon and Palestine.
He noted that the only solution is to confront the international invasion of the region, adding that the battle’s centre this time is Syria.
Hezbollah militias fight alongside Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s army.It is practically impossible to talk about race in America without running into concerns about "reverse racism." In fact, some studies suggest that many white people believe racism is a problem in America — but it's prejudice against white people, not minority groups, that many of them see as a problem.
Fed up with hearing concerns about reverse racism, comedian Aamer Rahman in 2013 gave what I still think is one of the best responses to these concerns, highlighting the systemic global oppression of black and brown people that's existed for centuries:
I could be a reverse racist if I wanted to.
All I would need would be a time machine. Now what I'd do is I'd get in my time machine and go back in time to before Europe colonized the world, right? And I'd convince the leaders of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and from South America to invade and colonize Europe, right? Just occupy them, steal their lands and resources, set up some kind of like, I don't know, trans-Asian slave trade, where we exported white people to work on rice plantations in China.
Just ruin Europe over the course of a couple of centuries, so all of their descendants would want to migrate out and live in the places where black and brown people come from.
But of course, in that time I'd make sure I set up systems that privilege black and brown people at every conceivable social, political, and economic opportunity. White people would never have any hope of real self-determination.
Just every couple of decades, make up some fake war as an excuse to go and bomb them back to the stone age, and say it's for their own good because their culture is inferior. And then, just for kicks, subject white people to colored people's standards of beauty, and [they'll] end up hating the color of their own skin, eyes, and hair.
If after hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of that, I got onstage at a comedy show and said, "Hey, what's the deal with white people? Why can't they dance?" that would be reverse racism.On the first evening of my trip to SW Colorado for the changing leaves, I found myself heading down a winding gravel road in the middle of the night. Deciding that "vista point" probably meant that something vast and open was going to be around, I pulled over and set up camp (i.e. the back of my car). The next morning I began shooting well before sunrise and quickly found out that this was a spot I had been trying to find for sometime. Happy as a nerd on a computer, I shot away, even though the lighting sucked and this was clearly a sunset spot.
So, with the remainder of the day, I roamed the surrounding mountains finding fun trails and other potential spots to shoot. Knowing that I would return to this area in the evening, the only thing I could think of was, "Please let there be some good light."
With huge amounts of luck, and being in the right place at the right time, the very last light of the day cast a brilliant red glow across Chimney Rock and the Courthouse. Not only was the color beautiful, but so was the changing aspens. Though not at their peak, seeing entire mountainsides filled with yellows, oranges, reds and greens is something in its own.
All images are ©copyright Jacob Lynn Routzahn. You may not replicate, use, manipulate, modify, print, or any other form of editing to my work without my permission. All rights reserved.The famous one lots of people want to ban: The AR-15. This is the weapon Adam Lanza used in the Newtown school shooting. It's the popular civilian knockoff of the U.S. military's M-16. Here's a GIF made from a cutaway animation on Bushmaster's site. For you gun n00bs, this is what semi-automatic means -- you pull the trigger, it shoots a round, and automatically reloads:
The AR-15 is very customizable, as you can see in this GIF, posted on a Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association message board.
For the most part all those add-ons are primarily cosmetic (folding stocks, bayonet mounts, pistol grips, etc.), which is why some AR-15 enthusiasts like to call them Barbie Dolls for Men. But one of the ways the 1994 assault weapons ban determined whether a semi-automatic gun was an "assault weapon" or not was if it had a detachable magazine and could take two or more of these add-ons. (It also outright banned certain models, like the Uzi and TEC-9.) As the Violence Policy Center's Tom Diaz explained to WHYY's Terry Gross, that created a huge loophole in the ban that gun manufacturers could take advantage of:
The requirement that you have at least two of those meant that gun manufactures could say, "Aha, we can keep the ability to take the high capacity magazine and just knock off the rest of these bells and whistles [and] we still have essentially the same gun,... but it's now federally legal." And that's what Bushmaster figured out. They actually rose to prominence after the 1994 semi-automatic assault weapons ban because they took off all the truly irrelevant bells and whistles and just produced a basic gun.
This emphasis on the gun cosmetics has also opened up a tactic for the NRA to attack gun bans: it's racist to ban guns because of how they look. Former NRA president Marion Hammer said said on an NRA-produced news show last week, "Well, you know, banning people and things because of the way they look went out a long time ago. But here they are again. The color of a gun. The way it looks. It’s just bad politics."
However, some customizations of the AR-15 do more than just make it look cool. As Slate's Justin Peters explained this week, there's even a simple and legal add-on that allows the AR |
checkdown). However, RT Mike Remmers gets beaten badly by Miller, and because Cam is about to pull the ball back, Miller hits it head on and knocks it loose. He clearly blindsided Cam, and this is not the QB’s fault. Defenders should not be able to hit the QB that quickly.
2-10-DEN 45 (Q2, :11) (Shotgun) 1-C.Newton sacked at CAR 45 for -10 yards (94-D.Ware).
3-8-CAR 32 (Q3, 1:03) (Shotgun) 1-C.Newton sacked at CAR 22 for -10 yards (sack split by 95-D.Wolfe and 58-V.Miller).
3-9-CAR 25 (Q4, 4:16) (Shotgun) 1-C.Newton sacked at CAR 16 for -9 yards (58-V.Miller). FUMBLES (58-V.Miller), touched at CAR 18, RECOVERED by DEN-43-T.Ward at CAR 9. 43-T.Ward to CAR 4 for 5 yards (74-M.Remmers). V.Miller credited with 7-yd sack.
On this play, Cam is able to make the first defender miss, but still ends up getting sacked because multiple defenders were in position to make the tackle. This was another big theme for the Broncos’ defense, and it happened on three of the sacks Cam took.
2-10-CAR 20 (Q4, 3:02) (Shotgun) 1-C.Newton sacked at CAR 6 for -14 yards (94-D.Ware).
Cam avoiding sacks
This is an even bigger example than the first fumble of a fumble that is not the QB’s fault. This is the play that essentially sealed the win for the Broncos, and it’s on a third and 9. Mike Remmers needs to give Cam more time to throw the ball, but he couldn’t here because Von Miller is too good for him. Obviously there’s a lot of talk about Cam’s decision to not jump on the pile, but I really don’t believe that would have changed the end result of the play. The focus on that decision is driven by the narrative on Cam playing poorly in this game, which isn’t really true.
The previous section showed all of the plays where Cam got sacked, and pressure got to him quickly every time. If Cam had gone down every time he got instant pressure in his face, it might be fair to criticize him for that, much like it can be fair to criticize an RB for failing to make the first man miss. The problem with that is that for every time Cam succumbed to the pressure and went down, there was another time where he escaped the sack and was able to throw the ball away and live to fight another down. He was sacked six times, but he also had six throwaways that lesser QBs might have been sacked on. While negative plays on the stat sheet, the plays below are actually good plays from Cam because he was able to escape an even bigger negative:
1-10-CAR 39 (Q2, 4:23) (Shotgun) 1-C.Newton pass incomplete short right to 88-G.Olsen [97-M.Jackson].
1-10-DEN 45 (Q2, :18) (Shotgun) 1-C.Newton pass incomplete deep right to 88-G.Olsen.
1-10-DEN 35 (Q3, 13:41) (Shotgun) 1-C.Newton pass incomplete short right [94-D.Ware].
1-10-DEN 28 (Q3, 6:02) (Shotgun) 1-C.Newton pass incomplete short right to 35-M.Tolbert [94-D.Ware].
1-10-CAR 30 (Q3, 1:52) (No Huddle, Shotgun) 1-C.Newton pass incomplete short left to 19-T.Ginn.
3-24-CAR 6 (Q4, 2:16) (Shotgun) 1-C.Newton pass incomplete short right to 17-D.Funchess [95-D.Wolfe].
Cam didn’t quite get instant pressure in his face on this play, but no one ended up getting open downfield. The pressure forced a hurried throw, which ended up as a throwaway.
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All of the other plays were on first down and 10, where the Panthers could afford to live another down with an incompletion. This play was on third down, and it was the Panthers’ last gasp, but Cam should not be faulted for throwing the ball away. He’s clearly giving effort, he just has nowhere to go with the ball. This was well defended by the Broncos. Cam should be commended for keeping the play alive as long as he did.The Protect IP Act, which would allow the U.S. Department of Justice to seek court orders focused on shutting down websites accused of copyright infringement, could come up for a vote in the U.S. Senate by early December, and one senator is threatening to filibuster the bill.
Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, has talked about a filibuster, with the bill likely to come before the full Senate in the next few weeks. During a filibuster, a senator continues to speak on the Senate floor, preventing the Senate from moving forward on a piece of legislation.
It's unclear whether Wyden could rally the 41 votes he would need to maintain the filibuster if backers of Protect IP called for a cloture vote. Forty of the 100 senators are sponsors of the legislation, which would allow the U.S. Department of Justice to seek court orders requiring search engines and Internet service providers to stop sending traffic to websites accused of infringing copyright.
The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to approve Protect IP, also known as PIPA or the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act, in late May, two weeks after it was introduced.
Wyden, working with liberal activist group Demand Progress, has asked opponents of Protect IP to sign their names at StopCensorship.org, with the plan to read the names of opponents during a filibuster. In the first 24 hours after Wyden's request, more than 50,000 people had signed their names, according to Demand Progress.
Protect IP and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a similar piece of legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, would do "lasting damage" to the Internet, Wyden said in a video posted on StopCensorship.org.
"The at-all-cost approaches that these bills take to protecting intellectual property sacrifices cybersecurity while restricting free speech and innovation," he added. "Congress needs to hear from more than the lobbyists who helped write these bills. Congress needs to hear from people like you, who understand the value of a fair and free Internet."
In addition to the DOJ requests for court orders, Protect IP would also allow copyright holders to seek court orders requiring payment processors and online ad networks to stop doing business with allegedly infringing websites. Opponents of the bill say it could lead to legitimate websites targeted by copyright holders and could create online security problems as Web users circumvent blocks by ISPs and search engines.
Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and lead sponsor of Protect IP, discounted opposition to the bill. Leahy and other supporters of the legislation say it's needed to combat online piracy and counterfeit websites operating overseas.
"The Protect IP Act is sponsored by 40 Senators on both sides of the aisle -- few pieces of legislation can boast that kind of bipartisan support," he said in a statement. "I expect that support will continue to grow when the majority leader schedules floor consideration of this important bill, which will promote America's economy and protect American consumers."
Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant's e-mail address is [email protected] NHL's Winter Classic Ice Plant arrived Thursday on a 53-foot tractor tailer, which carries a one-of-a-kind mobile refrigeration unit that will power the outdoor ice surface used for the 2017 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic, which pits the St. Louis Blues against the Chicago Blackhawks in one of the biggest sports events of the year on Jan. 2, 2017.
Starting today and continuing through Jan. 8, now it's also Hockey Heaven.
ST. LOUIS - Since construction was completed in 2006, Busch Stadium has been known as Baseball Heaven.
According to the NHL, construction begins by placing custom-made aluminum trays on the field at Busch Stadium. Those trays will be chilled by pumping as much as 3,000 gallons of glycol coolant into them. Once chilled, the boards are constructed and approximately 20,000 gallons of tap water (the same water you find in your homes!) is sprayed across the playing surface in hundreds of thin layers.
Video: Craig explains how outdoor rinks are built
Unlike NHL arenas - where the ice surface is typically 1 to 1.25 inches thick - the outdoor rinks have to be built to withstand extreme weather conditions. The Winter Classic will require an ice surface that is two inches thick.
Once the ice is built, it will be painted white with 350 gallons of water-soluble paint before the lines and logos are added. Finally, another layer of ice will be built on top.
The whole process is overseen by Dan Craig, the NHL's Senior Director of Facilities, who ensures the quality of the NHL's 30 ice surfaces. He joined the NHL in 1997 after a stint with the Edmonton Oilers and had been the point-person for all of the NHL's outdoor games. Craig will be assisted by Scottrade Center's ice maintenance team in keeping the ice at optimal conditions leading up to the game.
The Winter Classic will be televised in the United States on NBC and on Sportsnet and TVA Sports in Canada on Jan. 2 at noon CT. In addition, the Winter Classic Alumni Game will be held Dec. 31 at 1:30 p.m. at Busch Stadium and will feature Blues legends such as Wayne Gretzky, Brett Hull, Bernie Federko and Al MacInnis as they battle the Chicago Blackhawks Alumni outdoors.
The Blues and St. Louis Cardinals have also teamed up to host the One Nation Classic on Jan. 8, which will feature a skills competition by Blues players, a celebrity pick-up hockey game and opportunities for fans to skate on the Winter Classic ice.
Learn more about the events surrounding the Winter Classic by visiting stlouisblues.com/winterclassic
NHL Winter Classic: By the Numbers
36.5 - the average temperature (Fahrenheit) of NHL outdoor games since 2003
200 - number of workers who will spend one week building the rink at Busch Stadium
350 - gallons of water-soluble paint to make the ice white / paint lines and logos
3,000 - gallons of coolant needed to freeze the rink
20,000 - gallons of water needed to create the ice surface
25,000 - feet of electrical cable to power the rink, stages, audio system
52,000 - feet of plywood needed for the construction of the rink
Video: Stillman, DeWitt excited for Winter ClassicMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Ian Pannell in Benghazi: "Very jubilant scenes within seconds of that UN resolution"
The UN Security Council has backed a no-fly zone over Libya and "all necessary measures" to protect civilians short of an occupation.
It was not immediately clear what form intervention would take and when it would begin, though France signalled that action could start soon.
The resolution appears to give legal weight to attacks against Col Muammar Gaddafi's ground forces.
Col Gaddafi's forces have recently retaken several towns seized by rebels.
Rebel forces reacted with joy to the UN resolution in their Benghazi stronghold, but a government spokesman condemned UN "aggression".
Loyalist forces are bearing down on Benghazi, home to a million people.
'Threatens unity'
Following the UN vote, US President Barack Obama called the French and British leaders to discuss the next move. They said Libya had to comply immediately with the resolution.
Analysis Contingency planning in the UK, France and Nato has been going on for weeks, but will now be accelerated. The UN resolution is so broad it allows military action against all threats to civilians - so could even involve bombing Col Gaddafi's forces on the ground if deemed necessary. Britain could contribute Tornado GR4 ground attack aircraft as well as reconnaissance and early-warning aircraft and tankers for air-to-air refuelling. The resolution means they could also attack Libyan helicopter gunships as well as Libya's fixed-wing aircraft, most of which are Soviet-era fighters as well as some more modern French Mirage F1s. However, many of the crucial final details still need to be worked out between the nations contributing to the mission to ensure that all the necessary means are in place.
"Given the critical situation on the ground, I expect immediate action on the resolution's provisions," said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
"Strikes will take place rapidly," French government spokesman Francois Baroin said on Friday morning. But he added: "You will understand that there's no question of talking as early as this morning about when, how, which targets or in which form."
It is not thought that the US would be involved in the first strikes. The British and French, along with some Arab allies, are expected to play a leading role. Norway has said it will also participate.
BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says signals from Paris suggest that air operations could be imminent, but this may be an attempt to keep Col Gaddafi guessing.
US officials said an attempt to ground Col Gaddafi's air force could begin on Sunday or Monday.
The UK, France and Lebanon proposed Security Council Resolution 1973, with US support.
In New York, the 15-member Security Council voted 10-0 in favour, with five abstentions.
Russia and China - which often oppose the use of force against a sovereign country as they believe it sets a dangerous precedent - abstained rather than using their power of veto as permanent members.
'Killing must stop'
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, introducing the resolution, said: "In Libya, for a number of weeks the people's will has been shot down... by Colonel Gaddafi who is attacking his own people.
"We cannot let these warmongers do this, we cannot abandon civilians."
Mr Obama's reticence, deliberately or not, has helped make the UN relevant again Read Mark's thoughts in full Commentators divided over UN vote
He added: "We should not arrive too late."
The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said: "This resolution should send a strong message to Colonel Gaddafi and his regime that the violence must stop, the killing must stop and the people of Libya must be protected and have the opportunity to express themselves freely."
But Germany, which abstained, will not be contributing to the military effort. Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said his government sees "considerable dangers and risks" in military action against Col Gaddafi.
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Beijing had "serious reservations" about the resolution but did not veto it "in view of the concerns and stance of the Arab countries and African Union and the special circumstances that currently apply in Libya".
'No mercy'
In rebel-held Benghazi, locals cheered, fired guns in the air and let off fireworks to celebrate the imminent no-fly zone.
UN resolution Imposes "ban on all flights in Libyan airspace" except for aid planes
Authorises member states to "take all necessary measures" to "protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack"
Excludes occupation force
Toughens arms embargo by calling on all member states to "inspect in their territory vessels and aircraft bound to or from Libya"
Widens asset freeze to include Libyan Investment Authority, Central Bank of Libya and Libyan National Oil Company among others In quotes: UN Libya vote reaction
But Libya's Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaaim said the vote amounted to "a call for Libyans to kill each other", AFP news agency reported.
"This resolution shows an aggressive attitude on the part of the international community, which threatens the unity of Libya and its stability," he was quoted as saying.
Shortly before the vote, Col Gaddafi told Portuguese television: "If the world is crazy, we will be crazy too."
Earlier on Thursday, addressing the people of Benghazi, Col Gaddafi said his troops were coming "tonight" and there would be "no mercy".
Shortly before the UN vote on Thursday, anti-aircraft fire and explosions were heard in Benghazi, where forces loyal to Col Gaddafi reportedly launched their first air attacks, targeting the airport at Benina.
'Amnesty offer'
The Libyan military earlier warned that civilian and military activities in the Mediterranean would become "the target of a Libyan counter-attack" following any foreign operation.
In other developments:
UN Resolution 1973 - Votes 10 For - France, UK, Lebanon, US, South Africa, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Colombia, Portugal, Nigeria, Gabon 0 Against 5 Abstentions - China, Russia, Brazil, India, Germany
Col Gaddafi's forces were reported to be bombarding the city of Misrata. Libyan state TV had claimed the city was almost entirely under government control, but rebels and residents denied this
Pro-Gaddafi forces attacked the rebel-held town of Ajdabiya, a key objective before launching a ground assault on Benghazi, but rebels deployed tanks, artillery and a helicopter to repel the assault
Official Libyan news agency Jana reported that government forces would cease military operations from midnight on Sunday to give rebels the opportunity to hand over their weapons and "benefit from the decision on general amnesty"
Following the toppling of the long-time leaders of neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt earlier this year, Libyan protesters started to demand that Col Gaddafi step down after more than 40 years of autocratic rule.The fixes Apple bolted on to iCloud's security following its epic spill of stolen celebrity nudes may be far from perfect. But give Apple credit: It made a lot of sex-starved hackers very unhappy.
Late last week, Anon-IB, the anonymous image board that served as one of the central forums for hackers stealing and sharing nude photos from iCloud, came back online after a prolonged "maintenance" outage. The thousands of archived posts in its "/stol/" section, devoted to discussion of how to crack iCloud and steal unwitting victims' compromising selfies, have been deleted. Those posts have been replaced with new ones from frustrated hackers lamenting that their sext-stealing hobby isn’t what it used to be.
“The game is over,” wrote one forlorn Anon-IB member. “We lost despite a major lead.”
Angry users on the site blamed the high-profile celebrity nude leak for ruining iCloud hacking techniques they’d used for months or even years to silently download backups from iPhone owners. “I'm pretty sure J-Law, Kate Upton, McKayla Maroney, their lawyers, and the people who released the nude photos fucked it up for us,” wrote one user, referring to some of the celebrity victims of the photo scandal. “I'd rather be able to download backups of all of the chicks I know than a bunch of random celebs,” complained another.
The exact tactics Anon-IB's hackers used still aren't entirely clear. But in many cases, they seem to have guessed answers to their victim’s security questions that allowed them to reset passwords, exploited a vulnerability in Find My iPhone that allowed them to try thousands of passwords until they broke in, or tricked users into entering the credentials on phishing websites. Then they used law enforcement forensic tools like Elcomsoft Phone Password Breaker to download entire devices’ collections of stolen data.
Apple moved last week to stop those embarrassing hacks: It now alerts users whenever their iCloud data is downloaded to a new device. And it allows two-factor authentication for iCloud accounts, so people can log in or download backups only after also entering a temporary passcode sent to their phone.
Only a small fraction of iCloud users have likely turned on that second-factor security measure, according to Elcomsoft CEO Vladimir Katalov. He says his company's support team has received fewer than ten complaints from law enforcement customers about two-factor authentication preventing Elcomsoft's tools from downloading a target's backup, despite well over ten thousand customers using the software. When two-factor authentication isn't enabled, he says Apple's changes haven't prevented Elcomsoft's tools from siphoning iCloud backups. "In that case, of course it still works," says Katalov.
Anon-IB's hackers seem more upset, however, about the email alerts Apple now sends to its users when their account is accessed or a backup downloaded. That measure cuts the time any hacker has to download a device's iCloud backup after testing the user's credentials, says iOS forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski.
"Y'all stupid muthafuckas fucked it all up...Now everything alerts," writes one Anon-IB member. "Let it go. The game is up. And we lost."
With most iCloud users still at least partially vulnerable, don't expect the hacking to stop altogether. One Anon-IB member suggested on the site that "/stol/" move to a dark web site protected by the anonymity software Tor; a Tor-hidden site known as iRip already serves a similar purpose. (Cautious users would be wise to turn on two-factor authentication for their iCloud accounts immediately.)
iCloud's hackable vulnerabilities only came to light after a hacker—likely the Anon-IB user known as "Original Guy"—offered to sell a sprawling collection of more than a dozen celebrities' nude photos in exchange for bitcoin. But the discussion on Anon-IB implies that the actual theft of those photos may have been a team effort. "Like 90 people did the work and now 1 or 2 morons are profiting and fucked everything up," writes one user. "So goes the world."
Other denizens of Anon-IB seemed less upset that Original Guy had made Apple cut short their hacking games than the fact that he or she had failed to actually publish the full trove of nudes. Several users claimed that more celebrity sexts have yet to surface.
"The person that leaked the celebrity pictures that everyone on here worked so hard to hack didn't even release all of them," wrote one disappointed Anon-IBer. "That is the real shame. Not that you guys won't be able to hack the Apple iCloud anymore due to Apple's new increased security measures."(David McNew/Getty Images)
The Obama administration and the next Congress are being urged, by a growing number of academics, environmentalists, and lawmakers, to address the country's water problems, including its dwindling supplies, inadequate environmental protections, and stalled cleanup efforts.
Over the past decade, a potent combination of Supreme Court decisions, Bush administration regulatory actions, and congressional inaction—coupled with recent droughts and the specter of more pronounced problems from climate change—has helped breed crises of both water quality and water availability, they say.
At the top of their priority list: reviving federal laws—particularly the Clean Water Act—that have been weakened or narrowly interpreted in recent years; boosting funding for the nation's faltering and aging water infrastructure; and strengthening the Environmental Protection Agency's regulation of water pollution from industry and power plants.
Many of these priorities appear to align with those of Barack Obama. In his remarks about a stimulus package last week, Obama stressed the need for infrastructure improvement. During the campaign, he touted his support for water protection in battleground states like Florida, pledging to help protect and restore the Florida Everglades. His campaign advisers, meantime, say he will support legislation to restore the full scope of environmental laws that were weakened under the current administration.
Environmentalists want him to start by rejuvenating the Clean Water Act—the main water-pollution control act in the United States. Passed in 1972, the law was interpreted by both Congress and the courts for nearly 30 years as protecting virtually all federal waters. But in 2001, and again in 2006, the Supreme Court handed down rulings that served, in effect, to limit the law's reach.
Now, more than 20 million acres of wetlands, along with more than half of the country's steams and rivers, are more vulnerable to pollution as a result of the court's decisions and EPA rules that have followed. "Clean water enforcement is essentially broken at this point," says Joan Mulhern, senior legislative counsel at Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm that has prosecuted many of the most high-profile environmental cases of the past decade. Moreover, because of uncertainty resulting from the court's 2006 decision, the EPA has delayed processing hundreds of environmental violations.
To return the Clean Water Act to its original standing, environmentalists are asking Congress to pass legislation clarifying that the law applies not just to main waterways or waterways closely linked to main waterways, as some justices on the Supreme Court have argued, but to all types of federal waters. Such a bill already has been proposed by Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer and has been endorsed in principle by Obama. "I would not be surprised if that actually got passed within the first few years of the Obama administration," says Florida State law Prof. Robin Craig, one of the nation's top experts on water law.
Another concern is the condition of the nation's sewage systems and water treatment facilities. There is bipartisan consensus that the nation's water infrastructure is in urgent need of repair. "The nation's sewage infrastructure for the 21st century is in abominable shape," says Mulhern.
In June, presaging an argument he made last week supporting a second stimulus package, Obama told a crowd in Flint, Mich., "If we want to keep up with China or Europe, we can't settle for crumbling roads and bridges, aging water and sewer pipes. It's gotten so bad that the American Society of Civil Engineers gave our national infrastructure a D. " Environmentalists are hopeful that any stimulus package Obama assembles will include at least $10 billion for water treatment systems and water-related projects. They note that the Clean Water Act at one point provided $1.35 billion a year for infrastructure improvements. Because of recent budget strains, that amount has been cut by more than half.
And as Craig and others point out, water quality is only half the battle. Water supply is the other half. "We are running out of water, and I do not say that facetiously," she says. Large parts of the United States depend on aquifers—such as the Ogallala aquifer under Texas and Oklahoma—that contain what Craig calls "fossil water" and are unlikely to refill.
Climate change is exacerbating water problems in many regions and water shortages are, in turn, making water quality issues more extreme. "These are not unrelated issues," says Craig. "If you don't have enough water in a river, you make whatever pollutants are there worse because they're more concentrated."
Read about how environmentalists want Obama to revitalize the EPA.
Read about Obama and climate change.
Read more environmental news.Major Gen (retired) Ian Cardozo, a hero of the 1971 war that led to the creation of Bangladesh, paid tribute to BBC’s coverage of the hostilities on Monday but recalled its one mistake that benefited India in taking on numerically superior Pakistani forces.
At the time, Cardozo was a major in a 5 Gorkha Rifles battalion, comprising about 750 soldiers, that was tasked with capturing Atgram near Sylhet.
It was short of artillery and food supplies, but ultimately managed the surrender of two Pakistan Army brigades, including three brigadiers, a colonel, 107 officers, 219 JCOs and 7,000 troops in one of the most incredible successes of the war.
Speaking at a book release event here, he said: “Today I would like to use this platform to pay tributes to the BBC. They were the only reliable broadcasting station at that time, giving news as it happened. The Indian Army had nothing to hide, so the British war correspondents were going along with our troops.
“They were reporting minute-to-minute the progress of the battle. But they made a mistake. They announced that a ‘brigade’ of Gurkhas had landed at Sylhet. We heard it, as well as the Pakistanis. So we decided to pretend that we were a brigade.”
Taking advantage of the misinformation, Cardozo’s battalion built on small victories and created a situation where the Pakistani troops offered to surrender on December 15, 1971. Until it happened, Cardozo and others believed a Pakistani brigade was in the area, but they were surprised to discover the final number was more than twice the strength of a brigade.
One of the most decorated officers of the Indian Army, Cardozo recalled the vital operation to capture Sylhet during a packed invitation-only event to celebrate the life of Lt Gen FN Bilimoria, former head of the central command and father of Karan Bilimoria, a member of the House of Lords.
Cardozo, a contemporary of Lt Gen Bilimoria, penned the book ”Lieutenant General Bilimoria: His Life and Times”, whichwas recently presented to Indian Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh in New Delhi.
The book release event here was attended by leading lights of the British Army, including former chief of general staff, Field Marshal John Chapple, and several Bangladesh citizens, who became emotional on meeting the man who played a definingrole in their country’s formation.
One Bangladeshi member of the audience thanked Cardozo for the "great job you have done for us". Cardozois expected to receive an enthusiastic reception at the Bangladesh high commission here on Tuesday.
Answering questions, Cardozo said calmly but firmly: “I do not like to use this platform to denigrate Pakistan. I think everybody knows what they are up to, what they have been up to and what they continue to do. I don’t have to elaborate.
“But India believes in peace, people, progress, development, not in war. But if war is forced upon us, as it was in 1965, in1971 and in Kargil, we were the victors in every war,” he added to much applause.
Retired British Army officers recalled their interaction with Lt Gen Bilimoria, who was the Indian Army’s liaison officer in the School of Infantry in Warminster in the 1970s. A popular soldier, he saw action in the 1971 war and held several key posts, including GOC of the central command. Karan Bilimoria recalled the values passed on to him byhis father, whodied at the age of 72 in 2005.
Cardozo's remarkable militarycareer saw him losing a leg when he stepped on alandmine in the 1971 war. He cut off his mangled leg with his own khukri and told his Gurkha batman: "Now go and bury it."
Determined not to let the disability affect his career as a soldier, he later became the first disabled officer in the Indian Army to command an infantry brigade. He has penned books on war heroes and the sinking of INS Khukri in the 1971 war.
First Published: Jul 26, 2016 15:54 IST11-year-old entrepreneur Madison Root was selling bags of hand picked mistletoe in Oregon’s Portland Saturday Market to help pay for her braces, but was told to stop because she was violating a city code. The young salesperson told KATU 2 news, "I wouldn't think that I'd have any problems because people are asking for money, people are selling stuff, this is a public place." But the private security guard for the Portland Saturday Market said she was violating Chapter 20.12.020, which makes sales without permits illegal.
Madison Root selling bags of mistletoe (KATU) More
Madison’s father, Ashton Root, was with her at the market and told The Oregonian that the guard said she couldn’t even give away the mistletoe and ask for donations, but begging for money would be okay. Mark Ross, Portland Parks Bureau spokesperson, explained that begging is a protected form of free speech. "We totally understand the rule…But here she was selling mistletoe and all around her were people playing music for money, or asking for money for pot, or just spare change. We’re allowing people to beg, but not to sell; it seems like there should be some sort of exception,” Ashton said. Madison agreed, “I don't want to beg! I would rather work for something than beg."
Madison Root and her father Ashton Root (KATU) More
After KATU’s original story spread, Madison’s business took off. In just two days orders streamed in, some for 20 or 30 bags of the mistletoe at a time. A fellow entrepreneur, McKenzie Cook, also took notice of Madison’s plight telling the station, "I saw Madison's story on KATU and I was so moved." So moved that McKenzie offered Madison $1000. The fellow Oregonian started his business McKenzie Farms, the second largest Christmas tree farm in the country, with no trees and felt, "This girl is what America is all about."
McKenzie Cook (KATU) MoreThis may be the most pro-Trump Russiagate story ever to appear in a major paper. Turns out a low-level Trump foreign policy advisor named George Papadopoulos tried to set up meetings between the campaign and Russian officials starting last March, before Trump had even clinched the nomination. Annnnnnd … some of the campaign’s major players, including Paul Manafort, just weren’t interested. Not only weren’t they interested, they were mindful of proper protocol: At least one advisor noted that meetings with a foreign state would raise Logan Act questions while another mentioned that U.S. allies should be notified before any Russia meetings happened.
WaPo does its best to shoehorn this news into the collusion narrative, noting that this proves the Russian government was eager early on to make contact with Team Trump, but the resulting disinterest within the campaign is so helpful to the president politically that you end up suspecting this was leaked to WaPo by the White House itself. Or by sources friendly to Trump.
Papadopoulos, a campaign volunteer with scant foreign policy experience, persisted. Between March and September, the self-described energy consultant sent at least a half-dozen requests for Trump, as he turned from primary candidate to party nominee, or for members of his team to meet with Russian officials. Among those to express concern about the effort was then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who rejected in May 2016 a proposal from Papadopoulos for Trump to do so… On March 24, [Sam] Clovis, the campaign co-chairman who also served on the foreign policy team, reacted to one proposed Russia meeting by writing, “We thought we probably should not go forward with any meeting with the Russians until we have had occasion to sit with our NATO allies.” In the same email chain, [Charles] Kubic, the retired admiral, reminded others about legal restrictions on meetings with certain Russian officials, adding, “Just want to make sure that no one on the team outruns their headlights and embarrasses the campaign.”
On May 4, the day after Trump won the Indiana primary and all but clinched the nomination, Papadopoulos circulated a message from someone at the Russian International Affairs Council that the Russian foreign ministry was interested in hosting the new presumptive nominee in Moscow:
Clovis responded to the Timofeev invitation by noting: “There are legal issues we need to mitigate, meeting with foreign officials as a private citizen.”… Manafort reacted coolly, forwarding the email to his associate Rick Gates, with a note: “We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips.”
If you’re desperate to salvage a collusion storyline out of that, you could argue that Manafort simply recognized that a Trump visit to Russia would have been piss-poor optics in the middle of a campaign, especially given Trump’s conspicuous neutrality towards Putin when asked about him in the past. The Russian foreign ministry obviously saw a huge propaganda coup in the making if it could convince Trump to accept the invite and do a grip-and-grin photo op with Putin in Moscow. Manafort knew how that would play back in the U.S. and wisely said, uh, nope. Either way, though, there’s nothing in the WaPo story to suggest that Manafort, Clovis, or anyone else was working an independent channel to the Kremlin and was uninterested in Papadopoulos’s alternative channel for that reason. Unless the emails were very selectively leaked by a pro-Trump source to create a false impression of disinterest, this is a solid boost to Trump’s claim that he never colluded.
One obvious complicating factor, though. Donald Jr, Manafort, and Jared Kushner did meet with someone whom Don Jr thought was acting on behalf of the Russian government when they sat down with lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya last June — after most of the key Papadopoulos emails had been sent. The emails aren’t conclusive proof that no one in the campaign was interested in chatting with Russian officials because, er, they did in fact chat with Russian officials, or someone whom they thought was a Russian official. This story would have made a big impression if that meeting was still a secret, as it would point firmly towards the idea that Team Trump just wasn’t game for collusion. As it is, it’s a piece of the puzzle. If they weren’t interested in talking to Russia in May, why were they interested in June? Were they still interested in July, August, September, and October?Few organizations have done as much as Janus Films to bring classic and contemporary foreign and art house films to viewers in America. A pillar of film restoration and presentation in America, Janus, along with the Criterion Collection, is almost universally trusted by cinephiles, and much of their success can be attributed to William J. Becker, who passed away on September 12.
Janus Films was almost single-handedly responsible for bringing some of the world’s best directors to American renown, including Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Yasujirō Ozu, and countless others.
Founded in 1956, Janus Films was purchased by William J. Becker and Saul J. Turell in 1965. The duo was largely responsible for the spread of Janus’ influence, epitomized by their first big success: introducing Ingmar Bergman’s classic The Seventh Seal to the U.S.
While Janus may not be familiar to casual film viewers, The Criterion Collection, a subsidiary of Janus Films, likely is. At this point, the two go hand-in-hand. Peter Becker, President of Criterion, called their relationship “symbiotic.”
Criterion’s history is full of twists and turns, dating back to its emergence in 1984. William J. Becker was pivotal in establishing a partnership between Janus Films and the then fledgling Voyager Company in the mid-80s. Voyager saw an opportunity with the emergence of laser discs to provide extra content (like film stills) |
in Iraq; and almost a decade of wheel-spinning in Afghanistan without any sign of success, no less victory. What could make the limits of American power any clearer?
The record should be as sobering as it is dismal, while the costs to the peoples in those countries are as appalling as they are unfathomable to Americans. The blood and futility of this American past ought to be apparent to Nobel Peace Prize-winner Obama, even if his predecessors have been incredibly resistant to clear-eyed assessments of American power or the real consequences of U.S. wars.
Two paths stretch out before this first-year president. Two destinations beckon: peace or failure.
Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com and the winner of a 2009 Ridenhour Prize for Reportorial Distinction as well as a James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, In These Times, and regularly at TomDispatch. A paperback edition of his book The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives (Metropolitan Books), an exploration of the new military-corporate complex in America, has recently been published. His website is NickTurse.com.Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Green Bay, Wis., on Aug. 5. (Darren Hauck/Getty Images)
On Dec. 29, 2014, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) admitted that he'd attended an event hosted by white supremacist leaders a decade earlier. The timing was awkward for Republicans, since Scalise had recently moved into the upper ranks of the House caucus after Eric Cantor lost his reelection bid. Within 24 hours, then-Speaker John A. Boehner stood by Scalise.
"More than a decade ago, Representative Scalise made an error in judgment, and he was right to acknowledge it was wrong and inappropriate," Boehner said in a statement. "Like many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, I know Steve to be a man of high integrity and good character. He has my full confidence as our Whip, and he will continue to do great and important work for all Americans."
It was important for Boehner to step up for Scalise because Scalise was part of the party's leadership team. Yet the day after Hillary Clinton delivered a stinging indictment of Donald Trump, the Republican Party's ostensible leader, on the same subject, other Republican leaders haven't risen to his defense.
The Republican Party has tweeted repeatedly since Clinton's speech, praising the National Park Service, hitting Clinton on her foundation and pledging to return to the Constitution. It offered no press release in defense of its nominee, issuing one only about Clinton having not held a press conference since last year.
That's been the only subject of Republican Chairman Reince Priebus's tweets, too, including one this morning.
265 days since @HillaryClinton held a press conference https://t.co/LSa4zQiVP5 — Reince Priebus (@Reince) August 26, 2016
Speaker Paul D. Ryan's website (where Boehner's 2014 statement currently lives) includes an update about constituent outreach by Rep. Mac Thornberry added since Thursday — but, then, Ryan's official page isn't the proper place for a political defense. The Facebook page for his campaign has updated twice since Clinton's speech with a YouTube video of one of his speeches and a call to update the tax code.
1 of 60 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × What Donald Trump is doing on the campaign trail View Photos The GOP presidential nominee is pressing his case ahead of Election Day. Caption The GOP presidential nominee is pressing his case ahead of Election Day. Nov. 7, 2016 Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at SNHU Arena in Manchester, N.H. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.
Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Republican Conference, has also weighed in on social media since Clinton's speech: She gave a shout-out to a local business and wrote about preventing forest fires.
NBC's Frank Thorp reached out to both Ryan's office and that of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The results?
Recap: Asked for response to Clinton's 'alt-right' speech: Ryan spox: "Doubt he saw it."
McConnell spox: "I don't think he saw the speech." — Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) August 26, 2016
The speech was not a surprise. Clinton announced that she intended to link Trump to the so-called alt-right earlier this week, making it clear she would imply that the Republican nominee had the backing of racists and anti-Semites. In a normal election cycle, that would prompt the party to line up leaders and surrogates in defense of their candidate. This isn't a normal election cycle.
MSNBC's Benjy Sarlin (who noticed the GOP's silence early) points out that his network asked party spokesman Sean Spicer about the lack of a coordinated rebuttal to Clinton. "I don't know," Spicer said. "I think Congress is in recess."
Congress is in recess, as it has been since the middle of July. (Nice work if you can get it.) That didn't stop members of Congress from tweeting. By my quick tally, there have been 86 tweets from Republican members of Congress since Clinton's speech. A handful have dealt with the presidential race; none can be interpreted as a defense of Donald Trump.
One Republican's tweet can be interpreted as the opposite.
Well, it was good while it lasted... https://t.co/QV6PXUoRX7 — Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) August 26, 2016
There has also been no defense of the Republican nominee from his running mate. After a string of tornadoes in his home state, Gov. Mike Pence returned to Indiana. His tweets over the past day have dealt with the state's recovery. His campaign Twitter account, which could easily have tweeted a link to a statement defending Trump, didn't. He hasn't tweeted there since Wednesday.
Trump does have statements on his website offering a defense. Three come from members of the "Republican Leadership Initiative," a party effort to teach the basics of political campaigns to those interested. So the party-connected individuals we can say with certainty have defended Trump are Alfred Liz, Patricia Bober and Oz Sultan.
This is not exactly a circling of the wagons.A coalition of interest groups is calling on Canada's six biggest banks and others to back away from providing funding for Kinder Morgan Canada's controversial Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
The coalition of 20 indigenous and environmental groups says in an open letter that it will use its influence to urge local and foreign governments to divest from banks that ignore its opposition to the pipeline.
It names a total of 28 banks as potential targets for its campaign, including 14 that underwrote the recent initial public offering for Kinder Morgan Canada.
The 14 underwriters included all of Canada's biggest banks as well as others from the United States, European Union and Japan.
The coalition's letter urges the banks to decline any additional involvement with Kinder Morgan that would help to finance the Trans Mountain expansion project, particularly a $5.5 billion credit facility the company is seeking.
Among the signatories on the letter is Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, and Grand Chief Serge Simon of the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake in Quebec.Suits & Blazers – The $1500 Wardrobe Part I
Creating a versatile, sharp wardrobe doesn’t happen overnight. By far, the best course of action is to go slow. But for argument’s sake, let’s say you have to start from scratch. Today. Over the next 5 days we’ll see how far a strict budget of $1500 can go. It won’t be easy, some corners will have to be cut, and not every last stitch of clothing (like underwear) will be covered. But the goal is finish with a setup of clothes that can have someone looking great in most situations. Remember, we’re playing with a total of $1500 here. So the focus will be on real affordable goods which can last with reasonable care. Also, remember that 90% of looking good is fit, and tailoring costs can vary wildly. So those haven’t been added to the final cost.
Ow. A THIRD?!? We’re blowing a full THIRD of the entire budget right out of the gate? Yes. We are. But a well cut, durable, timeless navy suit is the backbone of any guy’s wardrobe. You don’t got that, you got nothin’. And even at $499, these are worth it. The quality is great, the fit is athletic without being tight, and the shoulder pads, lapel width, and button stance are all timeless. Half canvas gives it durability and the flexibility of the jacket (unlike stiff fused-suits) is fantastic. Ships and returns free in the US, so before you consider going cheaper on your foundation navy suit, at least give Suitsupply a shot. And don’t let it rot in your closet it. WEAR IT. Get the most out of this thing. We’re spending a third of the budget on it after-all. Feel free to wear it sans tie for a casual look.
The Cheap Charcoal Suit: Clairborne Suit Separates – $115.18 w/ PINECONE
And here’s where we’re going to cut some corners. For lack of a better description, this is your funeral suit. If you’re going to get by with two suits, skip the black and go with navy and charcoal. That way, if you need to attend a serious, subdued event, you’ll be prepared. A light grey worsted would look best in spring and summer, but you can always get one of those later. The Clairborne option from JC Penney is by far the best mega-cheap suit on the market. It’s fused, sure, but the fit is surprisingly good. You’re best off headed in store. JC Penney still hasn’t fixed the description on the website, and it says that “both pieces (are) constructed of polyester.” But numerous people have reported that yes, they are in fact wool. And that’s obviously key. PINECONE expires today, but these dip under $125 every few weeks. Full review here.
The Cotton Casual Blazer: Stafford Prep Chino – $19.99 w/ PINECONE
Would have been nice to turn to the now-extinct Clairborne Smooth Cotton Peak Lapel here, but, those are long gone. The thicker, more relaxed chino option from Stafford Prep is still a step up from the (also extinct) Merona Kensington, but still really affordable. Be prepared to have a little tailoring done since they come in Small/Medium/Large sizes instead of chest sizes. Totally unlined. Dirt cheap and on clearance. Wear it with grey chinos in the summer or jeans + boots in the fall & winter.
TOTAL COST: $634.17
CASH REMAINING: $865.83
Upcoming Categories: Shoes, Shirts & Sweaters, Pants, The Rest.From Scrolls Wiki
Sadly, this article is a stub. You can help Scrollsguide by expanding it! Reason: Outdated; list of scrolls which allow sifting is missing
The library is the place from which you draw your scrolls. It consists of the scrolls in your deck in a random order. Whenever you draw a scroll, the first scroll of your library is taken into your hand, unless the draw effect came from a scroll with a different draw rule (see Summons or Eye of Eagle).
The graveyard is the place where your played or sacrificed scrolls go to. Whenever you cast a spell scroll or sacrifice a scroll for resources or more scrolls, it is put on top of the graveyard. Scrolls of units on the board and the enchantment scrolls affecting them are placed on the graveyard as soon as the unit dies on the battlefield.
When your library runs out of scrolls, the graveyard is shuffled and becomes your new library. Since you can never run out of scrolls, it is advisable to keep your deck size as close to 50 scrolls as possible to maximize the chance of drawing the scrolls you need.
Trivia
Many scrolls have no distinction between the library and the graveyard. Scrolls like Eye of Eagle which search the library for specific scrolls to draw also searches the graveyard if the scroll was not found in the library. If it is also not found in the graveyard, no scroll will be drawn. In contrast, scrolls that use the sift mechanic only either draw from the library or from the graveyard, i.e. if you want to sift two scrolls from the library, but only have one left, you sift one scroll.-->love -poems-for-her.jpg?resize=182%2C182&ssl=1);background-origin:padding-box;background-position-x:0%;background-position-y:0%;background-repeat:repeat;background-size:auto;border-bottom-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-width:0px;border-image-outset:0px;border-image-repeat:stretch;border-image-slice:100%;border-image-source:none;border-image-width:1;border-left-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-left-style:none;border-left-width:0px;border-right-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-right-style:none;border-right-width:0px;border-spacing:0px 0px;border-top-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-top-style:none;border-top-width:0px;bottom:auto;box-shadow:none;clear:none;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);display:block;float:left;font-family:Georgia;font-size:12px;font-weight:normal;left:auto;line-height:19px;list-style-image:none;list-style-position:outside;list-style-type:disc;outline-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);outline-style:none;outline-width:0px;position:static;right:auto;text-indent:0px;top:auto;vertical-align:baseline;visibility:visible;word-wrap:normal;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;mcalc:0px 0px 0px 0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;pcalc:0px 0px 0px 0px;" ezdefaultstyle="-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);background-image:url(https://i0.wp.com/www.wishespoems.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/love-poems-for-her.jpg?resize=182%2C182&ssl=1);background-origin:padding-box;background-size:auto;border-bottom-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-width:0px;border-left-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-left-style:none;border-left-width:0px;border-right-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-right-style:none;border-right-width:0px;border-spacing:0px 0px;border-top-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-top-style:none;border-top-width:0px;bottom:auto;box-shadow:none;clear:none;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);display:block;float:left;font-family:Georgia;font-size:12px;font-weight:normal;left:auto;line-height:19px;list-style-image:none;list-style-position:outside;list-style-type:disc;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-top:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-top:0px;position:static;right:auto;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;top:auto;vertical-align:baseline;visibility:visible;word-wrap:normal;" ezuseragentstyle="-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;border-spacing:0px 0px;bottom:auto;box-shadow:none;clear:none;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);display:block;font-family:Georgia;font-weight:normal;left:auto;line-height:19px;list-style-image:none;list-style-position:outside;list-style-type:disc;position:static;right:auto;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;top:auto;visibility:visible;word-wrap:normal;"> Love Poems for Her Make her heart melt at your words and show her how much you care with love poems for her. Here you will find the largest collection and the best love poems for her. It can often be hard to express to a woman how you feel. Poems about love for her are a great way to let her know how you feel and show her how important she is to you.
read more
-->love -poems-for-him-1.jpg?resize=182%2C182&ssl=1);background-origin:padding-box;background-position-x:0%;background-position-y:0%;background-repeat:repeat;background-size:auto;border-bottom-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-width:0px;border-image-outset:0px;border-image-repeat:stretch;border-image-slice:100%;border-image-source:none;border-image-width:1;border-left-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-left-style:none;border-left-width:0px;border-right-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-right-style:none;border-right-width:0px;border-spacing:0px 0px;border-top-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-top-style:none;border-top-width:0px;bottom:auto;box-shadow:none;clear:none;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);display:block;float:left;font-family:Georgia;font-size:12px;font-weight:normal;left:auto;line-height:19px;list-style-image:none;list-style-position:outside;list-style-type:disc;outline-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);outline-style:none;outline-width:0px;position:static;right:auto;text-indent:0px;top:auto;vertical-align:baseline;visibility:visible;word-wrap:normal;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;mcalc:0px 0px 0px 0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;pcalc:0px 0px 0px 0px;" ezdefaultstyle="-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);background-image:url(https://i1.wp.com/www.wishespoems.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/love-poems-for-him-1.jpg?resize=182%2C182&ssl=1);background-origin:padding-box;background-size:auto;border-bottom-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-width:0px;border-left-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-left-style:none;border-left-width:0px;border-right-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-right-style:none;border-right-width:0px;border-spacing:0px 0px;border-top-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-top-style:none;border-top-width:0px;bottom:auto;box-shadow:none;clear:none;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);display:block;float:left;font-family:Georgia;font-size:12px;font-weight:normal;left:auto;line-height:19px;list-style-image:none;list-style-position:outside;list-style-type:disc;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-top:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-top:0px;position:static;right:auto;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;top:auto;vertical-align:baseline;visibility:visible;word-wrap:normal;" ezuseragentstyle="-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;border-spacing:0px 0px;bottom:auto;box-shadow:none;clear:none;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);display:block;font-family:Georgia;font-weight:normal;left:auto;line-height:19px;list-style-image:none;list-style-position:outside;list-style-type:disc;position:static;right:auto;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;top:auto;visibility:visible;word-wrap:normal;"> Love Poems for Him
read more You want to show him what is in your heart and help him to see how much you love him. Our huge collection of love poems for him from the heart will help you do just that. Here you will find all sorts of poems about love for him: short love poems for him, funny love poems for him, cute love poems for him and romantic love poems for him. It can be difficult to truly express our feelings....
-->Love -Poems.jpg?resize=182%2C182&ssl=1);background-origin:padding-box;background-position-x:0%;background-position-y:0%;background-repeat:repeat;background-size:auto;border-bottom-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-width:0px;border-image-outset:0px;border-image-repeat:stretch;border-image-slice:100%;border-image-source:none;border-image-width:1;border-left-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-left-style:none;border-left-width:0px;border-right-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-right-style:none;border-right-width:0px;border-spacing:0px 0px;border-top-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-top-style:none;border-top-width:0px;bottom:auto;box-shadow:none;clear:none;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);display:block;float:left;font-family:Georgia;font-size:12px;font-weight:normal;left:auto;line-height:19px;list-style-image:none;list-style-position:outside;list-style-type:disc;outline-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);outline-style:none;outline-width:0px;position:static;right:auto;text-indent:0px;top:auto;vertical-align:baseline;visibility:visible;word-wrap:normal;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;mcalc:0px 0px 0px 0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;pcalc:0px 0px 0px 0px;" ezdefaultstyle="-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);background-image:url(https://i2.wp.com/www.wishespoems.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Funny-Love-Poems.jpg?resize=182%2C182&ssl=1);background-origin:padding-box;background-size:auto;border-bottom-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-width:0px;border-left-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-left-style:none;border-left-width:0px;border-right-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-right-style:none;border-right-width:0px;border-spacing:0px 0px;border-top-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-top-style:none;border-top-width:0px;bottom:auto;box-shadow:none;clear:none;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);display:block;float:left;font-family:Georgia;font-size:12px;font-weight:normal;left:auto;line-height:19px;list-style-image:none;list-style-position:outside;list-style-type:disc;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-top:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-top:0px;position:static;right:auto;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;top:auto;vertical-align:baseline;visibility:visible;word-wrap:normal;" ezuseragentstyle="-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;border-spacing:0px 0px;bottom:auto;box-shadow:none;clear:none;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);display:block;font-family:Georgia;font-weight:normal;left:auto;line-height:19px;list-style-image:none;list-style-position:outside;list-style-type:disc;position:static;right:auto;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;top:auto;visibility:visible;word-wrap:normal;"> Funny Love Poems for Him or Her
read more What would love be without a little laughter? Funny love poems can show your partner that you love them while also making them smile, and what could be better than that? Many times we want to share our feelings with our partner, but sometimes people feel uncomfortable using serious love poems. Instead we can use funny poems about love to convey our emotions with a hint of humor. Here you will...
-->Love -Poems.png?resize=182%2C182&ssl=1);background-origin:padding-box;background-position-x:0%;background-position-y:0%;background-repeat:repeat;background-size:auto;border-bottom-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-width:0px;border-image-outset:0px;border-image-repeat:stretch;border-image-slice:100%;border-image-source:none;border-image-width:1;border-left-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-left-style:none;border-left-width:0px;border-right-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-right-style:none;border-right-width:0px;border-spacing:0px 0px;border-top-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-top-style:none;border-top-width:0px;bottom:auto;box-shadow:none;clear:none;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);display:block;float:left;font-family:Georgia;font-size:12px;font-weight:normal;left:auto;line-height:19px;list-style-image:none;list-style-position:outside;list-style-type:disc;outline-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);outline-style:none;outline-width:0px;position:static;right:auto;text-indent:0px;top:auto;vertical-align:baseline;visibility:visible;word-wrap:normal;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;mcalc:0px 0px 0px 0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;pcalc:0px 0px 0px 0px;" ezdefaultstyle="-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);background-image:url(https://i2.wp.com/www.wishespoems.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Cute-Love-Poems.png?resize=182%2C182&ssl=1);background-origin:padding-box;background-size:auto;border-bottom-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-width:0px;border-left-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-left-style:none;border-left-width:0px;border-right-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-right-style:none;border-right-width:0px;border-spacing:0px 0px;border-top-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-top-style:none;border-top-width:0px;bottom:auto;box-shadow:none;clear:none;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);display:block;float:left;font-family:Georgia;font-size:12px;font-weight:normal;left:auto;line-height:19px;list-style-image:none;list-style-position:outside;list-style-type:disc;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-top:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-top:0px;position:static;right:auto;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;top:auto;vertical-align:baseline;visibility:visible;word-wrap:normal;" ezuseragentstyle="-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;border-spacing:0px 0px;bottom:auto;box-shadow:none;clear:none;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);display:block;font-family:Georgia;font-weight:normal;left:auto;line-height:19px;list-style-image:none;list-style-position:outside;list-style-type:disc;position:static;right:auto;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;top:auto;visibility:visible;word-wrap:normal;"> Cute Love Poems Enjoy our huge collection of cute love poems for him or her! Sometimes we just want to be cute (or cutesy!) and sweet with our partner, and cute poems about love can help us to do that. Cute love poems can help you to share your feelings with your lover and also make them say, “Aww, you’re so cute!” So, if you are looking for cute love poems for your boyfriend or girlfriend,...
read more Enjoy our huge collection of cute love poems for him or her! Sometimes we just want to be cute (or cutesy!) and sweet with our partner, and cute poems about love can help us to do that. Cute love poems can help you to share your feelings with your lover and also make them say, “Aww, you’re so cute!” So, if you are looking for cute love poems for your boyfriend or girlfriend,...
-->love -poems-2.jpg?resize=182%2C182&ssl=1);background-origin:padding-box;background-position-x:0%;background-position-y:0%;background-repeat:repeat;background-size:auto;border-bottom-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-width:0px;border-image-outset:0px;border-image-repeat:stretch;border-image-slice:100%;border-image-source:none;border-image-width:1;border-left-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-left-style:none;border-left-width:0px;border-right-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-right-style:none;border-right-width:0px;border-spacing:0px 0px;border-top-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-top-style:none;border-top-width:0px;bottom:auto;box-shadow:none;clear:none;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);display:block;float:left;font-family:Georgia;font-size:12px;font-weight:normal;left:auto;line-height:19px;list-style-image:none;list-style-position:outside;list-style-type:disc;outline-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);outline-style:none;outline-width:0px;position:static;right:auto;text-indent:0px;top:auto;vertical-align:baseline;visibility:visible;word-wrap:normal;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;mcalc:0px 0px 0px 0px;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;pcalc:0px 0px 0px 0px;" ezdefaultstyle="-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);background-image:url(https://i0.wp.com/www.wishespoems.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/short-love-poems-2.jpg?resize=182%2C182&ssl=1);background-origin:padding-box;background-size:auto;border-bottom-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-width:0px;border-left-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-left-style:none;border-left-width:0px;border-right-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-right-style:none;border-right-width:0px;border-spacing:0px 0px;border-top-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);border-top-style:none;border-top-width:0px;bottom:auto;box-shadow:none;clear:none;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);display:block;float:left;font-family:Georgia;font-size:12px;font-weight:normal;left:auto;line-height:19px;list-style-image:none;list-style-position:outside;list-style-type:disc;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-top:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-top:0px;position:static;right:auto;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;top:auto;vertical-align:baseline;visibility:visible;word-wrap:normal;" ezuseragentstyle="-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;border-spacing:0px 0px;bottom:auto;box-shadow:none;clear:none;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);display:block;font-family:Georgia;font-weight:normal;left:auto;line-height:19px;list-style-image:none;list-style-position:outside;list-style-type:disc;position:static;right:auto;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;top:auto;visibility:visible;word-wrap:normal;"> Short Love Poems for Him or Her
read more Genuine and heartfelt short love poems can help you to show your partner how deeply you care for them. Love is a powerful emotion, often beyond words, and sometimes it can be difficult to express how we feel. Sharing short poems about love with your partner is a great way to communicate what is in your heart. Many people love short poems because they can communicate emotions quickly and...AFTER having asthma all my life, I finally discovered something that helped me. Buteyko is a Russian method that uses breath-holding and reduced breathing techniques. I have no doubt that it works and have seen improvement not only in myself but also in other asthmatics.
Doctors are sceptical because there is no firm scientific evidence or studies of the Buteyko technique. But as Professor Edzard Ernst of Exeter University says: "Breathing techniques have a place in treating asthma symptoms. Buteyko may be helpful, though probably not through the mechanism by which it is supposed to work.
"I am not concerned that the physiology of Buteyko is implausible. The history of medicine is full of implausible things. The important thing is to find out whether something works. The mechanism can fall into place later."
Professor Buteyko's "implausible theory" is that asthmatics breathe too much, and he calls this chronic hyperventilation. Acute hyperventilation is a widely accepted condition that occurs in panic or anxiety attacks and can be treated by breathing into a paper bag. This is because rapid breathing quickly depletes carbon dioxide levels in the blood and breathing into a paper bag for a minute restores the levels to normal.
Conventional medicine does not accept that chronic hyperventilation exists, other than at altitude where the low levels of oxygen cause people to breathe faster. Professor Buteyko believes that if people breathe more air than they need over a long period of time, they gradually deplete their carbon dioxide levels.
Carbon dioxide is more than just a waste gas - it is essential for the body to maintain the correct acid-alkali balance. He believes that asthma is a body-defence mechanism designed to stop further loss of carbon dioxide. His breathing techniques are designed to restore these levels to normal.
But what is the evidence? Only one clinical trial has looked at the Buteyko method. Results showed that asthmatics in the trial did breathe more than non-asthmatics. Carbon dioxide levels were also lower than normal in the tested asthmatics. However, other results contradict these findings and show no difference.
In the Buteyko method, the severity of asthma is measured by a timed breath-hold. Gradually my timed breath-hold has increased and my symptoms have decreased. The main technique I practise is breathing less, so I feel a slight lack of air. In my experience, when practised for a length of time, this can reverse the typical asthmatic early symptoms of a tight-chest and wheezing.
What is happening in the lungs? During breath-holding and breathing less, the levels of gases made by the body will increase and oxygen levels will decrease. Recent discoveries show that carbon dioxide is not the only gas in exhaled breath, there is nitric oxide and organic gases such as pentane, ethane and propane. Nitric oxide seems to be very important in regulating the respiratory system. It may be that many elements are important in determining how long you can comfortably hold a breath - not only carbon dioxide.
Asthmatics have higher levels of nitric oxide in their exhaled breath than normal people and this is believed to correlate with the number of inflammatory cells in the lungs. Treatment with inhaled steroids is associated with a significant reduction in exhaled nitric oxide levels and the improvement in asthma symptoms. Could Buteyko exercise have the similar effect?
The Buteyko method stresses breathing through the nose at all times. Typically asthmatics breathe through their mouth. The nose is an excellent filter so nose breathing is better for asthmatics as it will cut down the amount of allergens and other material going into the lungs. The nose also produces the highest quantities of nitric oxide in the whole body, where it is thought to kill bacteria and viruses.
Many factors such as genetics, allergies and atmospheric pollution contribute to asthma. It could be that the Buteyko technique, by altering body chemistry, nudges the body into a positive spiral, instead of a vicious circle of hyperventilation. Whatever the explanation, the effects are tremendous, and I believe further investigations are needed.The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995
This page provides an overview of all the magical effects available in Skyrim. In most cases, these effects are used in a number of different ways - for example they may appear in spells, potions, or enchanted items. Certain magical effects may have limitations to their use; others may not be available to the player at all. More information concerning this and other details of magical effects can be found on the individual effect pages.
The following pages have information on specific ways of using magical effects:
Alchemy Effects : Magical effects available for making potions, and the ingredients that can be used.
: Magical effects available for making potions, and the ingredients that can be used. Enchanting Effects: Magical effects available for making custom enchanted items.
Availability of Effects [ edit ]
This section lists all of the known magical effects, sorted by magical school.GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- The only thing No. 15 Florida did really well Friday night was chase loose balls.
It ended up being the key to another victory over rival Florida State.
Dorian Finney-Smith, who was fouled after grabbing the team's 20th offensive rebound, made a free throw with 1.3 seconds left that lifted the Gators |
him to get to an ER immediately.
For anti-human trafficking crusader Ivanka Trump, Robert Kraft could make things awkward
Robert Kraft charged with soliciting prostitution From left to right, tackle Donald Penn, guard Kelechi Osemele, center Rodney Hudson, guard Gabe Jackson and tackle Marshall Newhouse comprise the only offensive line in the NFL comprised entirely of African-American players.
The Raiders are playing on national television against Washington Sunday night at 5:30 p.m. (PST) at FedEx Field.
Running back Marshawn Lynch has sat on a cooler near the Raiders’ bench for all four exhibition games and two regular season games without elaborating on the reason why.
President Donald Trump urged fans to boycott NFL games and has called for league owners to fire players who kneel for the national anthem.
If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2017On a day Bengal got its longest flyover connecting Park Circus with Parama Island, chief minister Mamata Banerjee vowed to go one better and mooted the country’s longest flyover linking Batanagar to Joka and Garia and spanning more than 30 km.
Speaking at the inauguration of the 4.3 km-long Park CircusParama Island flyover on Friday, the chief minister claimed that Bengal, on her watch, has made rapid strides on the infrastructure front and posted a 600% rise in roads and highway projects.
“Work has already started on a 7.4 km flyover that will connect Jinjirabazar near Taratala with Batanagar. If fund permits, I plan to take out one flank from this flyover and extend it up to Joka.
Another flank will connect Taratala with Tollygung e Phanri, Anwar Shah Road and Jadavpur and go right up to Garia,” Mamata said.
Experts said that if the ambitious flyover project, linking Batanagar to Garia via Joka, does take off, it will span more than 30 km and rank as the longest in the country. Plans are also afoot to widen the 10-km stretch of Budge Budge Trunk Road leading to the double-lane flyover.
Once all its flanks are thrown open to the commuting public, the Park Circus-Parama Island will extend 9.1 km, the longest in Bengal.
At present, the three longest flyovers in the country are the PVNR flyover in Hyderabad measuring 11.6 km, Hosur Road Elevated Expressway in Bangalore measuring 10 km and the East Coast Elevated Expressway measuring 9.7 km.
Claiming that the transport infrastructure and traffic condition in Kolkata are far better than other metros including Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, the chief minister said: “There has been a 600% growth in infrastructure projects since our government took charge four years back. Several more projects are in the pipeline.”
She said work is on in full swing on a series of other infrastructure projects that would add to the road space in Kolkata and its outskirts. The projects include Baranagar-Noapara-Barrackpore Metro link, East– West Metro, Bus Rapid Transit System and Kamalgazi flyover connecting Baruipur among others.
“Over the next two to three years, things (read: the transport and infrastructure scene in Bengal) will change drastically as a bouquet of projects will see the light of day. There won’t be any traffic problem,” Mamata said.
The state government has already flagged off around 1250 new buses and 14,000 no-refusal taxis to add to the existing transport fleet in the city. At least 20 multi-specialty hospitals are already in various stages of implementation and will be ready soon.
“I have also asked the Kolkata Police top brass to come up with plans to ease traffic congestion in parts of central and south Kolkata,” Mamata said.
She lashed out at the Centre and the erstwhile Left Front government claiming that while the Front regime saddled the state with a huge debt burden, the Centre is taking away a sizeable chunk of revenues generated by her government.
“In 2011, we (the Bengal government) earned Rs 21,000 crore and the Centre took away Rs 20,000 crore. In 2012, we generated revenues worth Rs 28,000 crore and the Centre took away Rs 25,000 crore. In 2013, we earned Rs 40,000 crore and the Centre took away Rs 28,000 crore,” Mamata said.
“As for the opposition parties, they are jealous of our achievements. Jealously has no cure. They are just earning their keep by showing their faces on television channels and criticising our government,” Mamata said.
First Published: Oct 10, 2015 16:06 ISTPeople told me when I first panned our new president, give him a hundred days.
I’m sorry, I tried, but he has been so rash, so reckless, we don’t need a hundred days. Thirty has been enough. Thirty has felt like a hundred.
So where are we after just 30 days of President Donald Trump?
First, because he has shown such simplistic shortsightedness on overseas policy, he already has deepened the threats we face, not diminished them. Pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership is sending hard-earned Pacific Rim allies flying from our economic embrace into China’s. Trade wars now in the works from China to Mexico can raise our prices, not reduce them. Signaling weaker support for NATO nations in Europe (while still inexplicably but consistently coddling Russian President Vladimir Putin) might increase Russian aggression against Western-leaning nations, not inhibit it. Irresponsible insults against long-established allies could discourage them from joining American campaigns when we need them, not draw them closer. And Trump’s still-likely Muslim travel ban? As a recruiting tool, it’s God’s gift to terrorists.
Domestically, we already are on course to be more poorly protected from industrial pollution and financial manipulation and religious politicization and maybe even racial justice. Trump has endeavored to undermine the indispensable independence of the judiciary and demonize the irreplaceable role of the media. His autocratic approach to jobs ultimately might make industry more automated and less competitive. The “wall,” according to Homeland Security, is up to $21 billion and now we’re the ones who’ll pay for it. And so far at least, millions who finally have health insurance face a return to the ranks of the uninsured.
Already, after just 30 days, that is the president’s legacy. As he himself might say, SAD.
But the problems with this president go beyond policy. Far beyond. They go to his personality. He promised he’d be presidential. That, too, proves to be an empty pledge. He still is petulant, pugnacious, petty and impetuous. Yes, the president of the United States. For whom the truth is a lie and a lie is the truth.
Releasing those tax returns to see if he’s really the bountiful benefactor he claims he is? Now he says, not gonna happen. Truly separating himself from the fate of his family’s fortune? One word: Nordstrom. Exhibiting esteem for federal law? Not from what Trump told us Thursday at his news conference, that Michael Flynn speaking about sanctions with the Russian ambassador before Trump took office “wasn’t wrong.” Yes it was.
He also declared, “This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine.” That’s especially scary against last week’s warning by the general running our military’s Special Ops Command that the government is in “unbelievable turmoil.” Our reality-TV president is divorced from reality, making his counterfeit claim in the wake of a week when his Muslim ban was rebuffed by four federal judges, and he had to fire his dishonest national security adviser, and his preferred successor for national security adviser turned him down, and he couldn’t get the votes to confirm his labor secretary-designate, and he resorted yet again to Twitter to trash American intelligence. That’s some “fine-tuned machine.”
Which leads to Team Trump. Forget Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts” (once defined as “fiction”) or Stephen Bannon’s mandate for the media to “keep its mouth shut” (once defined as “Russian”). Those almost pale next to senior adviser Stephen Miller’s proclamation on “Face the Nation” that “the powers of the president … will not be questioned.” As comedian Seth Meyers observed, “The only way that statement could be more terrifying is if he yelled it in German.”
After 30 days, we already know our president confuses his ego-fed feelings for facts. And still goes vindictively ballistic over small slights. And loves to shake things up without knowing where the pieces will fall. If we find ourselves in a real crisis and must rely on this president’s word and judgment, how will we know that this time he’s got it right?
Greg Dobbs of Evergreen is an author, public speaker, and former foreign correspondent for ABC News.
To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by e-mail or mail.Buy Photo Rex Dukes, founder of Gulf Coast Patriot Network, is planning a rally to support the Caddo Parish Confederate Monument. (Photo: Henrietta Wildsmith/The Times)Buy Photo
The Caddo Parish Courthouse will be ringed with metal barriers Friday evening before weekend rallies in support of the Confederate monument that organizers say they hope will be "the largest gathering of southerners to ever happen."
The organizer of the rallies Saturday and Sunday said Thursday that he doesn't know how many people to expect.
Caddo Parish employees will place barricades around the perimeter of the courthouse grounds starting at 5 p.m. Friday, said Krystle Grindley, a parish spokesperson.
The barricades — interlocking steel barriers like those used at music festivals — will divide the sidewalk, which is city property, from the courthouse grounds, Grindley said. The courthouse is bounded by Texas, Milam, Marshall and McNeil streets in downtown Shreveport.
Parish officials decided to install the barriers after the rally organizer, Rex Dukes of Keithville, representing the Gulf Coast Patriot Network, refused to sign an agreement clearing the parish of all legal responsibility, Grindley said.
The Shreveport Police Department will handle security during the rallies, and Caddo Parish sheriff's deputies will be available if needed, representatives of both departments said.
"The Shreveport Police Department maintains a large degree of contingency plans in place for all type of situations to include those of the referenced matter," police Cpl. Marcus Hines said in an email late Wednesday. "While it would prove inappropriate to discuss specific security measures, I can tell you that we will address any needs for police services should they arise."
The rallies have been billed as a way to support the Confederate monument erected in 1906 on the Texas Street side of the Caddo Courthouse. A committee of the parish commission in September recommended removing the monument. The full commission may take up the question in November.
Dukes filed paperwork with Caddo Parish to get a permit that would have allowed rally attendees onto courthouse grounds. But he refused to sign the required liability agreement because, he said, it held him responsible for things beyond his control — such as any damage if someone throws a rock through a courthouse window.
"They could literally hold me responsible for any outsiders that raise hell," Dukes said. "Who in their right mind would sign that?"
The Gulf Coast Patriot Network is the organization planning both rallies, Dukes said. He describes the organization as individuals who stand up to those who attack constitutional rights. The group's Facebook page has 280 likes.
Communication about the rally appears to have been done mainly on Facebook. The event page page welcomes all southerners, U.S. citizens who love U.S. history, and various other Christian and patriot groups to attend. From the event page:
"It is time we show just how United we our as southerners and to show that we will nolonger (sic) allow the destruction of are country. And to show that the SOUTH HAS RISEN once again to show that we will fight to keep our history and heritage in place... This event must go down in the history as the largest gathering of southerners to ever happen."
A sign in front of the monument cites a parish ordinance requiring any person or group to have approval from the parish director of facilities and maintenance to use the courthouse grounds or steps.
In his initial event application, Dukes said rallies would be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Dukes said Thursday that he doesn't know how many people will attend. The Facebook event page lists 45 people as "Going" and another 245 are "Interested," although those numbers could include people who are not supporters.
Buy Photo A sigh in front of the Caddo Parish Confederate Monument in front of the courthouse in downtown Shreveport. (Photo: Henrietta Wildsmith/The Times)
Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan have contacted members of the Gulf Coast Patriot Network about the Shreveport rallies, Dukes said. A KKK-affiliated group from the Monroe area expressed interest, he said.
"My friend told him 'Nope, you aren't welcomed here,'" Dukes said. "I don't want people worried about them showing up."
The Dixie Rangers of the Ku Klux Klan used to have a Monroe chapter about eight years ago, said Lee Shoebroek, imperial wizard of the Dixie Rangers. The Livingston Parish-based group has no plans for the Shreveport rallies, Shoebroek said.
The Dixie Brigade Knights from Franklinton have no organized plan for the Shreveport rallies, but a few individual members may be there, said Justin Davis, imperial wizard.
Dukes said he also is concerned about outside groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa (anti-fascist) appearing at the rallies.
"I get word that any of these idiots show up... I'll ask them to leave," Dukes said.
To prevent violence, Dukes said, the Louisiana Patriot Militia, made up of armed, private citizens will provide security for the rally.
"My rallies have always been peaceful," Dukes said.
Read or Share this story: https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/2017/09/28/caddo-parish-shreveport-police-prep-confederate-rallies/713161001/Ben Marcus writes outside the limitations of language. He discovers the impossible combinations of words, the inabilities of certain phrases and inside those faults, he builds a world just beyond the reader's comprehension. When Marcus puts words together, they seem to cancel each other out, leaving behind something almost like meaning, but softer and less stubborn: language that can't be taken literally.
His debut, "The Age of Wire and String," reads like reference material -- a poetic manual, an encyclopedic list of objects, characters and concepts that Marcus simultaneously defines and undefines. His second book, "Notable American Women," is a collage of forms that includes correspondence, story segments, definitions, faux textbook passages, and chronologies, which collectively tell the story of a boy named Ben Marcus who lives in a community of "silentists" and endures pseudo-scientific experiments performed on him by his family.
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Surprisingly, Marcus' new book, "The Flame Alphabet," is a novel at every sentence. It's also a mystery, a compulsive page-turner and is told in a relatively straightforward, linear way -- very few postmodern sleights of hand. The language conflict in this book lies not in the telling, but in the story itself, a nightmarish tale of parents who are made ill from the speech of their teenage daughter. It's a simple premise, but when the language toxicity strikes, the book's world quickly turns dystopic, with sinister Jewish sects and Cronenbergian biotechnologies hiding in every corner.
I interviewed Marcus before Tuesday's publication of "The Flame Alphabet" over a series of emails. We discussed the various preoccupations in his writing career, William Burroughs, Kabbalah and his children's earliest uses of language.
You are a fiction writer who is interested in science. You use its language, its method, its attitude. But to call you a science fiction writer doesn't seem quite right. As a writer, what's your interest in science?
I’m interested in the hope we invest in science, and the disappointment we can feel when science flattens, or “explains,” the larger mysteries of religion. In "The Flame Alphabet," scientists are baffled in the face of the language toxicity, and religion looms up as something viable (for a little while, anyway). The official attempts to cure the speech fever only makes things worse, so people like Sam, the narrator, are forced to try experiments at home. He takes science into his own hands, tries to create immunity to language, and tests medicines on himself and his wife. It’s not clear that he knows what he’s doing. He’s desperate and it seems like he’ll try anything. Then, later in the book, he tries, again with no training, to create a new language that won’t sicken people. I got interested in this a little bit after following a website of people who are customizing their nutrition and supplementation in order to live much longer, in some cases experimenting heavily on themselves and sharing documentation with their community. Most of us have understandably ceded ground to specialists when it comes to medicine, but I can’t help wondering what people would do if this knowledge was stumped, or cut off from us. If we had to become specialists in the face of some new crisis. I’ve always been interested in expertise and authority. In my earlier books, the knowingness and rhetorical soundness of science was an allure, the seduction and believability of the language that carried the scientific message. In "The Flame Alphabet," I think maybe that has shifted. Sam’s language doesn’t ape the tones of science, and as an expert he's miserable. He wants to succeed in his experiments, but he fails. He is alone with a terrible problem. He can’t count on anyone else to help him, although someone does try to seduce him with a dangerous solution. Throughout the book he keeps trying to own the dilemma, as a kind of amateur, doomed scientist, and each of these acts have their consequences.
That’s pretty much the entire story of the book. A spoiler.
Right. The authoritative, seductive language in "The Flame Alphabet" comes out of a religious rhetoric more than a scientific one. Sam thinks in Jewish tenets, and has an intimate relationship with these words.
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To me, the religious language in the book has a deliberate wobble to it. He uses it to comfort himself, but it doesn’t work. Religion is part of Sam’s identity, but even he doesn’t fully understand his beliefs, and when some of his religious positions are undermined, he’s frightened. So if he “thinks in tenets,” as you say, and those tenets are cast into doubt, then he loses part of himself. To me that’s why he falls back on his family. His family doesn’t need to be explained. His family doesn’t have a theory. It’s in his blood. Take a nice, well-meaning character and hack at his core philosophy with an ax until he doesn’t know what to think anymore, then see what happens. It’s one kind of drama.
What kind of relationship does the Judaism of "The Flame Alphabet" have to modern-day Judaism?
It was important to me that the forest Jews in "The Flame Alphabet" seem not just plausible but perhaps even likely (minus the homegrown technology, maybe). Judaism has so many private shades to its history. Kabbalah is built around secrecy, and not just secrecy, it’s built around the notion that if you can say something, or if you can think it, it’s probably not legitimate. In certain strains of Judaism there’s a profound passion for the ineffable. Contemplation of God is meant to be forever elusive, because, you know, our tiny minds can’t possibly comprehend Him. If we find ourselves comprehending Him, then we can be sure we’re off track. Understanding itself is a sign that we’re wrong. This is tremendously captivating to me, because it undermines the whole idea of thought, the entirety of being human. It’s a terribly lonely notion, and lonely notions are very attractive to me. On the other hand, of course, the Jewish faith has a strong intellectual tradition, and Torah interpretation can get pretty heated and intense. I’m interested in these contradictory impulses: hyper-analysis and stone-cold secrecy.
Physical materials are essential to your writing. The emphasis on certain materials in your books sometimes supersedes characters. It's an attention to materiality that I've only really experienced in sculpture.
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Part of the homegrown technology in "The Flame Alphabet" is a religious appliance that operates like a radio, transmitting a message from a distant rabbi to the narrator’s forest synagogue. But its materials of construction are meant to be dissonant. With language, I like how you can be vivid and precise and yet still create a kind of hazy, unseeable image, something that your mind can’t quite assemble, even if in parts it should all make sense. There’s a device called a "listener" that they use in the forest synagogue, and this would seem to be an electronic transmitter, but it has a fleshy underside, it’s slippery, and it gets uncomfortably hot. Sometimes it also has a different name. These things are discordant, and I guess it helps me endow the object with more mystery. I haven’t really analyzed why I like doing this, but one guess is that it preserves some enigmatic feeling around an object. It makes me uneasy to picture it, it stays mysterious to me even if I’m the one who is supposed to explain it.
Your particular vocabulary of materials (cloth, felt, foam) feels analog, almost nostalgic in these digital times. Does your writing seem contemporary to you? Or do you consciously prevent the modern world from seeping into your world?
From what I can tell, what you call digital culture is itself in love with analog materials, or with aping an analog sensibility, exploring the accidental, the random, the lo-fi, the warm spontaneity of earlier times. But I don’t have a conscious strategy with this stuff. I used to write about cloth a lot because it seemed so flat and ungiving, sort of boring. I thought I was choosing materials and objects that didn’t carry a lot of their own associations (at least not to me). This meant I could maybe more fully control the meaning of something — but soon these objects became resonant to me. And I used to be afraid of sentimentality, of over-inscribing feeling rather than letting it emerge more subtly. But it’s been a little while since I’ve put textiles ahead of characters in importance. Human beings are making a comeback in my work.
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When you describe language as "unseeable," is it also "unhearable"? Is it "unknowable"? What are you trying to achieve in the absence of this kind of sensory stimulus?
Maybe it’s a version of the uncanny: something with sensible parts that, when assembled, generates strangeness. But this isn’t really something I do very much anymore. In the last few years I feel more interested in wringing the strange from the common. The common, the quotidian, is so much more unyielding to me, really stubborn and hard to work with, and I like this because it makes me think and it makes me worry. I can’t just plunge my hand into the meat of it. I need new approaches.
Your writing is filled with references to tools and people who are left partially understood by the reader, with only small chunks of information available. For you, are these detail also partially understood? Do you know information the reader does not?
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Hm, no. I’m not playing any kind of game where I try to leave the reader out of the master plan. But if a detail doesn’t add dramatic energy then I see no reason to spoil the writing with it. I guess I prefer one or two sharp details, rather than a laundry list of “facts” about a character, since this frustrates me when I read, being asked to collect data that may not matter. Sometimes — although I’m not very adept at this — I withhold things if revealing them later will prove suspenseful. But to me as a reader, I don’t ever find that having a lot of information about something is equal to having a dramatic experience. I like stories that are highly restrained at the informational level.
Are the fictional worlds you've created in your books unique to each book, or do you have the sense that you are always working within the same world, that all the worlds in your books are somehow connected and governed by the same laws?
The world in "The Age of Wire and String" is one that hasn’t invited me back. I sometimes want to return, to add another layer of descriptions and definitions, but it’s a hermetic place and once I left it the door sort of closed. I do find that certain figures return: Thompson, Perkins, some invented thinkers who are called on to provide philosophical support to the narrative war. I keep thinking these people will get their day, but it may be that they function best in the peanut gallery, intoning deceptive statements when the story needs ideas. But then, of course, there are my own three or four, uh, ideas, which return and return and return, no matter what I do. It’s a bit of a problem. I’m contemplating writing about what doesn’t interest me, and pushing on it until I can start to care: this as a way to maybe outsmart my horrible limitations.
Humor is all over your work, but it doesn't completely define it or characterize the narrative as lighthearted. Is humor essential in a reading of your work? If someone doesn't find the book funny, do certain aspects of the story break down?
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I guess I would hope that different reactions could be accommodated. Sometimes something horrifying —a child crouching over her mother, delivering the language weapon, rendering her mother unconscious — is queasily funny for some people and just plain upsetting to others. I’m not interested in, or capable of, regulating this. I don’t write jokes, so nothing, I would think, lives or dies on its humor. "The Flame Alphabet," to me, is fueled by escalating circumstances — some horrible, sad stuff — and I guess sometimes there’s something funny in the sorrow. But none of this is for me to say. I like that people will react in their own way. Sometimes when I read from this book, people laugh. And then I’ll read the same chapter to another audience and no one laughs. Someone after a reading said to me he wasn’t sure it was OK to laugh.
In writing "The Flame Alphabet," did you consider William Burroughs' ideas about language as a virus? Do they resonate with your own ideas?
Burroughs has paternity on that idea, and it’s an amazing one, not least because it grants a kind of immortality to language. There’s a saying about this. Viruses can’t die because they are not alive in the first place — or something along those lines. Viruses live (or, you know, instead of live they wait) for thousands or even millions of years, while languages (specific ones) die pretty quickly. And viruses mutate, devour their hosts, adapt to threats, hide in plain sight. It is difficult not to bow down to the genius of the virus, to see ourselves as merely shelter for their larger plan. Our bodies are just wind tarps for viruses. And also to bow down to the genius of Burroughs. His work was very important to me, in particular the trilogy that begins with "Cities of the Red Night." A masterpiece that hardly seems read anymore. Beautiful, mad, weird and scary.
In raising your own children, I'm curious what you've noticed about their early uses of language.
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Both my kids, pretty early on, saw language as a means to get what they wanted, so well before they could use specific words, they aped the sounds and lengths of sentences, sometimes smuggling a specific word in just for authority. My daughter would mouth off a little gibberish preamble that ended with the word "books," emphatically pronounced. And this meant we were to read to her. She knew what a question was, just not how to populate it. It was like the pure goo of language without the sad objects that take the ambiguity away. Very beautiful. My son, when he was learning to talk, seemed to know he wasn’t making sense, and he’d go into stealth mode, eyeing us sneakily, gauging if he was getting away with it. I love the phase when they don’t make sense, because you can believe they are saying wonderful, strange things. Soft little prophets. When they actually begin to talk, it turns out their message is quite ordinary: Give me something, now.Van Morrison Revisits His 1968 Classic
Van Morrison's 1968 Astral Weeks is perhaps the seminal album of the folk-rock genre. Morrison has described the album as a series of short stories and impressions, some gathered from his time spent in New York and Cambridge, Mass.
watch van morrison perform
Enlarge this image toggle caption Kevin Winter/Getty Images Kevin Winter/Getty Images
"It's just impressions, basically, things people were saying," Morrison says. "Songs come from strange sources."
But when Morrison approached his record label with the album, they almost shelved it.
"All they did was release it," Morrison says. As they call it in the music business, the album was 'buried.' "That was kind of the order of the day. You just got ripped off — that's the way it was."
The Album That Would Not Go Away
But over the years, the album kept coming up. It was a perennial favorite in polls with titles like "What is the greatest album of all time?" On the other hand, Morrison himself had been content to forget the album ever happened.
"It was suppressed in my memory," Morrison says. "As far as I was concerned, it just didn't exist."
Now, the album has an almost mythological status in pop culture. Everyone from Glen Hansard to Johnny Depp has talked about how it changed their lives.
"I don't know what to say because it didn't change my life," says Morrison. "I don't know what to make of [the mythology]. It's like any sort of art form — it's whatever it means to you."
Morrison's cynicism goes further.
"Rock is a brainwash — I think that's where your mythology goes back to," Morrison says. "It's the most pretentious area in music. It's got singers who don't really sing."
In any event, this year Morrison will be touring select cities and performing every song from Astral Weeks. But he says not to expect the sound of his 1968 recordings from his live performances.
"I'm not this 21- or 22-year-old guy," Morrison says. "You move on."This website is provided as an introduction for those who are interested in the sport and art of falconry. Falconry is an ancient form of hunting involving the use of a raptor such as a hawk or falcon. In order to become a successful hunter, a significant amount of management and training of a bird of prey is required. Becoming a falconer is a long process involving state and federal licensing, an exam, facility inspections, and a minimum of two years as an apprentice. Each step of this system is in place to ensure the health and safety of the bird.
The Modern Apprentice has been cited by many of the states in their reference materials and guides for learning about falconry. It's also been featured by many falconry clubs including the California Hawking Club and the Washington Falconers Association. It is one of the source materials cited in the book How Fast Can A Falcon Dive?: Fascinating Answers to Questions about Birds of Prey (Animals Q & A) by Peter Capainolo and Carol A Butler. It's quoted in MentalFloss' article on hoods. Cited in the Proceedings of the 44th Annual National Conference of the American Association of Zoo Keepers, Inc - The Shape of Raptor Training delivered by Jennifer Conrad. One of the main citations for Wikipedia's article on falconry. The Modern Apprentice is the primary source for AskDefine's coverage on falconry. The Oregon Falconers club cites for their material on raptor medical care.
The handouts and information available on The Modern Apprentice has had the distinction of being used by rehabilitation organizations to help train their new volunteers, several falconry organizations in their educational efforts, authors researching books, and historical re-enactment groups to supplement their outreach programs. If you use the materials, please let me know how they worked for you!
There are other ways to become involved in falconry if you are not currently in a position to care for a raptor. Joining a local falconry organization and attending functions such as picnics or meets is one way to enjoy being around these magnificent animals. You can also support falconry and conscientious hunting by voting on related legislation. If you are interested in becoming more involved as a hunter now, read through the recommended materials on this site carefully and assess the criteria that you will have to meet.
First cottontail hunt of winter 2007
End of a successful hunt
Last hunt of spring 2005
Releasing a Burrowing Owl after rehabilitation
Releasing a Sharp-Shin Hawk after banding
www.falconryforum.co.uk All images and text Copyright © 2004 - 2019 - Lydia AshVIENNA, 30 August 2017 – The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media today expressed his concern regarding the practice of detention and expulsion of foreign journalists from Ukraine.
Today, Anna Kurbatova, a journalist working for the Russian Perviy Kanal, was detained by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Kyiv. According to an SBU spokesperson, the journalist will be expelled from the country “for disgracing Ukraine”.
“Expelling journalists from or denying them entry to Ukraine are troubling and excessive measures, especially as these actions lack transparency and a proper appeal mechanism,” Désir wrote in a letter to the Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin today. “OSCE participating States have committed themselves to improving the conditions under which journalists from one participating State practice their profession in other participating States,” he added.
The Representative has previously addressed Ukrainian authorities on similar incidents involving journalists working for the Russian State Television and Radio Company.
On 14 August the SBU detained and deported Tamara Nersesyan who stands accused of damaging Ukraine’s national interests. She has been banned from entering the country for three years.
On 26 July, the SBU deported Maria Knyazeva and denied her entry into the country on the grounds of biased coverage of the situation in Ukraine.
Désir also noted that on 25 August, the SBU denied entry to two Spanish journalists, Antonio Pampliega and Manuel Ángel Sastre, and banned them from entering the country for three years, reportedly for “activities countering national interests of Ukraine”.
“I call on the respective authorities to refrain from imposing unnecessary limitations on the work of foreign journalists, which affect the free flow of information and violate OSCE commitments on freedom of the media,” the Representative said.
The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media observes media developments in all 57 OSCE participating States. He provides early warning on violations of freedom of expression and media freedom and promotes full compliance with OSCE media freedom commitments. Learn more at www.osce.org/fom, Twitter: @OSCE_RFoM and on www.facebook.com/osce.rfom.Story highlights France has begun reconnaissance flights over Iraq, its Defense Ministry says
Saudi foreign minister: There is "no limit to what the Kingdom can provide" in fight
At U.S. request, Australia is deploying aircraft to aid in battle against terror group
British PM says defeating ISIS is "about working with others"
In his speech about ISIS last week, President Barack Obama said, "American military power is unmatched, but this can't be America's fight alone."
Allies and partners of the United States, Obama vowed, would provide support to degrade and eventually destroy the militant group that has slaughtered many people in Iraq and Syria and beheaded two American journalists and a British aid worker.
The United States has conducted more than 150 airstrikes in Iraq against ISIS, and Secretary of State John Kerry has said nearly 40 nations have agreed to contribute to the fight against the militants. But it remains unclear which countries are on that list and the precise role they'll play.
On Sunday, Kerry said countries in the Middle East are willing to help with strikes against ISIS, but he said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that "it's not appropriate to start announcing" which nations will participate and what each will do.
Those statements come as ISIS beheaded a third Western captive, Briton David Haines, and as Kerry ended a weeklong trip to the Middle East to drum up support for the battle against the militants.
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An international conference convened Monday in Paris, where there was more discussion of a coalition. After the meeting, the French government released general points the parties adopted to push against ISIS.
On September 17, in a speech to service members at Central Command in Tampa, Florida, Obama said that Saudi Arabia has "agreed to host our efforts to train and equip Syria opposition forces" to fight ISIS. He mentioned several other nations, and the roles they are playing, detailed below.
So far, this is what's known about the nations involved and their contributions:
Australia: On Sunday, the Australian government responded to a request by the United States and said it is preparing to deploy to the United Arab Emirates up to eight Royal Australian Air Force F/A-18 combat aircraft, an E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft and a KC-30A multirole tanker and transport aircraft. Australia will also help to stem the humanitarian crisis. Obama said on September 17 that Australia will send military advisers to Iraq.
Australian combat troops will not participate in ground fighting, according to Prime Minister Tony Abbott's office.
Great Britain: called ISIS "a menace" Sunday and said the United Kingdom would help arm Kurdish forces, support the Iraqi government, keep supplying humanitarian help and coordinate with the |
not going to have the money too and she was like “IT’S NOT THAT EXPENSIVE ZOE JEEZ YOU CAN MAKE THE SAME STUFF YOU GET AT CHIPOTLE FOR THE SAME PRICE JEEZ" like 1. no i couldn’t, i couldn’t get all those ingredients fresh for cheap with a min. wage job after college and 2. I’M GOING TO BE A FILM MAJOR I WILL BE USELESS P MUCH EVERYWHEREExploring A Moon By Boat
Enlarge this image toggle caption NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
The first nautical exploration of an extraterrestrial sea could come as soon as 2022, if a team of researchers can convince NASA to try sailing a boat on an alien world.
"The overwhelming reaction I get from scientists and engineers is, 'Oh, that's really cool.' I mean, people are just instantly kind of excited and intrigued to say, 'Could we really go do this?' " says Ellen Stofan, a planetary geologist at Proxemy Research in Maryland and an honorary professor at University College London.
Stofan is leading an effort to design and propose a relatively low-cost mission to Titan, one of Saturn's moons.
Sailing — But Not In Water
Titan is the only place in our solar system other than Earth known to have bodies of liquid on its surface, Stofan says.
The liquid isn't water, of course. Temperatures on icy Titan reach minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit. The lakes are actually liquid methane and ethane.
Here on Earth, methane is a gas, says Stofan. But on Titan, "methane acts just like water acts here on Earth. Methane forms clouds in the atmosphere. It rains down on to the surface and forms rivers, lakes and seas."
Enlarge this image toggle caption NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Titan's Great Lakes
A few years ago, the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn sent back radar images of the northern polar region of Titan, and those images showed evidence of hundreds of lakes. Some of them are large — the size of North America's Great Lakes.
One of the large lakes — either Ligeia Mare or one called Kraken Mare — would be the target for a probe that would splash down and float around, according to a proposal that Stofan is working on with some other Titan experts.
And that would be something new. In the past, space exploration has been done with spaceships that orbit planets or fly by them, or with probes that land on a planet's surface and maybe drive around, like the Mars rovers.
Floating Space Capsule
The "boat" or "lake lander" that Stofan is designing with her colleagues would not look anything like the ships used to explore Earth back in the days of Christopher Columbus or Ferdinand Magellan.
"It's certainly not going to look like what most people conceive of a boat looking like," says Stofan. "It'll look more like a little capsule that floats."
She says that like the bell-shaped capsules the Apollo astronauts rode home, it will drop straight into the target sea.
The vessel will have a mast, "but that's just to hold a camera. We don't have a sail," she says.
But the wind would still be expected to push this buoyant craft around the lake. The probe could drift for months. It would have a small, nuclear-powered engine. And it could shout its data directly back to Earth.
There's no danger of a shipwreck, according to Stofan. Titan's lakes have waves, but probably just gentle ones — unless there's a storm. Still, even that doesn't worry her. "In fact, we'd love for that to happen, to be able to return an image showing a rainy day on Titan and to see those methane raindrops falling down into the lake," she says. "The wind might kick up a little, but nothing as violent as sort of the tropical storms and hurricanes we get here on Earth."
Eventually, she says, the ship might just run aground in a muddy beach and get stuck.
Splashdown On Titan
The mission could launch around 2016 and be sailing on Titan around 2022 — if this team gets through a highly competitive selection process to get funding from NASA. Stofan and her colleagues are busy working up their proposal for when NASA begins to accept ideas for future Discovery-class missions.
Still, Stofan is going to take some time off to go on vacation this month. But she doubts it will be a totally relaxing escape from work, because she'll be sailing with friends in Thailand.
"Every time we turn the sailboat or anchor, I'm going to be thinking about our probe and saying, 'Huh? How does what we're doing right now apply to how the probe's going to behave on Titan?' " she says. "And I'm never going to be able to get it completely out of my head, and in some ways I don't want to. Working on this mission has been incredibly exciting and fun and intriguing."Tolerance will be enforced by executive power, i.e. by special judicial institution or special police, if Ministry of the Interior proves to be more appropriate than Ministry of Justice, and, in order to prevent any unwanted contingencies, we’ll get the Orwellian “Ministry of Love” to employ all those non-governmental activists who failed to worm their way into public institutions. This cements the already standard procedure of letting the NGOs implement Government’s policies, while gently laying the police baton in the hands of NGO activists arguably relieving their Freudian penis envy a bit. This author really can’t conceive any other interpretation of this paragraph but, if the reader thinks we are overreacting, just take it easy – this has only just began.
Before discussing something, it is appropriate to possess at least a vague notion about what it is. Before drafting a law, it is consequent to determine whether it is reasonable or …
… yeah, right. We just sketched entirely consequent line of thought, bearing little semblance to customary human behaviour. Yet … so what? It is not a reason to lament over irrationality and incapability of human beings to set things straight in their own minds. Lameness of thought is an endemic, but not the defining attribute of man. Where there is a weakness, there must also be at least the possibility of strength. Where stupidity reigns unchecked, there’s also an intelligence realizing this. However, there are individuals who consider themselves free from this common inadequateness to rational life. In the European Union they are mostly occupying executive boards of influential NGOs or are serving members of it’s institutions, and, if they are really Fortuna’s favourites, they more or less rule the damned thing from their seats in judicial-executive institution named European Commission. Their main task, in accordance with their declarative ability to be consequent, is to define and proscribe, down to the minute details, just what the lab rat thrown in the labyrinth of postmodern political experiment should think, speak and do. Naturally, they also proscribe what will happen to poor thing if it stumbles over to the wrong side of their ever more complicated network of rules.
The Model European Statute for the Promotion of Tolerance In this article we’ll analyze one of the initiatives of this consequent men and women, conceived to finally enthrone in law the principles of thought, speech and act fairly along the lines of ancient Prophets or, as it occurred in more enlightened times, Central comity of Communist Party of some ill fated country from long dead Eastern Bloc. It is an initiative for active implementation of the virtue of Tolerance. If our reader is perplexed as to how the implementation of Tolerance can have bad or, as we’ll demonstrate latter, catastrophic consequences for freedom of thought, speech and act, this author begs for patience. Namely, in what follows we will analyze „The Model European Statute for the Promotion of Tolerance“ (further: MESPT. As the document has been revised and radically watered down since the writing of this article, we include the original document upon which this analysis had been based, KT), a document written by 5 (yes, ‘five’) individuals under the aegis of international NGO The European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation (further: ECTR), with the ambition to lay a foundation for legislatives regulating thought, speech and action of all 743.122.000 citizens of European Union. The detailed analysis of document’s preamble and nine paragraphs will be aided by putting the MESPT in context of current anti-discrimination legislative policy of EU and drenched in most venomous remarks directed against shitheads who conceived it, or are implementing and/or supporting it. The reader with weak stomach is therefore respectfully advised to quit reading further.
The MESPT document is not a convention or declaration, hence it is not merely an expression of principles and values on which the member states of EU should model their legislative and educational systems. On the contrary, it is a Statute “designed for adoption by the respective national legislatures of European States.“ Obviously, then, we are dealing with the draft of a law and not some moral manifesto, as it’s title can seem to indicate. Naturally, it’s easy to get confused, because MESPT does something positive laws never do, and, by their very nature, cannot do. It proscribes the good and the bad, identifying them with legal and illegal. In addition, it’s authors clearly endeavoured to include in it a regulation of one human activity never before sanctioned by secular means. This activity is thought. MESPT, as we shall see, very clearly proscribes the “good thought” not simply as morally favourable, but as legally sanctioned form of social action. The idea of putting the thought into context of social – and this means: group – action is a novelty in itself and something of a contradictio in adjecto. However, as the declared purpose of MESPT is to legally regulate every form of human activity, it is entirely consequent that thought become “socialized”, i.e. transformed into “group thought” of sort, as well. After all, isn’t it entirely consequent to implement the contradiction by enforcing it ad absurdum?
The document was finalized and presented on October the 16th 2012., but it’s authors started pushing it again after Charlie Hebdo massacre. After presentation, ECTR conducted “consultations” with Council of Europe and European Commission against Racism and Tolerance in Strasbourg. Note that Council of Europe is not an institution of EU but “international organization promoting cooperation between European states in the area of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, rule of law and cultural cooperation”. However, this doesn’t mean that MEPST’s authors’ ambitions are not directed to judicial institutions of EU, but rather that they are fairly methodical people. Council of Europe plays a key role in integration of potential member states and it’s influence is much wider than that of the EU institutions managing only actual member states. Conventions passed by Council of Europe as, for instance, European Convention on Human Rights, have power of obligation for all applicants for membership and serve as paradigm for reforming of their respective legislatives. That said, it is interesting how advocates of MESPT are now presenting their document mostly to MP’s and representatives of judicial and political institutions of individual member states. It indicates to an ambition to push the new Tolerance laws primarily at the fundamental level of still partly sovereign member states and only afterwards at the level of EU institutions. On the other hand, for years now the European Commission is trying to get the so called “Directive for Equal Treatment” ratified (Directive on implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation {SEC(2008) 2180} {SEC(2008) 2181}) in European Parliament. The Directive originally conceived as a basis for laws improving the work conditions for people with disabilities, mutated into network of rules regulating both public and private life through murky anti-discrimination principles, and it is a fairly reasonable to conjecture that MESPT will be pushed somewhere in between it’s paragraphs.
Repressive Tolerance and group thinking MESPT comprises Preamble and nine paragraphs. We should note that, on the ECTR web page, it is in one place named “European”, while in the other it mutates into “National” Statute for Promotion of Tolerance. At the very outset this provides us with insight into just what amount of crap it’s authors give both to someone else’s national sovereignty and their own attention to minutes of logical and legal expression. Namely, it is obvious that they, for all intents and purposes, devised a draft law as if it were legitimate for them to do, and that they are pushing it before officials of sovereign states who are apparently obliged to appropriate and implement it. This author is at pains to point out a single one more blatant public breach of national sovereignty in non-communist European history after WWII. Naturally, it would be hypocritical to feign blaze astonishment. If someone at this late date of postmodernity still hasn’t realized, based on abundant evidence, that one of the purposes of European Union is to abolish the national sovereignty of it’s member states, he is at this moment probably finalizing the details of divorce from his own reason. However, that said, MESPT is so arrogant and so blatant in it’s blending of attack on sovereignty with the attack on basic civil rights that it leaves even those who understand where the transition really leads slightly astonished. You know how it is: we all wait for death, yet when it knocks on our door, we are nevertheless left speechless. Here’s, for instance, how MESPT is described by it’s authors:
„The Model Statute is designed for adoption by the respective national legislatures of European States. Its purpose is to fill a vacuum: although all European States are committed to the principle of tolerance, nowhere is this principle defined in binding legal terms. The principal challenge in preparing the Model Statute was to go beyond rhetoric and generalities, spelling out concrete and enforceable obligations that ensure tolerance and stamp out intolerance.“
So let us repeat: MESPT is a draft law devised by five people from certain NGO in order to be implemented by sovereign member states of EU, and enacted as an obligatory, prescriptive framework for thought, speech and action of all their respective citizens. Tolerance is the foundational principle from which and for which special laws supporting this framework will be designed. Eminently, without prejudice, it relates to social groups, and, only derivatively, to individuals as members of groups. In order to understand the meaning of this cardinal virtue, we must first point out how MESPT defines the ‘group’ and the ‘Tolerance’:
“Group” means: a number of people joined by racial or cultural roots, ethnic origin or descent, religious affiliation or linguistic links, gender identity or sexual orientation, or any other characteristics of a similar nature.“ (MESPT, 1.(a))
Tolerance is defined as:
“Tolerance” means: respect for and acceptance of the expression, preservation and development of the distinct identity of a group as defined in paragraph (a).” (MESPT, 1. (d))
For a moment, let us put aside the fact that those concepts are too vaguely defined to serve as a foundation for strict laws that will proscribe what it means to be lawfully tolerant and to criminalize what is unlawfully intolerant. The real radicalism of MESPT is revealed only when we compare them to some definitions from document’s Preamble:
„ … respect for human dignity is based on recognition of human diversity and the inherent right of every person to be different.
… tolerance postulates an open mind to unfamiliar ideas and ways of life.
… the concept of tolerance is the opposite of any form of unlawful discrimination
… tolerance has a vital role in enabling successful coexistence of diverse groups within a single national society.” (MESPT, Preamble)
Well, here we are presented with almost imperceptible shift of individual human dignity towards the dignity of a group. Namely, MESPT does not speak about the dignity of person in the sense that every man is valuable in- and of himself, so that he must be tolerated, i.e. protected from any unlawful harm. No, nothing of a sort. Dignity of person does not stem from identity but from difference of one’s own group towards another. That way, almost imperceptibly as it were, individual is ditched and replaced with the member of the group. He is endowed with dignity only insofar his group is different than others and he is it’s legally defined member. This of course doesn’t endow him with the right to, God forbid, act intolerantly inside his own group. No go, Tolerance is all-obligatory and in order to implement it, institutions of government must enforce it. And this is where things get really ugly:
„It is important to stress that tolerance must be practised not only by Governmental bodies but equally by individuals, including members of one group vis-à-vis another.
Guarantee of tolerance must be understood not only as a vertical relationship (Government-to-individuals) but also as a horizontal relationship (group-to-group and person-to-person). It is the obligation of the Government to ensure that intolerance is not practiced either in vertical or in horizontal relationships.“ (MESPT, 3. iii, iv)
Therefore, the individual, as primarily member of a group, must tolerate other groups and their members, but also the members of his own group. And what if he doesn’t? The quotation above leaves no room for frivolous speculation. Government must enforce Tolerance, by making sure that institutions, groups and individuals are tolerant of different groups as well as different individuals in groups different from other groups must tolerate other individuals insofar they are different on grounds of their respective groups being different, or because they are members of, the same group but don’t accept some of it’s features and prefer the features of some other, different, group.
Ridiculous? Of course it is ridiculous when it is actually an attempt to consequently implement the obvious contradiction. There is, however, no contradiction in the choice of the subject of coercion, i.e. the Government. In order to outlaw the Intolerance, Tolerance must be enforced by repressive state apparatus and not only in cases like discrimination on the work place, but it must also be enforced in private and intimate relations; for how else to enforce Tolerance on personal relations then by total surveillance of citizens? In this sense, MESPT is without a shadow of a doubt the blueprint for introducing the police state in both the public and private life. Hence:
„To ensure implementation of this Statute, the Government shall:
(…)
Without prejudice to existing control mechanism, set up a special administrative unit in order to supervise the implementation of this Statute.
(…)
(ii) The special administrative unit should preferably operate within the Ministry of Justice (although the Ministry of the Interior is another reasonable possibility).
(c) Establish a National Tolerance Monitoring Commission as an independent body – composed of eminent persons from outside the civil service – vested with the authority to promote tolerance.“ (MESPM, 6.(b))
So, there it is, you can’t get it wrong. Tolerance will be enforced by executive power, i.e. by special judicial institution or special police, if Ministry of the Interior proves to be more appropriate than Ministry of Justice, and, in order to prevent any unwanted contingencies, we’ll get the Orwellian “Ministry of Love” to employ all those non-governmental activists who failed to worm their way into public institutions. This cements the already standard procedure of letting the NGOs implement Government’s policies, while gently laying the police baton in the hands of NGO activists arguably relieving their Freudian penis envy a bit. This author really can’t conceive any other interpretation of this paragraph but, if the reader thinks we are overreacting, just take it easy – this has only just began. However, let us make a little digression into some deeper implications of the concept of Tolerance advocated by authors of MESPT.
Surveillance and punishment The only way to regulate the relations between persons is to survey them in the moments when they escape warm anonymity of the herd for the intimacy of confessional, bedroom or, for that matter, circle of friends. We see how the authors of MESPT give concrete proposals how the repressive apparatus should be constructed, but even if we bracket this fact for a moment, we can point out one often overseen feature of postmodern social justice warriors who consume this kind of legal crap as it were a vanilla ice cream, and who will be the target group to further enforce it; it’s own civilian informers and snitches. Namely, they are complete, hundred per cent, racists, sexists and collectivists while only thing differentiating them from their Nazi and Communist predecessors is their adolescent adherence to transgression. Libels of Nazism directed towards individuals who for some reason dislike some social group are, on the part of politically correct fanatics, nothing more than pissing against the wind. Because it is crystal clear that they are, as well as the offender they denounce, utterly incapable to observe black man, Muslim or homosexual as a person, but only as an amorphous fragment of group identity. In this sense, the totalitarian Tolerance is cementing the differences between people by herding them into ghettos and pitting them against each other. The only bridge connecting man and women of radically different groups is the fact that they are persons, therefore beings in possession of intrinsic, although not always developed, dignity as individuals. The basis of sympathy towards other human being is transferring of perception of one’s own value to him or her, a simple truth this document turns on it’s head. Namely, Tolerance proscribes, to the contrary of all facts of experience, that one’s own value is achieved only by gluing and stitching value of another to oneself. This renders dignity of person into completely heteronymous matter, prone to infinite possible redefinitions by political institutions. Defining the individuals through groups eradicates their lowest common denominator quite efficiently. And in the end, everything outside the reach of Tolerance is criminalized.
And what exactly are some of those crimes against Tolerance to be prevented and sanctioned in the future? Let us start by defining their potential victims:
“The purpose of this Statute is to:
(…)
(e) Take concrete action to combat intolerance, in particular with a view to eliminating racism, colour bias, ethnic discrimination, religious intolerance, totalitarian ideologies, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-feminism and homophobia.“ (MESPT, 2.(e))
Bearing in mind how vaguely all of these criminal acts are defined, while, when it comes to coercive measures, suddenly everything becomes clear and precise, there’s really no need to point out that something is rotten in here. But it’s no fun to talk about principles all the time. That way we can’t insult anyone in particular. So we’ll point out the italicized word and ask how exactly can antifeminism become form of discrimination? If we are aware that feminism is a movement relying on certain anthropological and sociological theories which, just to mention in passing, have to do with true social sciences as much as FEMEN members have to do with N-size bras, we have to ask ourselves: what it really means to commit anti-feminist crime? The answer is simple. By defining the cardinal sin of Intolerance, MESPT teaches the following:
“Group libel” means: defamatory comments made in public and aimed against a group as defined in paragraph (a) – or members thereof – with a view to inciting to violence, slandering the group, holding it to ridicule or subjecting it to false charges.“ (MESPT, 1(b))
Well now, if we are to stick to concrete examples in order to show just how criminal Intolerance looks like in practice, the italicized misdeed is something we can commit right now. The author begs the readers to consider following passages as a thought experiment only. God forbid the undersigned would even think, let alone say, the following:
“Feminists, judging by the example of FEMEN hags, are international chicken coop of aggressive members of gentler sex, dominated by “alpha” males, who by means of shrieking, simulated masturbation using the crucifixes and other religious symbols, and by flashing their tiny but – a redemptory feature – apparently firm tits, collectively attack the enemies of people who devise documents like MESPT. By doing so, they rely for their personal safety on civilized tradition of free speech and traditional male reluctance to kick female ass, which is, admittedly, aesthetically more useful in other ways, and all that in order to efficiently perform their duties towards concrete policies of Euro-Atlantist Bloc. They justify their existence with all those theories that prevent model citizen to describe some aging feminist publicist as a hag who exercises her urge to remain in the public spotlight and masks it with combination of verbal brutality towards males and saccharine sentimentality towards victim groups as, for instance, Palestine children, while her entire oeuvre indicates to a fact that her only real motive is sentimentality over her own self and gaining attention by wielding other people’s children as a weapon. And all of this is possible because scientific community takes seriously whole bunch of quasi-scientific theories gathered under the aegis of woman- and gender-studies”
If – Tolerance forbid! – this passage really expressed this authors opinions and attitudes – and it is not, everybody knows that firmness trumps size – you, the reader, would have a full right to report him as a full-fledged criminal (and you won’t, because who in the right mind would imply that FEMEN hags are in fact members of under capacitated chicken coop, apparently cock starved because dominated by a single cock?). This passage is a criminal act on various levels. It is insulting towards FEMEN members and aging feminists and it pronounce factual truth, but legal untruth, that feminist theory is crap. Naturally, one can object that public speech doesn’t tolerate first two points, not because they are untrue – in case of FEMEN they are empirically proven – but simply because they are insulting. However, behaviour of FEMEN members is borderline terrorist, yet it is not deemed essentially illegal, while most feminist publicists strategically use profanities, which never posed as an obstacle to their public acclaim as well as the approved political correctness of their expression. Pointing out of worthlessness of feminist anthropology and sociology is also a “group libel”, because it practically calls for epistemological genocide: the destruction of bogus science by denial of it’s financing. So the passage is unequivocally a criminal act, a deed of verbal delinquency equal to calling for a lynch mob. The only problem is it doesn’t call anyone to anything, but simply states the truth known or, at least, glimpsed by more or less everybody. MESPT, for all intents and purposes, revokes the freedom of speech and, consequently, the freedom of thought rendering the freedom of rational act impossible. The groups are defined in such a way that more or less anybody can define him- or herself as a member of a victim group. If the document should really be incorporated into legislative, this will create hypertrophy of self-victimization. As the public action will become possible for individuals only if they can present themselves as members of victim group, it is obvious that we’ll end up with the situation where public life will be rendered into permanent struggle for acquiring this symbol of high social status, necessary for procurement of power to accomplish fairly mundane interests. Here we must point out the essential thing. MESPT delivers the freedom into the hands of law maker and it’s enforcers. If we can think, speak and act only as group members, then every thought, word and act is possible only if government provides us with ability to express or enact it, by enforcing it in our name through legal framework which will have to grow increasingly complicated if it is to satisfy the appetites of all citizens. We are talking, therefore, about complete surrender of one’s own mind and will into the hands of institutions of repression. One should not deem this impossible, because silent invitation to renouncing one’s own independence is being sold as a provision of social status – in fact, the provision of only conceivable right of citizenship, justifying and rewarding the weakness of individual. “Strength is weakness, weakness is strength”. Isn’t it a slogan that would even sell a fridge to Eskimo?
Instilling the Tolerance However, despite all conveniences MESPT provides to people eager to renounce their own conscience, social engineering cannot be implemented without systemic conditioning of younger generations. In this respect, it’s authors haven’t left us wanting as well:
“The Government shall ensure that:
(a) Schools, from the primary level upwards, will introduce courses encouraging students to accept diversity and promoting a climate of tolerance as regards the qualities and cultures of others.
(…)
(ii) It is very important to start such courses as early as possible in the educational programme, i.e. in elementary school. Yet, these courses must be offered also at higher levels of education, up to and including universities.
(b) Similar courses will be incorporated in the training of those serving in the military and law enforcement agencies.
(c) Training and tolerance awareness courses will be made available to different strata of society, with an emphasis on professional groups.“ (MESPT, 8.)
There’s more where that came from, but this passage will suffice. Tolerance, as we can see, shall be enforced from the cradle to the grave, regardless of age, profession or social position. Everybody will be trained in Tolerance as defined above. At this moment, this author’s homeland of Croatia is expecting the implementation of so called “Civil education and upbringing” programme, which, among other things, strives to prepare children for lowering the minimum age for voting to sweet 16. Aside of the fact that mass extension of voting rights in past totalitarian regimes – and especially in early Stalinist Russia – served to extensively legitimize the power of the state and not to extend the freedom of it’s citizens, this appears to be, quite accidentally, a good ploughing method for preparing the social grounds to be fertilized by manure of Tolerance. Seeing how it all fits together neatly, one could even get the idea that Euro bureaucrats working in diverse fields are – perish the thought! – conspiring together. In any case, Croatian educational monstrosity, like all curriculums founded on UN’s World Core Curricula, with their “civil competences” and “outcome-based education” is wonderfully apt to implement Tolerance and interface our little piece of mud into the system of transition.
Well, let us let the children play, while they still can. Here in Balkans, when you hear the word ‘law’, the first thing that pops in your mind is “I’m screwed”. This is completely appropriate reaction to MESPT, because we are, indeed, about to get very screwed.
Namely, six crimes are listed in paragraph 7. of the document: we already mentioned two of them (incitement to violence and group libel), furthermore, another one is related to “hate” crimes and three are in various ways related to Holocaust. The last three open so many questions that we can’t appropriately analyze them inside the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that they serve to enthrone this historical event as an Event, i.e. a transcendent being of a sort, towards Which everyone, except victim group of course, will have to pay reverence with recognition of their inherited and ineradicable guilt. This, in accordance with Tolerance laws, will surely apply even to those members of victim group who beg to differ, and whose famous representative nowadays is an American political scientist Norman Finkelstein. If you want to know how the man accused of “Holocaust denial”, although all of his family, save for mother and father, was slaughtered in It, looks like and what he’s got to say, you can consult this link.
But let us go back to Intolerance in wider sense of the word and the crimes this author committed against feminists. Authors of MESPT don’t strictly proscribe the penal sanctions to be applied, except in one case. Namely, when they are committed by children:
„Juveniles convicted of committing crimes listed in paragraph (a) will be required to undergo a rehabilitation programme designed to instill in them a culture of tolerance.“ (MSEPT, 7 (b))
So, for instance, when horde of apes is sexually exploiting juvenile and adolescent girls of other group, and the police, out of fear from being Intolerant, doesn’t react for years, because apes are members of protected group, i.e. Muslim minority, and victims belong to Christian or secular majority, and their numbers after few years explode far above thousand, as was the case in British town Rotheim, then the kid who develops aversion towards the group that brutalized his sister will have to be very, very careful about what he says or does about it. Well, this author has to note that, although he can’t prove it, he is of strong opinion that authors of MESPT know full well just what will happen afterwards. Inability to express the insufferable frustration in words leads to psychosis and, in given case, will probably end up in explosion of psychotic violence. And if it comes to such violence, the social control over both vertical and horizontal relations in society has to be strengthened. Dear reader: the Tolerance is not your virtue. It is a virtue of elite. When vaguely defined social groups become the fundamental identity of some nation’s population, then the permanent clashes are unavoidable, as well as their permanent regulation. And regulation is possible only if it comes from above; it becomes permanently necessary, as a constituting element of redefined human nature, because man is no more a person but member of a group. This is fairly simple equation. A generalization, one could say. But does this really make it unconvincing if we interpolate in it the fact that MESP is a 12 pages document, therefore the equation as simplified as it is shameless. Be that as it may, it can only result in chaos and the only open question remaining is, whether it’ll be controlled or uncontrolled chaos. The purpose of education instilling something is control. How successful it will prove to be, and what new deviations will it engender, depends on success of imposing MESPT on EU member states and consequent strict implementation of criminalization of Intolerance.
Closely watched media In the end, to protect people from reading monstrosities the reader was exposed to by reading this criminal article, the authors of MESPT haven’t neglected the regulation of media:
„The Government shall encourage all privately owned mass media (including the printed press) to promote a climate of tolerance,
(…)
The Government shall encourage all the mass media (public as well as private) to adopt an ethical code of conduct, which will prevent the spreading of intolerance and will be supervised by a mass media complaints commission.“ (MESPT, 9, (b), (c))
Well, let’s get back to our example of criminal group libel against FEMEN members, aging feminist and feminist theory, this author already committed. Let us then subtract FEMEN hags and Baba Yaga and retain only blasphemous attack on feminist theory. This paragraph can serve to protect exactly that, the feminist’s conceptual foundation, it’s scientific relevance. If antifeminism is crime, any proposition criticizing feminist ideas, no matter how well founded, and denying epistemological value of gender theories and similar rubbish, is in itself also a crime. It will be detected and punished by mass media complaints commission. Let’s continue the experiment by trying to creatively infer just how this commission will work. Some person, for the sake of argument will call her a “scag”, reads a news papers or magazine article questioning the unquestionable truth that her gender is unrelated to a factual state of her (his/it’s) sex organs. The “scag” will promptly perform her/his/it’s civil duty and contact some NGO which will render her/his/it’s complaint into a fiery tractate against misogynist hate speech. Media complaints commission will consult the law and sanction the offender. Of course, in order to realize this more than likely scenario into efficient and customary practice, it is imperative to train whole bunch of potential informers and snitches, as well as inquisitors. However, the matter is delicate, because:
„This is a delicate matter, inasmuch as there is no intention to censor the media. The media complaints commission is supposed to consist of independent persons, but it has to be set up by – and report to – the media themselves, rather than the Government.“ (MESPT, 9. (i))
Here we are presented with standard example of modifying the “public-private” into “political-civil” partnership, where Government gives the order, and non-government sector enforces it, which should fool someone who thinks that the only function of his head is nodding, that it is an example of divorcing, and not in fact of total merging, of Government and civil society. Similarly to two already mentioned institutions for enforcement of Tolerance, media complaints commission would be a Government’s non-Governmental organization which by virtue of non-Governmental- prefix is licensed to harass and mug the journalists straying from party line. The fact that it is not, in contrast to central institution for enforcement of Tolerance, attached to concrete Ministry of Justice or Internal Affairs, would only serve the purpose of maintaining the illusion of independence and private character of media, which will regardless of this be obliged to accept it’s decisions and bow to it’s complaints. Having said that, it is obvious that article you are just reading is a crime against Tolerance and on many levels. Luckily, it’s published on Internet, on the authors privately owned, non-profit, website hence not in the privately owned media but privately owned electronic publication. However, if it is a crime, then how can institutions let this author go unpunished? The law must apply to all. Authors of MESPT are aware of this contradiction and address it in the last sentence of the document:
„There is a related issue of Internet abuse through the spreading if intolerance. However, initiatives to bring about a legal regulation of cyberspace are currently debated in a wider context. It is too early to speculate how the matter will be resolved.“ (MESPT, 9 (c), (ii))
So, in plain English: “We don’t know how it’s going to be, but we very well know what we want”, all five of us. If this initiative gets off the ground, there’ll come a moment when you won’t be able to legally read articles such as this. Perhaps it doesn’t grieve you much, but it would be appropriate, in conclusion, to note one more thing. From all the atrocities one encounters on Internet, from pornographic bestiality to chopping the heads off with blunt blades, it seem that only Intolerance merits it’s regulation. We are insinuating maliciously, of course. The authors of MSEPT haven’t said it. But they sure as hell did think it, because if the law cannot be universally applicable, there must be something wrong with it.
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himself and he was really taken with the idea.
‘He talked to a mathematician who came up with a formula and produced 3D computer images and working drawings for the perfect Santa chimney.
‘It’s probably cost me £20,000 extra to build it, but we pride ourselves on being able to do what the customer wants.
‘Leo gave me a big hug and told me it was the best day of his life. To see his face light up made everything worthwhile.’Bachar Houli’s journey from the Spotswood Football Club to the AFL premiership dais has not always been smooth – but it makes for one of the best football stories of the year.
Houli, a devout Muslim, was footy mad as a child, but his parents were initially not keen for their son to pull on the green and gold of Spotty in the under-11s.
Houli refused to give up on his dream, getting his Woodsmen coaches to take him to and from training, where he started to learn the craft.
It did not take long for Spotswood to realise it had a talented young player on its books.
With his closing speed, reading of the play and long-range left boot, Houli began to turn heads, piquing the interest of the Western Jets, who signed him to play in the TAC Cup.
Through hard work and dedication, Houli earned his call up to the big league with Essendon. But after only 26 games, he was on the outer and found his way to Richmond through the 2010 preseason draft.
It was a move that would be career-defining.
Houli is now a premiership player after starring in a 48-point thrashing of the Adelaide Crows in the AFL grand final at the MCG on Saturday.
“You never forget your grass roots,” he said.
“Spotty were fantastic for four or five years, gave me the opportunity to play under-11s footy, especially when my parents weren’t very supportive of it.
“It’s a long journey when you start from not being allowed to play footy to now your parents being your biggest fans.”
Houli was superb in the grand final, with some suggesting the half-back flanker was hard done by in the Norm Smith Medal voting.
The 29-year-old was full of class rebounding out of defence and a steadying influence when the game was at its hottest.
The judges awarded the medal for best-on-ground to Dustin Martin, who polled 13 votes to Houli’s 10.
Houli, who finished with 20 kicks, five handballs, 11 marks, five tackles and 1.2, did not care in the slightest, though did admit he might have cost himself a vote or two by not turning his two behinds into goals.
“This is so much more important,” he said while proudly gazing down at his premiership medallion. “Dusty has been the clear outstanding player in the competition – he deserves everything that comes his way. It’s a great feeling, it’s a fantastic feeling.”
Houli was one of 44 players who had never played in an AFL grand final before Saturday.
While there were nerves for most, Houli was surprisingly calm and it showed in his football.
Houli was able to live in the moment and not get too overawed by the enormity of the game, which helped him settle on grand final day.
“I just wanted to soak it in and really enjoy the experience because you might not get that opportunity again,” Houli said. “I enjoyed the whole week – I was really calm yesterday and today and so were my teammates.”
Houli believes it was “the little things” that Richmond did better than other finals sides.
There was a one-percenter that stood out as a key moment for Houli and it was not even a moment within the game.
“It’s great when it starts from the top and today, Damian Hardwick, relaxed, sharing a gag before the grand final – he relaxed everyone,” Houli said.
“We’ve worked really hard all season, we’ve built great relationships and we’ve come a long way.
“We’ve recruited great players from different clubs that have added to our great culture.”John Clark
you should know about, just because they're weird. Did you know that people with diabetes exhale rocket fuel? It's true, but it'sright? And spontaneous combustion. That's true, too, apparently, albeit in a bigfoot sort of way. People just explode. Mark Roth keeps a file on them, because, well, for one thing, he's interested in the genetics of spontaneous combustion, and, for another, he's interested in whatpeople from exploding, like, all the time. I mean, why shouldn't they? People never askBut then, they never ask a lot of things. Human beings are 37 degrees Celsius. That's pretty much the standard. But why? Nobody ever tells you. You can read a thousand books on bioenergetics and they won't even ask the question. So it'sand that's when you can learn things. You can learn things when things are unexplained -- when the sword is still in the stone. Take movement, for example. We humans are absolutely programmed to be interested in movement. In fact, if you're a biologist, you're really a movementologist; you study that which moves. You're a slave to the animate. Which, of course, is how Mark Roth got the idea thatreally might be the better scene, and found himself in
Now, Mark Roth is a scientist. He's not a philosopher or a crank. He proves things, experimentally, according to the scientific method. In 2007, he got a MacArthur, so he's a genius, certified. He's got this long, narrow oracular head, shaped like a Corinthian column, expanding as it gets to the gray matter. He's got a flexible nose, 1 or 2 degrees off center. He's got kind, tired eyes -- Vonnegutian eyes -- to which his eyebrows, scroll-shaped, offer fancy punctuation. He's got a ginger-colored mustache and ginger-colored hair going gray, now that he's pushed into his fifties. He's got long, skinny arms that he waves around, and long, skinny legs covered with ginger-colored freckles that are available to view because he used to be a runner for the University of Oregon and still wears shorts to work, and blue Converse sneakers, and white socks bright with elastic. He sometimes gives you a goofy double thumbs-up when he thinks he's proved his point, when he's proved that what he's talking about -- be it ball lightning or the philosopher's stone -- is not a crazy idea but rather a gamer. Still, he's got a lot of ideas, for a scientist, and some of them come from unusual sources, like tabloidy news reports and science fiction.
It's a weird thing about scientists -- you would think that they would love science fiction. But they don't. To admit that you get your ideas from science fiction, if you're a scientist, that's, like, career-threatening, man, just like it might be professionally risky to say you work in Mark Roth's lab, no matter how outlandish and game-changing its accomplishments. And so, yes, Mark Roth is a scientist. But he's a scientist in the way that you used to want to be a scientist when you were a kid, with weird substances -- dangerous substances, toxic substances, indeed the most toxic substances known to man! -- bubbling away in his lab, rather than a scientist in the way that most scientists are scientists, with NIH funding, a stack of grant applications to catch up on, and a commitment to pursue the one or two ideas that got them that precious federal funding to the death. And so last year, when one of his nephews was in a store in South Carolina and his mother -- Roth's sister -- came by to get him...when the boy wouldn't move because he was so engrossed in the latest edition of Ripley's Believe It or Not! and his mother finally had to yell at him...when the boy trudged dutifully out to the car and, when they were on the road, finally told his mother that she should have let him keep reading that book because Uncle Mark's in it...well, Uncle Mark wasn't exactly displeased when his sister called him later that night to tell him that he'd made Ripley's. He'd had papers published in Science, he'd had papers published in Nature, he'd had papers published in the most prestigious scientific and medical journals in the world, but Ripley's Believe It or Not!, for his work making suspended animation possible in human beings? He made Ripley's? That was cool, man. That was an honor. That was science.
The funny thing is, suspended animation wasn't even the weirdest idea he had when he made his decision to stop being a reductionist -- which is not only what most scientists are but also what the NIH pays them to be -- and start becoming an expansionist. And it was definitely a decision, a moment of desperate clarity. See, he'd done his share of bricklaying. He'd done his share of saying, This is the protein, this is the gene -- you know, sitting around the campfire, warming his hands with the other scientists. Indeed, he'd had enough success with RNA splicing at the Carnegie Institution in Baltimore to know two things: First, that some scientists weren't necessarily happy that he'd had success with RNA splicing; and, second, that the same scientists who weren't necessarily happy that he'd had success with RNA splicing wanted him to do RNA splicing for the rest of his natural life. Talk about weird...but that's not what convinced him to leave the campfire. No, what convinced him that he had to start going out into the woods and fetch his ideas from the darkness was...the darkness itself.
In 1995, Roth's wife, Laurie, gave birth to his second daughter, Hannah. She was born with Down syndrome and a heart with one ventricle. Mark Roth was thirty-eight years old. He was, by this time, a researcher at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and if his daughter survived, he was looking at having a dependent for as long as he was alive. He met with Laurie and told her, Hey, whatever happens, life as we know it is over. This being an academic, this bricklaying, this grant-seeking, this paper-publishing, this encoding of proteins, this scientific nut-gathering, this career of increments, this life of the most punishing and irrevocable patience -- well, it's not going to cut it. The obligation of Hannah had liberated him to seek the scientist in himself, and the scientist in himself wanted nothing less than to change the world -- to pursue science for the sake of human benefit, not in the long term, but right here, right now, while Mark Roth was still in his breathing period, whether he knew the molecular basis of the benefit or not.
And then Hannah died. She died after heart surgery. She was just over a year old.
And then Mark Roth began to fail. Like, unequivocally. He was still doing experiments, he was still doing science, but it was as if he were experimenting with failure itself. He was committed to it. He didn't think there was enough of it. He was going to see where failure took him.
John Clark
The first failure? Immortality. He'd gotten interested in the possibility of immortality. You know, it's not like we don't know the secret of immortality. We do. We know where it is, anyway. It's in the gonads. I mean, you have a child, you become immortal -- humans know that, in the same way that fruit flies know that. It's intrinsic knowledge, evolutionary knowledge. But what most people don't know is that we can sort of see immortality, under an electron microscope. The immortal cells that are found in the gonads are called germ cells, and what makes them different from all the other cells in the body is that they're lumpy. They've got these lumps inside them called P-granules, so that's where the secret of immortality has to be -- in the lumps. So Mark Roth got very interested in the lumps. But he wasn't the only one. He was racing to identify one of the lump proteins. And he lost. He lost to Susan Strome, a scientist now at UC Santa Cruz. And there was no second prize. Science is like Glengarry Glen Ross that way. First prize is the Cadillac, second prize is you don't get funding. Second prize is you have to figure out what to do next.
What Roth figured out to do next was to fail again -- to fail again while making good on his promise to create something of immediate benefit to human beings. See, it's notoriously hard to diagnose the autoimmune disease lupus. But back when he was doing RNA splicing, Roth had figured out a way to do it, and now he set about trying not only to develop the test but to take it to market -- himself. And he did it. For three years, that's all he did, nonstop: He developed the test, got the patent, and then went out and got FDA approval for what he had created. He was, as far as he knows, the first scientist ever to get FDA approval for a diagnostic test all by himself, without the help of a corporation, in an academic setting. Now he had just what he wanted -- something that solved a problem, something that actually helped people.
You know how many people it helped? Roth makes a steering wheel with his arms to show how many people it helped. It helped nobody. It was a big zero. Not because it didn't work; rather, because there was no market for it. Or because there was a market for it, but it wasn't big enough to convince any pharmaceutical company to manufacture and distribute it. A test that helped solve the age-old problem of diagnosing lupus? Roth couldn't give it away. He still gets e-mails from people who think that they might have lupus, or that their kids might have lupus, and who want his test. And he has to answer that his test does not exist.
So there he was, Mark Roth, at the turn of the century, not just an unfunded scientist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center but a legendarily unfunded one -- the king of interim funding, who told colleagues that he wanted to be the guy who changed medical science forever, and then, in the next breath, told them all about spontaneous combustion. Or suspended animation. Brilliant guy, Mark -- but people actually laughed at him, with his weird ideas. And yet he learned something from his failures, and what he learned was not that he was too weird; it was that he wasn't weird enough. His thinking was too small. If you want to change the world, you've got to change your thinking first. And the only way to do that is to take refuge in the unexplained, in the places where the sword is still in the stone. He had a notebook to that effect. Filled with unexplained phenomena and sci-fi gleanings, and he would page through it to figure out the weird idea he could turn into the big idea. He was a little like Goldilocks at this point: This one's too far out there, this one's not far out enough. He was looking for the one that was just right when he started going through the file he'd kept of people who have survived hypothermia. Skiers in Switzerland, lost in avalanches; drunks in Chicago who fell asleep in the dead of winter -- for all intents and purposes, they were dead, except that they weren't, except that they could be revived, hardly the worse for wear. Weird, right? Suspended animation. And that's the gamer.
See, it wasn't like Roth ever let go of the dream of immortality. He was still obsessed with the lumps. He just began thinking about them in a different way. Okay, the lumps are immortal -- so what do they do; how do they achieve that end? And here's the answer: They do nothing. They're quiescent. They're couch potatoes! They're immortal, because for all intents and purposes -- in terms of movement -- they're already dead! And maybe that's what immortality is. People always think of it in terms of living forever. But maybe it just means not dying -- not dying when you're supposed to die, surviving the mortal moments. We don't know what life is, anyway. Not really. We just know what life does -- it burns oxygen. It's a process of combustion. We're all just slow-burning candles, making our way through our allotment of precious O 2 until it becomes our toxin, until we burn out, until we get old and die. But we live on 21 percent oxygen, just as we live at 37 degrees. They're related. Decrease the oxygen to 5 percent, we die. But, look, the concentration of oxygen in the blood that runs through our capillaries is only 2 or 3 percent. We're almost dead already! So what if we turn down the candle's need for oxygen? What if we dim the candle so much that we don't even have the energy to die?
And so began Mark Roth's career as a deanimator. As a gorker. Gorking is...well, gorking. You take away some creature's supply of oxygen, you're gorking it, man. The trick, of course, is bringing it back. In the beginning, that wasn't so easy, because in the beginning Roth was just free-associating. He was using heavy water, rat poison, and he was a deanimator without being a reanimator. Other scientists were laughing at him: Hey, Roth, did you suspend anything today? But then he did. He gorked some nematodes -- roundworms -- with nitrogen. An inert gas, sure, but it crowded out the oxygen available to them; it diminished the atmosphere. Roth took them to the Death Hole, which was an atmosphere of less than 1 percent oxygen. They died. But then he took them beyond the Death Hole, and they came back when oxygen was reintroduced. There was life beyond the Death Hole! So he tried carbon monoxide. Talk about gorking: Colorless, odorless, the agent of choice for many of the world's yearly cull of suicides, CO is Thanatos in a bottle -- but it didn't kill the worms. It just dimmed the candle, not by taking away the supply of oxygen but rather by preventing the worms from using it. And that was the leap that Roth made -- employing toxins for benefit. Using one of the most toxic substances known to man to interfere with the toxic effects of oxygen. See, when creatures die of hypoxia, they don't die because they don't have enough oxygen; they die because they're still burning the oxygen they don't have enough of. What Roth did was find a way to turn off -- or turn down -- the fire. What he did was find a way to separate the living cell not from oxygen itself but from the capacity to use it.
Still, that was worms, and he was looking for human benefit. It wasn't as if he was ever going to convince any sane human being of the benefit of carbon monoxide. So one night in 2002, he was watching TV, thinking of what he usually thought of -- what kind of toxins he might be able to use to stop mammals from burning oxygen. He was watching Nova. It had a feature on these caves in Mexico that exhaled great lungfuls of hydrogen sulfide, an egg-smelling gas more toxic than carbon monoxide by a factor of ten. Nothing should live in those caves; instead, the caves were full of all sorts of fascinating creatures that tempted spelunkers to go down to see them. And the spelunkers had to be really, really, really careful or else they'd get gorked. They had to wear all sorts of special gear or else they'd get gorked with one breath of hydrogen sulfide. Deanimated with a single breath! Roth didn't sleep for three days. He ran around telling anyone who would listen about hydrogen sulfide, and plenty of people -- his neighbors, mostly -- who wouldn't. And by the time he stopped burning, he had figured out not only the utility of hydrogen sulfide as a beneficial toxin but also as a kind of metaphysics, based on the duality of oxygen and sulfur. Did you know that the existence of DNA -- life -- predated the existence of oxygen? Did you know that the earliest life existed not by breathing oxygen but rather by eating rocks? Did you know that the rocks were sulfur? Did you know that we're descended from those rock-eating microbes? Did you know that our bodies make hydrogen sulfide? Did you know that our bodies probably use hydrogen sulfide to keep from burning up on oxygen? Did you know that sulfur was also called brimstone? That before Jesus was raised from the dead, he went into a cave?
Of course, Roth was still unfunded. He was still a failed and unfunded researcher who was now seeking to buy large quantities of poison gas in the year following 9/11. He didn't go to the NIH for it, that's for sure. He went to Mark Groudine, the head of his department at Fred Hutchinson. He asked Mark G. for the $20,000 that would enable him to buy a few tanks of hydrogen sulfide and the equipment that would allow him to measure the responses of the mice he intended to gork. Mark G. worked right next to Mark R. and had been listening to two or three ideas a day from Mark R. for years. He gave him the money. Roth gorked the mice.
Roth's lab started gorking everything in sight: yeast, nematodes, mice, rats, dogs, pigs...but it was the paper Roth published the previous year on zebra-fish embryos that would finally get him federal money. Not from NIH, though. The zebra-fish paper was about stopping the heart of zebra-fish embryos. It was about switching their hearts on and off. The paper reported that the Roth lab was able to switch off the zebra-fish hearts for, like, nine hours before switching them back on again. I mean, those fish were dead....And so one day in 2001 Roth got a call in his lab. It was from DARPA. That's the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. That's the Pentagon's arm for applied scientific research and "high risk, high payoff" freethinking. It's a strange, oxymoronic place that, aside from the creative lethality of its intentions, might be Mark Roth's institutional counterpart. "Did you really do what you say you did?" the DARPA program manager asked Roth. When Roth assured him that yes, he did, and that what he was doing was trying to get people not to die when they have heart attacks, the DARPA guy said, Well, we're trying to get people not to die when they bleed out, and he started working on getting Roth paid.
Roth never did get NIH money, though. Well, he had some, for some bricklaying work he was doing on chromosomal separation. But when he published his first paper on suspended animation and thanked the NIH for its support, the NIH freaked. What's suspended animation, after all, when you could be putting federal money into advancing our knowledge of chromosomal separation? But he never really was an NIH guy anyway, because he was never really interested in the mechanism of suspended animation -- he was interested in the effect. He was interested in the benefit. There are people in his lab who are, at this moment, trying to account for the genetics of suspended animation and the role of hydrogen sulfide in the maintenance of metabolic flexibility, but Roth is a pragmatist. It sounds funny, calling a guy who says that he's interested in exploring the genetics of spontaneous combustion a pragmatist, but Roth grew up poor outside Philadelphia. After their father died, he and his brothers grew up in a boys' school that doubled as an orphanage, and though you lose some things when you get sent away from home at age seven -- you lose love -- you do become pragmatic and self-sufficient. Which is why once Roth deduced that there was the possibility that his use of hydrogen sulfide to dim the candle could change the standard of critical care not just in warfare but in hospitals around the world, he founded a biotech company in 2005 to market it.
It's called Ikaria, after the island with regenerative sulfur springs mentioned by Herodotus. We're not talking about a company that might market, say, a diagnostic test for lupus here; we're talking about a company whose scientific mission is ruthlessly subordinated to the values of human benefit and scalability; we're talking about a biotechnology firm that, although started with venture capital, wound up purchasing a company that deals in pharmaceutical gases, such as the nitric oxide used to save the lives of blue babies; we're talking about a company with revenues of $200 million a year, a company that, until the collapse of the financial markets, was expected to go public with one of the biggest biotech IPOs ever.
Mark Roth is a major stockholder. He has always considered himself more of a throwback -- a throwback to the days before basic science meant the ferreting out of molecular mechanisms. Now he wants to be a throwback to the days when scientists were rich men who could fund themselves. He wants to be a success so he can go back to pursuing failure. He wants to go away from the campfire, into the woods, and have the option of not coming back. You know what his problem is now? He was, and is, right. That's not necessarily a good thing. He knows a lot of guys who are right. And it's all over for them. The greatest freedom in the world -- and the only real freedom for a scientist -- is the freedom to be wrong. And that's the freedom Mark Roth is underwriting, with a company committed to saving the lives of bleeding and burning men.
Mark Roth keeps a little bottle on his desk, a pharmaceutical-sized vial full of clear liquid. It's got an orange plastic cap and a gold ribbon wrapped around the neck. It's a hydrogen-sulfide derivative, and Ikaria's first suspended-animation product. It's completed Phase 1 trials in Australia and Canada. It's being tested on humans, to make sure it's safe. He's gorking people now! He's dimming human candles! It's also being tested on pigs in Texas. The military is doing those tests. They're doing surgery on anesthetized pigs, and then gorking them, to see if they survive the bleedout. If it works, it's going to be considered for emergency use in Iraq. Would it have saved the life of his daughter? It might have. She died a month after the surgery, but basically she bled out. She bled out.
You know, a few years ago, Roth went to Alaska on a trip. He went to Fairbanks, and it was freaking cold, man. It was 30 degrees below zero, and he saw something that he never forgot. He saw crows flying. These were creatures made of feathers and hollow bones. They had no right even to be alive at 30 below, but there they were, and they were flying. The image has haunted him to this day, because he can't explain it. And that's what science is. You do the same thing day after day, you see the same thing day after day, and then suddenly you see something unaccountable, impossible -- believe it or not -- and it stays with you. All creatures die. But the things that haunt you, they get to live forever.
RELATED STORIES:eso1507 — Science Release
Looking Deeply into the Universe in 3D
MUSE goes beyond Hubble
The MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope has given astronomers the best ever three-dimensional view of the deep Universe. After staring at the Hubble Deep Field South region for only 27 hours, the new observations reveal the distances, motions and other properties of far more galaxies than ever before in this tiny piece of the sky. They also go beyond Hubble and reveal previously invisible objects.
By taking very long exposure pictures of regions of the sky, astronomers have created many deep fields that have revealed much about the early Universe. The most famous of these was the original Hubble Deep Field, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope over several days in late 1995. This spectacular and iconic picture rapidly transformed our understanding of the content of the Universe when it was young. It was followed two years later by a similar view in the southern sky — the Hubble Deep Field South.
But these images did not hold all the answers — to find out more about the galaxies in the deep field images, astronomers had to carefully look at each one with other instruments, a difficult and time-consuming job. But now, for the first time, the new MUSE instrument can do both jobs at once — and far more quickly.
One of the first observations using MUSE after it was commissioned on the VLT in 2014 was a long hard look at the Hubble Deep Field South (HDF-S). The results exceeded expectations.
“After just a few hours of observations at the telescope, we had a quick look at the data and found many galaxies — it was very encouraging. And when we got back to Europe we started exploring the data in more detail. It was like fishing in deep water and each new catch generated a lot of excitement and discussion of the species we were finding,” explained Roland Bacon (Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon, France, CNRS) principal investigator of the MUSE instrument and leader of the commissioning team.
For every part of the MUSE view of HDF-S there is not just a pixel in an image, but also a spectrum revealing the intensity of the light’s different component colours at that point — about 90 000 spectra in total [1]. These can reveal the distance, composition and internal motions of hundreds of distant galaxies — as well as catching a small number of very faint stars in the Milky Way.
Even though the total exposure time was much shorter than for the Hubble images, the HDF-S MUSE data revealed more than twenty very faint objects in this small patch of the sky that Hubble did not record at all [2].
“The greatest excitement came when we found very distant galaxies that were not even visible in the deepest Hubble image. After so many years of hard work on the instrument, it was a powerful experience for me to see our dreams becoming reality,” adds Roland Bacon.
By looking carefully at all the spectra in the MUSE observations of the HDF-S, the team measured the distances to 189 galaxies. They ranged from some that were relatively close, right out to some that were seen when the Universe was less than one billion years old. This is more than ten times the number of measurements of distance than had existed before for this area of sky.
For the closer galaxies, MUSE can do far more and look at the different properties of different parts of the same galaxy. This reveals how the galaxy is rotating and how other properties vary from place to place. This is a powerful way of understanding how galaxies evolve through cosmic time.
“Now that we have demonstrated MUSE’s unique capabilities for exploring the deep Universe, we are going to look at other deep fields, such as the Hubble Ultra Deep field. We will be able to study thousands of galaxies and to discover new extremely faint and distant galaxies. These small infant galaxies, seen as they were more than 10 billion years in the past, gradually grew up to become galaxies like the Milky Way that we see today,” concludes Roland Bacon.
Notes
[1] Each spectrum covers a range of wavelengths from the blue part of the spectrum into the near-infrared (475‒930 nanometres).
[2] MUSE is particularly sensitive to objects that emit most of their energy at a few particular wavelengths as these show up as bright spots in the data. Galaxies in the early Universe typically have such spectra, as they contain hydrogen gas glowing under the ultraviolet radiation from hot young stars.
More information
This research was presented in a paper entitled “The MUSE 3D view of the Hubble Deep Field South” by R. Bacon et al., to appear in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics on 26 February 2015.
The team is composed of R. Bacon (Observatoire de Lyon, CNRS, Université Lyon, Saint Genis Laval, France [Lyon]), J. Brinchmann (Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands [Leiden]), J. Richard (Lyon), T. Contini (Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie, CNRS, Toulouse, France; Université de Toulouse, France [IRAP]), A. Drake (Lyon), M. Franx (Leiden), S. Tacchella (ETH Zurich, Institute of Astronomy, Zurich, Switzerland [ETH]), J. Vernet (ESO, Garching, Germany), L. Wisotzki (Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany [AIP]), J. Blaizot (Lyon), N. Bouché (IRAP), R. Bouwens (Leiden), S. Cantalupo (ETH), C.M. Carollo (ETH), D. Carton (Leiden), J. Caruana (AIP), B. Clément (Lyon), S. Dreizler (Institut für Astrophysik, Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany [AIG]), B. Epinat (IRAP; Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, Marseille, France), B. Guiderdoni (Lyon), C. Herenz (AIP), T.-O. Husser (AIG), S. Kamann (AIG), J. Kerutt (AIP), W. Kollatschny (AIG), D. Krajnovic (AIP), S. Lilly (ETH), T. Martinsson (Leiden), L. Michel-Dansac (Lyon), V. Patricio (Lyon), J. Schaye (Leiden), M. Shirazi (ETH), K. Soto (ETH), G. Soucail (IRAP), M. Steinmetz (AIP), T. Urrutia (AIP), P. Weilbacher (AIP) and T. de Zeeuw (ESO, Garching, Germany; Leiden).
ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world’s largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is a major partner in ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre European Extremely Large Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.
Links
Contacts
Roland Bacon
CRAL - Centre de recherche astrophysique de Lyon
Saint-Genis-Laval, France
Tel: +33 478 86 85 59
Cell: +33 608 09 14 27
Email: [email protected]
Richard Hook
ESO education and Public Outreach Department
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6655
Cell: +49 151 1537 3591
Email: [email protected]
Connect with ESO on social mediaPushpa Raj Acharya
Kathmandu, July 6
Though the validity period of your debit, credit and pre-paid cards may not run out for few years, the magnetic strip cards issued by Europay, MasterCard and Visa may not work in the country from November.
As per the rule of the issuers — Europay, MasterCard and Visa — banks and financial institutions (BFIs) must revamp their ATM terminals to make them chip-compliant by October this year.
BFIs have said that they have already placed purchase orders for chip reading devices to have them installed in ATM machines to meet the deadline of the card issuers. The BFIs have also already started issuing and replacing (expired) magnetic strip cards through combo cards that feature both magnetic strip and chip. Card issuers have shifted to chip-based cards from magnetic strip cards because magnetic strip cards are more fraud-prone as compared to chip-based cards.
“From November this year banks may remove the magnetic strip card reading devices from ATMs to minimise risks,” said Bijendra Suwal, deputy general manager of IT, Cards, Remittances and Product Development at Nepal Investment Bank.
As per rules of the card payment industry, the issuer is responsible for transactions that are made through magnetic strip ATMs or PoS terminals and for chip-based cards from chip-compliant terminals and PoS. “If a fraud is committed through a magnetic strip card in a chip-compliant acquiring terminal, the card issuer will not be liable to settle the account,” said Suwal, adding, “And the acquirer (concerned BFI) will have to bear the loss if any fraud is
committed.”
There are around 1,900 ATMs and 3.52 million card users in the country. BFIs have been gradually replacing the magnetic strip cards through combo cards as the deadline is approaching. However, for those whose cards are still valid for few more years, their cards are being replaced only on request, according to bankers. Around one-third of the EMV cards in circulation are already chip-compliant.
“As many cases of card fraud have been witnessed in the past, BFIs must replace all the magnetic strip cards within October because the ATM terminals are going to be chip-com |
-vis the West and vis-a-vis the rest of the world, by the way. I shouldn't use the word "West."
What's not clear to me is how, you know, Europe, the United States, and the rest of the world will respond. I think that's still in motion.
VOGT: You say that you felt this wasn't inevitable and that, you know, mostly it was -- that's the result of how Putin has responded. Were there things that could have been different -- done differently on the -- on the part of the United States and the part of Washington's European allies to have avoided this kind of outcome, do you think? Or is this simply a matter of Putin's initiatives, you know, driving the shape of this?
MCFAUL: Well, again, it depends on where you pick up the story. So if you start the story back at the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that obviously did happen -- that was a part of the end of the Cold War -- you know, I think if you look over that period, I think it is fair to say that more could have been done to help develop markets, to decrease the pain of an incredibly difficult economic depression that Russians experienced through the 1990s, which gave democracy a bad name and gave anything associated with the West and capitalism and democracy a bad name.
And, you know, I compare it to what the level of effort that we gave after the end of World War II, where there were lots of fragile states -- it was -- there's no way that anybody in 1945 would have predicted, you know, the incredible rise of Germany as a democratic political system and as a capitalist powerhouse. But because then there was an external enemy, that focused the mind about the necessity of completing, if you will, to use the analogy, the end of the Cold War and to make sure that Germany and other countries were integrated, to make sure that fragile states after World War II, the ones on the other side of the Iron Curtain, were shored up and not allowed to be victims of an external threat.
At the end of the '90s, everybody thought there was no external threat, you know? It was the end of history. There was no country in the East threatening, if you will, to take advantage of that, and so we were not as focused on completing that. So that's the big -- that's the big story.
VOGT: Sure.
MCFAUL: The very technical, short-term story, I do believe that if -- you know, well, let me take a little bit -- go back a few months. Sorry, I think the context here is really important.
VOGT: Sure.
MCFAUL: So, you know, Putin -- I believe, and this is somebody I've dealt with for several years in my last jobs -- did not have a vision of recreating the Russian empire through annexation several years ago. On the contrary, he had a vision of creating Russian influence in the former Soviet Union through maybe coercive, maybe not, but through instruments of power such as the European -- Eurasian Economic Union.
The key to making that work was to have Ukraine, all of Ukraine -- not just Crimea -- all of Ukraine to be a part of that. And so last fall, he felt rather victorious -- believe me, I remember all the, you know, "We told you sos," Michael, from my Russian government officials when Yanukovych didn't sign the agreement with the European Union. And he felt like he was winning that strategy, and that's his most important foreign policy objective.
Speed forward to February, and February 21st, when the -- after lots of demonstrations on the street, there was a pacted agreement between President Yanukovych and the opposition, which, by the way, the Obama administration fully supported -- I think this needs to be understated, because it's getting lost in some of the stories -- and the next day, Yanukovych fled. He ran. And it's clear that the Russians didn't want him to run, because they stopped him from coming into Russia a couple of times. And once that happened, the government -- the coalition government collapsed, there was no negotiated way forward, and that is the precipitant, that is the trigger that brought Putin into Crimea, not some grand strategy.
So that's tragic in one sense. The good news, though, is I think it leads hope open that it is not inevitable that he marches into eastern Ukraine.
VOGT: Well, that was going to be my next question for you, which is, how -- I mean, if you had to rate the likelihood of that, putting aside or keeping in mind, rather, how we got to where we are, looking forward, how nervous are you about whether he's going to stop at Crimea?
MCFAUL: I'm really nervous, but not because I think he's sitting there looking at invasion paths right now. Maybe he is. I don't know that, of course. But I don't think his intention is to do that right now.
However, his intention was not to move into Crimea, when I was sitting at the opening of the Olympics. I mean, if look at his behavior up to that point, he was not planning this pivot against the West. He was doing exactly the opposite. He released Khodorkovsky. He released the Pussy Riot singers. And he spent upwards of $50 billion to impress us all with the new Russia. So that's, again, more evidence that this was not inevitable.
Right now, I think he's focused on consolidating and digging in for, you know, the confrontation with the West. It's clear to me in my interactions with Russia, including government officials now as a private citizen, that's where they're at. They fully expect it. And that's what they're doing.
However -- and let me say one more thing. And they appreciate, of course, that it will much more difficult to move into eastern Ukraine for the simple fact that those eastern regions out there are not divided neatly between Russians and Ukrainians on the east and the west. Rather, the Russians are concentrated in the big cities. The countryside are surrounded by ethnic Ukrainians. And if he does move in there, I think there will be resistance.
I don't know. I doubt it'll be organized military resistance, but you'll have guerilla warfare for months, if not years, and so he's got to calculate that into his analysis, as well. But...
(CROSSTALK)
VOGT: That's interesting. Go on.
MCFAUL:... there are unintended consequences that happen when there's lots of people running around with grievances on their minds, with guns in their hands. Most certainly, the nationalistic fervor in Russia has met -- is now feverish. I mean, it is unlike anything I've ever seen, and I first went to study there in 1983.
And likewise, don't forget nationalists in Ukraine are very discontent with the recent turn of events and are very critical of the way their government has handled this crisis so far. So that creates a kind of -- the kindling for, you know, a spark that really could lead to something greater.
VOGT: Well, that's -- yeah, passions are certainly running high. Yeah, and I wonder, what do you think, you know, the United States and European allies should be doing to prevent, you know, that fire from starting that hasn't already been done?
MCFAUL: Well, there's the short term and the long term. And I did write about some of this in the piece you mentioned, in the New York Times. I mean, the short term, of course, is to stabilize the Ukrainian economy, to make sure that there is not, you know, complete economic collapse. Second, to help make sure, to the extent possible, that the upcoming elections are free and fair and transparent and monitored so that the new government has the maximum legitimacy possible, because they're going to need that legitimacy and that authority moving forward with what I think are, you know, necessary, very serious economic reforms and reforms against corruption.
And, you know, as I wrote in that piece, you know, the Ukrainians have had a couple of shots at breakthrough already and -- you know, in my own -- my personal view is that they squandered those, especially in 2004, really cannot afford to squander it again after the next election.
VOGT: Let me ask you about sanctions, quickly. How likely is it, do you think, that the kind of sanctions that Washington has put in place against a select group of Russians and -- and the kind of things that are continuing to be discussed now, do you think that those will really have the impact that is hoped for and that they'll influence Putin's decision-making?
MCFAUL: It all depends on how you define that passive language you used in your sentence just now, "is hoped for." So the question is, who is hoping and what are they hoping for, right? And the more -- I think the specificity on that is important.
So the way I look at it, the sanctions that have been announced so far are intended by the Obama administration -- and I think in parallel by the Europeans, as well -- to inflict punishment on Putin and those around Putin for aggressive behavior that we've already witnessed.
I do not think the sanctions we have in place right now will change Putin's decision-making about what's happened in the past. And I don't think the Obama administration is naive enough to think that, as well.
So will sanctions work? If you mean, will sanctions get Russia to leave Crimea, the current sanctions, I think the obvious answer to that is no. It's designed to make people pay a price, but it's not designed to change their behavior.
However, in the president's remarks before he left for Europe, he explained to us all that he had signed another executive order, which gives him the power to sanction companies and sectors of the economy. And what he did was he said, I now have the power to do that, and I'm threatening to do that, if there is further Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine.
So the way I interpreted that sentence by the president to mean is that the specter of new sanctions are designed to deter further escalation into eastern Ukraine. So that has a very different intended effect than the ones that have already been announced.
And, you know, I think that I agree with that strategy. I would also just remind your listeners here that when it comes to deterring Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, the American track record is pretty poor. If you start in '56, '68, martial law in Poland '80, '81, go through Georgia and then Ukraine, whether Democrat or Republican, whenever Russia has decided, whenever Moscow has decided -- because it wasn't always Russia -- that they're going to use military force in Eastern Europe, our instruments for deterring that have not worked.
VOGT: That's interesting to -- interesting to recall. I'm going to open this up now. We have quite a large group of media on the call, and I'm sure that there are people who'd like to ask Ambassador McFaul questions, so I'm going to turn this over to the operator to open the call up at this point.
OPERATOR: Yes, sir. At this time, we'll open the floor for questions. If you would like to ask a question, you can press the star key, followed by the one key on your touch-tone phone now. Questions will be taken in the order in which they are received. And if at any time you would like to remove yourself from the questioning queue, you can press star, two. Once again, that is star, one to ask a question.
VOGT: OK, if we have a bit of a lull waiting for the first question, I think I will -- I'll just ask you -- oh, no, and actually -- no, I'm sorry. There's our first question right here. This is from Congressional Quarterly.
QUESTION: Jonathan Broder here. Ambassador McFaul, I notice that in your New York Times piece and in your remarks just now you call for a number of things that the administration hasn't done yet, for example, energy diversification, providing military hardware to frontline states, more training and integration of forces, new efforts to reduce, as I said before, NATO countries' dependency on Russian energy, no more membership in the Group of Eight, and so on.
I'm just wondering whether the -- the sanctions that you've seen so far, whether you think they've gone far enough and whether the administration, in your view, should get even tougher?
MCFAUL: Well, I mean, with respect to the piece and the things I outlined, I obviously don't work for the Obama administration anymore. I'm a free man at Stanford University. And so I just -- you know, these were my views. I've been asked, because you can imagine 100 times to say what I think, and so I decided to say what I think in kind of a big -- a big -- the big stretch of time, not just in the tick-tack of the day-to-day. So that's why I wrote what I did.
And we'll see over the coming weeks and months and years whether the Obama administration -- and I fear, unfortunately, given what I think about where this is going -- I fear the next administration, what they'll do. That's a debate for the future. I can tell you, you know, not surprisingly, I've had lots of interaction with senior officials over the course of what they've done so far and what they're planning to do.
And the sense I get is, you know, a real kind of disgust, lament that we're where we're at in terms of U.S.-Russia relations. They assign almost all of the agency, almost all of the blame, if you will, to Putin in this, and so do I, and I'd be interested if others have different views, but I think that there's a reason for that.
As to how far they should or will go, you know, my own view would be -- I saw the logic of those that were put on the list initially -- you know, early last week in terms of people -- economic actors that are close to Putin. And I know that there are other actors that are close to Putin that could easily qualify, if I rightly understood the principles, the criterion that were used to make that list. So my answer would be, yes, there should be more sanctions.
QUESTION: Can I just follow up with one quick follow-up?
VOGT: Sure.
QUESTION: How -- can you give us your thoughts on how stronger sanctions would play in Europe, given the divisions there over sanctions?
MCFAUL: Well, of course, there's different dynamics in Europe in different parts of Europe, right? On this issue, Europe is not united. They obviously are more exposed to the Russian economy than the United States are, so these are more -- it's more costly for them to implement sanctions. And, you know, the sense I get from observing it is that there's been a debate within Europe and then coordination and debate between the United States and Europe with -- you know, with hesitation, because I think on the one hand all the leaders of Europe and the West -- and the United States, the administration, want to inflict punishment, as I said before, but they also don't want to disrupt, you know, macroeconomic trends, and finding that right balance, I think, is, you know, what they're struggling over.
With respect to the specifics, I would just add a couple of things. I mean, I always had felt that Chancellor Merkel was one of -- you know, if not the best interlocutor with Putin, in terms of understanding him, definitely at the top of the list, and I am struck by the level of frustration that she's expressing publicly. That's new. That's different. And I think that shows you just, you know, how different this moment is from other episodic crisis in Russia's relationship with the West.
VOGT: Operator, can we take the next question, please?
OPERATOR: We have a question from Lawrence Durrell (ph) with USA Today.
QUESTION: Yeah, hi. Thanks for doing this call. My question -- you know, basically it looks like the West and Europe, like they've invested a lot more in working together with Russia than in blocking its potential for aggression in the past few years. So I'm wondering if, you know, kind of taking it a step further from the last question, does the United States and Western Europe, are they prepared to do -- are they able to do, you know, what it's going to take to block at this point? You know, and I'm speaking, you know, in terms of, you know, diplomatically, economically, militarily.
MCFAUL: Well, obviously, I don't know the answer to your question. And I would just say I agree with your analysis of the last several years. I mean, I was part of the administration. That was our strategy. The idea was a Russia integrated into the West will be a more stable partner with the West. And that was, you know, why we pushed to get them into the WTO. That's -- you know, that's why there were accession agreements moving forward at OECD. I mean, that was the strategy, without question.
And I would emphasize, it's been the strategy going back to Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. That's when the pivot began towards this engagement and integration strategy on both sides, and it's, you know, Democrat or Republican, there's been margins, ups and downs, you know, slightly different ways to approach it, and then even George H.W. Bush slowed it down for a year, you know, after Ronald Reagan retired. But more or less, I would say that's the way historians are going to look at this period.
I think this is a new period. I think Putin has made it clear that he doesn't care about what the West thinks. He's not -- he's indifferent to integration. And he's prepared to pay the costs of going a different direction. What I don't know is whether the West, one, understands that. I mean, when I say the West, we're talking about, you know, hundreds of millions of people and leaders all over the place. And, you know, the way this crisis feels in, you know, Spain, for instance, is very different than it feels in Estonia. So when we say Europe, we need to be careful not to have a, you know, theory of how Europe responds to this.
But, you know, the reason I wrote the piece I did today was to say, in my view, this is a new period that demands a new strategy. Whether or not the West adopts it, I can't predict that.
VOGT: Let's take the next question, please.
OPERATOR: Our next question comes from Jared Rizzi with SiriusXM Satellite Radio.
QUESTION: Hi, Ambassador. Thanks for doing the conference call. Justin, thanks for doing the most of the Q&A so far. My unique is, right now we've seen ramping up of these sanctions over the last few weeks. What do you imagine the off-ramp will be for Russia to get out of these sanctions in the future? I know that this is -- you know, I sure couldn't get an answer out of a current administration member about that, so I'm asking you. Hopefully you can try to think it out and -- I certainly haven't been able to extrapolate what it would be.
MCFAUL: I think for the current sanctions...
(UNKNOWN):... fifty-seven, for a...
MCFAUL: I think for the current sanctions in place, I don't think people are planning for off-ramps. That's not the intention, because they're not seeking a change in behavior. And the off-ramp analogy, that was all before annexation. That was all a strategy, you know, a strategy that I thought was well-needed and I applaud both the president for engaging and Secretary Kerry for flying all over the place to try to make it happen, but they did that with -- knowing that they were playing against very long odds, and now it's over.
So I think if you're on that sanctions list, I think you're going to be there for a long, long time. I don't think they're looking for certain kinds of changes in behavior. And most certainly, I'll be surprised if anything happens in the Obama administration, for instance, right? Maybe a new administration might take that a second look, but I don't see -- I don't see it changing.
What I don't know is whether there will be new names added to the list for what I call the punishment part of the sanctions. And let me just elaborate a little bit more on this. You know, it's partly also to make people over the long time question the wisdom of being isolated, right? So -- and it's having that effect. I mean, look at what's happened internally, in terms of the stock market, in terms of the value of the ruble, in terms of money moving out. Already in a week, you've had that effect.
So that already makes people nervous in Russia about this new moment. And, yes, people are rallying around the flag, as people always do during times of crisis, but other people -- I mean, the same people who are doing that are worried about their rubles and their spending power that has just, you know, dropped dramatically in a week as a result of this. So it's designed to fuel that debate, as well, inside Russia.
VOGT: Let's take the next question, please.
OPERATOR: Yes, sir. Our next question comes from Gopal Ratnam with Bloomberg.
QUESTION: Yes, hi. Thanks for taking my question. Ambassador McFaul, I wanted to ask you, in your op-ed piece, you mentioned the point about trying to nurture the Chinese distance from the revisionist Russia and how that's important. I was wondering if you had any thoughts about how you might do that. And I have one more follow-up after that.
MCFAUL: Well, it's just -- you know, the simple fact that -- and I think China is not a revisionist power, at least not right now. And I want to confess, I'm not an expert on China, Chinese foreign policy or internal dynamics, but they have played, you know, a different kind of strategy for decades now, and so I think we want to keep them in the grand coalition that believes in the international system and believes in the -- in the rules of the game. And I say that knowingly -- knowing fully well that there have been times that the United States has not. And, you know, I acknowledge that in the piece. I think that hurts our reputation and our ability to move abroad, but -- to move forward with that.
I do want to emphasize that in my opinion President Obama went way out of his way to, you know, re-up again, you know, re-ante up again to that system and to those rules and to play by them, including being constrained by the Security Council with respect to the use of force in Syria, which, you know, obvious evidence that he was doing that.
He also went way out of his way to address the grievances that President Putin outlined in his speech last week. And, you know, I would just encourage you all to go back and read his doctrinal statement on U.S.-Russian relations that President Obama gave in July of 2009. You know, I think that speech was a dramatic break with past presidents and the way they talk about Russia. So, you know, when I hear that somehow it's, you know, Obama's fault that -- you know, that he -- he wasn't -- excuse me -- that he wasn't listening enough to Russian concerns, I just don't think there's any evidence for that.
But back to China. I'm sorry, I cut off there. You know, I don't think the Chinese have an interest in, you know, enclaves having referendums and talking about, you know, changing borders. And I would, if I were still in the government, remind them why the system has worked for China and not to be part of this. And, obviously, I would just note the Chinese abstained. They did not support the resolution over the weekend previously. That vote was 13 against the referendum's legality, one abstention and one veto, which I think was a pretty accurate illustration of how isolated Russia is right now.
QUESTION: If I may ask just one more question, sir.
VOGT: Actually, we were just going to move -- go ahead.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: Sorry. Just one question. There are some who are criticizing the Obama administration. I know you said this is not inevitable. But there are some who are saying that because the administration decided that Europe and Middle East were safe and, therefore, they could rebalance or pivot toward Asia, this opened up an opportunity for someone like Putin to engage in this. Could this have been prevented had that direction or change in strategy not been in place the last couple of years?
MCFAUL: I find that analysis just to be utterly unconvincing. First of all, the pivot to Asia, you know, we -- we can spend a different call on that with people more expert than I, but in no way affected our -- you know, our position in Europe in the short term. I mean, it's just been a couple of years.
But number two, the more important point is what I alluded to earlier. If that were the case, then, you know, your theory -- if that's your theory -- would have predicted that George W. Bush, who did not pivot from Europe, would have prevented Russia from invading Georgia. He didn't.
And Ronald Reagan, nobody would accuse Ronald Reagan of abandoning Europe or of being naive or weak with respect to Moscow, yet when Brezhnev colluded with General Jaruzelski to, you know, bring about the most dramatic and awful crackdown against democracy, maybe ever, I mean, because the 10 million strong movement in Solidarity, and when that happened in December 1981, President Reagan failed to stop that.
You know, and I'd go back to Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Eisenhower, who was elected with a policy that he trumpeted his administration, roll back communism. Just Google it, and it'll pop right up. That was their policy. And yet despite that tough talk and that commitment to roll back communism in Eastern Europe, when Khrushchev made the decision to roll tanks into Budapest, General Eisenhower, President Eisenhower failed to stop him. And even going back to Roosevelt, Roosevelt couldn't get the Red Army to go back to Soviet borders.
So for me, as -- you know, somebody who -- a comparative politics person here at Stanford who -- you know, this is the way we construct our theories, right? If you can see a pattern -- you know, Democrats in power, Russians invade, Republicans in power, Russians don't invade -- that would be a powerful theory, but the evidence doesn't support that theory. The evidence doesn't support any pattern. Democrat or Republican, allegedly strong, allegedly weak, the United States going all the way back to 1945 or most certainly '56 has been ineffective in preventing Russia from invading in that part of the world.
The responses have been different, right, in terms of how they pay a price and whatever. We could talk about that later. But the idea that somehow Obama's weakness is a factor in this intervention, I just don't see the evidence.
VOGT: We're going to move to the next question. Before we do, I just want to remind everyone, we do have a long queue. Let's just try to keep it to one question each, because there are a lot of people that want to ask Ambassador McFaul.
MCFAUL: All right. I'll try to be shorter, too, on my part.
VOGT: No, no, that's all right. You're giving some great answers. We'll just try to move it along.
Next question, please?
OPERATOR: Yes, sir. Our next question comes from Matt Zeitlin with Buzzfeed.
QUESTION: Hi, Ambassador McFaul. I'd like to ask you about...
MCFAUL: Where are you, Matt?
QUESTION:... an article -- I'm in Kiev.
MCFAUL: OK.
QUESTION: Can you hear me?
MCFAUL: Yeah, I can. Just wondering where you're at.
QUESTION: I'm in Kiev. The -- this article in the Wall Street Journal today, which -- while not mentioning it explicitly, basically the U.S. officials quoted in this piece were hinting quite strongly that Edward Snowden's revelations and subsequent time he spent in Russia made it more easy for the Russian government to evade U.S. surveillance and that was why the U.S. was so slow to wake up to the invasion of Crimea. Was that the case? Can you comment in any way? What kind of capacity does the U.S. have for intercepting the Russian leadership's communications? And have they got worse since Snowden started making his revelations and then wound up in Russia? MCFAUL: Yeah, Matt, I can't comment on that. I'm not in the government, but I'm also still not allowed to talk about classified information. What I would say more generically is, you know, I was ambassador when Mr. Snowden showed up in Moscow. And, you know, I have a long experience both as a government official and as an observer watching how Russian intelligence works. And I'll say, honestly, I respect their work. I'm impressed by what they can do. And no one should have any illusions about their capacities and their abilities and their intentions to use it, right?
I mean -- and nor do they have any shame to do it and then put it up on the web, as they did with my colleague, Assistant Secretary Nuland, and as they did with me from time to time when I was ambassador. And I would just note the absence of any uproar by anybody when they do, and they don't -- they not only do that, those intercepts, they then prove that they do, and nobody seems at all interested in that.
But what I would say is, I don't think it's an accident that Mr. Snowden has been in Russia and has been there as long as he has. And anybody who's learned anything about Russian intelligence from other unclassified sources would not be surprised that they would have a major interest in somebody with Mr. Snowden's knowledge to have him in residence in Moscow.
VOGT: Let's take the next question, please.
OPERATOR: Yes, sir. Our next question comes from Will England (ph) with Washington Post.
QUESTION: Hi, Professor.
MCFAUL: Hey, Will. How are you doing?
QUESTION: I'm all right. How are you? On -- if I can get back to sanctions just for a moment, of course you're right that the ruble has dropped in value since mid-February, but actually since the sanctions went into place, it's gotten a little bit stronger, as has the Moscow stock market, and -- which makes me wonder how much pain they're inflicting and it gets to my question, which is, George Soros has said that, you know, sanctioning the oligarchs is exactly the wrong thing to do, because it actually plays in Putin's strategy of cutting off Russian businesspeople from the West. It'd be better to persuade them to take as much money as possible out of Russia and put it in the West and give them a stake in, you know, kind of Western relations in a sense.
So I'm curious what you think about that.
MCFAUL: Well, a couple of things. I mean, first of all, these are drops in a pool, you know, stones in an ocean compared to the Russian economy. So, you know, to expect a reaction for the entire economy after just one week of having, you know, just a handful of names on a sanctions list. That's incorrect, right? Nobody, I think, assumes that. I think it raised -- the idea is to raise the specter that more could come, that you could be susceptible, and that you should think about whether this is good for Russia in the long term.
Number two, sanctions never work in -- when measured in days and weeks and months. They only work in terms of the macroeconomic impact over years. And just for -- you know, look at the -- look at what the Obama administration and their allies and partners around the world did with Iran. Those were sanctions that went way beyond anything that's been announced so far, and even those against a much weaker economy took years -- literally years -- to have the impact that they did and it -- there needed to be an electoral cycle for the impact to be debated in the margins that they could within that polity, but that's how it worked, right? It doesn't happen overnight. So the ups and downs, you know, the immediate -- I take your point. And there's always a rallying, again, when there's a crisis.
With respect to your specific question about oligarchs, I just want to emphasize this is my own view. This is -- I'm not -- I'm not pretending to know what the administration is thinking. But as I said in my piece in the New York Times, I do believe in isolating those businesspeople that are instruments of the state and embracing those businesspeople -- and note I'm using the word businesspeople, not oligarchs -- businesspeople who are truly independent and performing as capitalists.
So in that respect, I agree with Mr. Soros. And as I hinted in the New York Times piece, I was -- you know, help that money move out. I think that's good. And even those people move out, if they're feeling threatened. I think that has to be part of the strategy, a long-term strategy, I want to emphasize, not a short-term, for having this impact inside the economy.
And I can just say anecdotally, irrespective of the macro numbers, the number of individuals I know, Russians and Americans, who are extremely nervous about, you know, investments in Russia is quite -- it's a big number. I'll just put it at that. So I don't think anybody is treating this new period with any complacency. I feel a lot of anxiety.
VOGT: Let's take the next question.
OPERATOR: Yes, sir. Our next question comes from Kathleen Hennessey with Los Angeles Times.
QUESTION: Hi, thanks so much for doing the call. I just wanted to ask a little bit on the news of the day. It looks like the G-8 will likely suspend Russia's participation in the G-8, becoming the G- 7. And I'm just wondering if you could analyze that decision. What sort of impact will that really have? Is it mostly symbolic? How will that be received in Moscow?
MCFAUL: Well, if it happens, yes, obviously, it's mostly symbolic, but the symbols do matter. And I think it's important -- you know, we're in this -- this moment right now of inside Russia, in my view -- although, you know, I'm no longer in Russia, I'm just meeting and interacting with people virtually, so I'm not the greatest expert.
But, you know, we're in this "Damn you, we could give a damn" moment right now, right? That's what Putin's doing. People are rallying around that, and that's the moment we're in now.
I just want to remind everybody, a month ago we were in exactly the opposite. We were in a different period where Putin wanted the world, including President Obama, to come to Sochi and to see the new Russia. The Russian government was very disappointed that President Obama did not come and see the show in Sochi. So you don't invest that kind of money to put on that kind of display for the world if you don't care about what the outside world thinks. That's just not logical to me. That's irrational. And I don't think Putin is that irrational.
I think he's torn between these two, that he wants respect, but he doesn't want -- you know, he wants to play by his own rules. And sometimes I think he and others around him think you get respect by being a bully and that people will respect you more, but it bounds back and forth.
So in that context, the G-8 was something they wanted to be a part of. Boris Yeltsin, you know, desperately wanted to be a part of that. And even going back to Gorbachev, when he came as an observer in London back in 1991, I believe it was, this for them was a symbol of being part of the -- you know, the big boy club, the great power club, and the club of democracy, some might add. That's a very specific piece of that club that in previous eras was very important to them.
So the symbolism is just a marker in the road, I think, for the word that the aspiration that leaders had back in the '90s, when they accepted Russia to join the G-8, you know, those -- those aspirations are at least over or at least -- are over or at least put on hold for now.
And different Russians will react differently to it. I mean, but I think it's -- you know, it's -- for me personally, it's a tragic moment. I mean, this whole thing is tragic for me personally, because I do think the world would have been a better place with Russia in the G-8, in the OECD, moving in a European direction, moving in a democratic direction. That's a more stable world, and that's a world that, in my view, serves American national interest better. The world we're entering now does not.
VOGT: Let's take the next question, please.
OPERATOR: Sir, our next question comes from Oliver Grimm with Die Presse. QUESTION: Yes, hello, Ambassador. My question actually goes back to the point that was raised earlier. Many people in Europe had the impression that the president is not really engaging in the transatlantic relationship. I mean, he's only now traveling to his first E.U.-U.S. summit in Brussels in the fifth year of his tenure. So do you think that if you would have -- would have invested more energy and interest in the transatlantic relationship, do you think that the Ukrainian situation could have been managed better, starting with putting more pressure on Yanukovych to sign the agreement and so forth and so forth? Thank you.
MCFAUL: Well, I don't have the view that President Obama didn't invest in the transatlantic relationship. Maybe it's his first time to have an E.U. summit in Brussels, but he's attended many E.U. summits. I've been to two or three of them when I was in the government.
When I was in the government, he traveled more to Europe than any other part of the world, despite the Asia pivot, including I think a very |
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION, on sale now at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Contact him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.“I could put more money into it, but the situation does not encourage it,” he said. “Under normal circumstances, the owner of such property would be a very wealthy man.”
Iraq, which once produced three-quarters of the world’s dates and grew 629 different varieties, is now an also-ran, falling behind Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Last year, the country produced 281,000 tons, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, about half the level of the mid-1980s.
The number of Iraq’s date palms has fallen, too, to fewer than nine million from 33 million in the 1950s, according to the government. Likewise, the number of date processing factories is down to six today, from 150 before the American-led invasion in 2003. Iraqi dates are now packaged in the United Arab Emirates — 865 miles away.
Iraqi and American officials say the declining fortunes in date production and other seasonal agricultural work have fed the insurgency with desperate, out-of-work young men.
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The decline, Iraqi government officials say, has also led to both public health and environmental degradation. As growers have abandoned farms, the orchards that had once formed a lush green ring around Baghdad have shrunk, causing more frequent sandstorms in the capital this summer and higher rates of asthma and other respiratory illnesses.
Still, dates remain a staple in Iraq, valued for their ability to stay fresh without refrigeration, as a source of nutrition, and for uses as varied as making alcohol and desserts and feeding farm animals. They are also an inexpensive sugar substitute.
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As the head of a partnership that includes his 12 brothers and 6 sisters, Dr. Hussain is the master of a once prosperous, now unkempt orchard on the banks of the Tigris River in the Dora neighborhood. On a blazing hot summer morning recently, he gave a tour. The story of the orchard, which his family has owned since 1910, has been one of slow decline.
Because the amount of money he receives for his crop from the Trade Ministry — the agency that buys most farm products in Iraq — is sometimes less than the cost of production, he says he no longer invests much in the farm.
Each year, even the most productive trees provide less. In normal times, each palm might produce 130 to 175 pounds of fruit a year.
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Last year, each tree produced just about 30 pounds. This season, Dr. Hussain is hoping to rebound to 90 pounds per tree.
Many of the orchard’s 4,000 palms, which can live 120 years, are clearly unhealthy. A fair number have either brown fronds or a white fungus that resembles cobwebs.
Half of the orchard is irrigated by well water, the other half by the Tigris. But because of a drought, now in its second year, farmers have been ordered to limit irrigation to twice a month instead of once or twice a week.
Fruit trees — orange, grapefruit and pomegranate — planted beneath the palms, look to be nearly dying of thirst. The ground is bone dry and dusty.
Even some of the palms, which need very little water, are withering. Water salinity has also become a vexing problem.
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Dr. Hussain pointed to some of the healthier palms.
“These trees are 40 years old, and I have some emotion, some love for them, because I planted them,” he said. “I’ve watched them grow.”
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Even here, there are signs of Iraq’s war: Accompanying Dr. Hussain are five bodyguards, at least one of whom is armed.
And stationed at the edge of Dr. Hussain’s orchard is a 50-member Kurdish pesh merga military unit. They are protecting the home of Jalal Talabani, Iraq’s president, who is Kurdish and lives across the river from the orchard.
Dr. Hussain said that despite the instability brought by the war, Iraq’s date industry could recover if the Trade Ministry would increase payments to farmers.
And if Iraq’s date orchards can be restored to their former glory, he said, the rest of Iraqi agriculture might be able to similarly rebound.
The Trade Ministry, however, has said that given continuing depressed international prices for oil — Iraq’s lone dependable export — it cannot afford to raise payments to farmers.
None of Dr. Hussain’s children want to have anything to do with the family’s date orchard. His son is a pharmacist, his eldest daughter an engineer. The youngest daughter is a science student, but has no interest in agriculture.
Dr. Hussain said the date farm would almost certainly die with him.
“It will be sold,” he said shrugging. “It will be painful for me to do that, but I accomplished my duty for my family and for my tradition. There is nothing else to be done.”The 10 Commandments for Girls with Long-term Travel Plans
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Packing for a two-week beach holiday is easy as pie. Packing for a six- or twelve-month trip, fitting it all into a backpack that suddenly seems too small, and factoring in possible weather changes and different activities — toughest packing you’ll ever do!
Even if you’re a packing wiz, this task will make you feel like an indecisive worm. And to top it off, you’ll most likely be packing up your home and belongings too. I guarantee that you’ll find yourself exhausted, staring desolately at a pile of clothes and wishing your mummy would come and do it for you.
So let me give you the best advice you’ll ever get for packing for long-term travel, learned and internalized the hard way.
Commandment #1: Pack Only Enough Clothes for 1 Week
That’s all you’ll need. If you really think that’s not enough, pack for ten days. But I promise, you’ll survive with one week’s worth of clothing. Just make sure they cover a range of weather and activities: warm weather, cool weather, rain, hiking, art galleries, conservative villages and hip cities.
Commandment #2: Layer + Accessorize
Pack pieces that work with each other in multiple combinations. Pack different textures and thicknesses. Think thin tees under thicker shirts, and a big warm sweater to top it off. Layering is your best friend when it’s cold because multiple layers keep you warm. Layering is also your best friend when the days are warm and sunny, because you can wear shorts and a tee and cover up with a shirt.
Dump the matching handbags and shoes, and carry travel-friendly accessories like scarves and belts and hats that can be used functionally as well as for a bit of style.
Commandment #3: Store Your Darlings
That oh-so-perfect beaded top you got on sale? Those slinky white pants that makes you look like Halle Berry? Leave them at home. You’ll lose them, shrink them in strange laundromats, drop spicy red sauces on them, or end up sleeping in them one rainy night and they’ll be damaged forever. Besides, this will help make it easier when it comes to Commandment #4 …
Commandment #4: Use, Buy, Throw, Recycle
When you travel, you’ll be tempted to buy souvenir tee-shirts saying ”˜I climbed Mount So-and-So’ or pick up a bohemian skirt in a hippie community somewhere. Buy it, if the budget allows, but make sure you know what you’re going to throw away from your bag before you pay for the new piece.
That way, your bag is not getting bigger and bigger as you travel. That’s why you can’t be too attached to anything.
Commandment #5: Prioritize Your Gear
Yes, our clothes are important and when we look pretty, we feel confident and blah blah blah … But it is your shoes and sweaters and jackets that will affect your life, health and happiness when you travel, so make sure you pack the right gear.
There is nothing worse than being in a new place, raring to go, dying to explore, but hobbling along with shoe-bite. Thermal leggings and shirts are your best friend, and you will probably live in them. Raincoats and windbreakers and jackets will be your bodyguards, so pack those babies in.
Buy the best quality you can afford (doesn’t have to be designer though), and try them out at home or break them in if you can, before the trip.
Commandment #6: Stock Up on Medical + Personal Requirements
Tampons are not always available or not easily available in many countries. If you have a prescription deodorant or asthma medication, you might not be able to restock in another country. Aspirin is not called aspirin in some other countries.
Make a list of what you need, and do your research on whether you’ll find what you need where you going. It’s best to carry necessities like this with you because you’ll need them when you’re not feeling your best, and will want the comfort of the familiar.
Commandment #7: Gadgets Are a Saving Grace
When it’s been a long day, when you just want to disappear into a different world, when you need to talk to a friend back home or see your sister’s face — you’ll need your gadgets. Some travel to detach themselves from their gadgets, but if you’re going for the long term, you’ll have more detachment than you want. Take your laptop, Kindle, iPad, whatever else. And don’t forget chargers and memory cards and hard drives.
Commandment #8: Be Selective, But Don’t Be a Martyr
If something is important to your comfort, just take it along. Exchange it for something else that is not necessary to you.
For instance, I would switch out a hair-dryer for an extra pair of jeans, because I live in ”˜em. Most long-term travellers advise against jeans, because they’re heavy and slow to dry. But they are comfortable, make you look fashionable everywhere, and you don’t have to wash them for days (or ”¦ shhh ”¦ weeks!). If you like ironing your hair, or won’t go out in the morning without your foundation, take your tools along.
Commandment #9: You Don’t Really Need the Fancy Stuff
Travel gear websites are awesome, and we’re all guilty of spending a little too long looking at the super-sporty models wearing fast-drying, sweat-wicking, convertible clothing and carrying all kinds of fancy travel devices. But you don’t need most of them.
What you do need to spend on first is a tough backpack, good quality boots or sneakers, and sturdy cases for your electronics. After that, it’s up to you, and the kind of travel you’ll be doing, and the weather you will be travelling in.
But we’ve done 11-mile cold weather hikes up mountains in jeans and sneakers and a two-year old day pack, and it’s been perfectly comfortable.
Commandment #10: Do a Trial Run for Your Packing
Pack everything into your bags, and tie and zip them up. You’ll be able to tell if you have too much, and you’ll have time to unpack and cut down further on your belongings.
You’ll also know if you can lift your bags by the end of it and that is critical. You may be spending a lot of time between the straps of your bag, but you gotta make sure you can manage without having your circulation cut off.Chief Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein and the Lord of the universe should both receive the Nobel Prize. It is well known that the institution of Shabbat is one of the best inventions God ever came up with.
But it was Rabbi Goldstein, chief rabbi of South Africa, who brought Shabbat down to earth last week and inspired hundreds of thousands of mainly secular Jews, in Israel and abroad, to celebrate a conventional Shabbat, leaving their cars and mobiles at home and instead joining prayer sessions and Shabbat meals for the first time in their lives. This is an unprecedented revolution in modern Jewish life. The idea is nearly 6,000 years old, and it took one dedicated Jew to make it happen. A Nobel Prize is long overdue.
It is common knowledge that we all need a weekly rest. What is much less known is that the Jewish tradition believes such rest should not only consist of refraining from strenuous labor, but also from any kind of work that presents man as having dominion over the world. One day a week we are asked to return the world and all its potential to God and, instead of being creators, acknowledge that we are also creatures in God’s eyes – not much different from a flower, a leaf or a small bird. By refraining from cooking, writing, creating electricity, driving cars, flying airplanes, and other such activities, we learn that the world has already been created and will no doubt survive without us. As Abraham Joshua Heschel pointed out in The Sabbath, “The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else.”Shabbat is a day when we stop worshiping technology, money and power. Instead, we focus on our internal lives and our families – learning Torah, singing songs, and creating an inner palace of tranquility. Shabbat is holiness in time, when we allow for personal conversations with friends, reading a book, playing games with our children, and ungluing ourselves from the mobile, iPad and computer.Shabbat means living in full liberty, which is paradoxically achieved by heeding prohibitions. We free ourselves from all sorts of activities that often disturb our internal balance.What can be greater than abandoning the cell phone and suddenly discovering that we have a spouse and children? We find an island of stillness in a turbulent sea of worldliness.Yet there is one law that, while rarely applicable in Israel and large Jewish communities around the world, really sums up the whole message of this remarkable day: the prohibition against carrying any object in the public domain, besides our clothing and jewelry. Today, many cities are surrounded by an eruv (a symbolic enclosure), which makes the city into a large private domain so as to permit people to carry some of their items for reasons of convenience.But it is really this prohibition against carrying that captures the essence of the Shabbat rest, and it is a pity that its message has been nearly forgotten. What is the secret behind this law? The Buddha (c. 560-480 BCE) and Master Furong Daokai (12 century, China), both great Eastern philosophers, really hit the nail on the head when they made the following remarkable observation in Sutra on the Establishment of Mindfulness, or Satipatthana Sutta: “The green mountains are always walking... If you doubt mountains’ walking, you do not know your own walking.”(I thank Prof. Yehudah Gellman of Jerusalem for bringing this to my attention.) What did they mean? There are two reasons for walking – one is to reach a destination, and the other is for the sake of strolling.When someone walks to something, his goal is outside himself: he has to be at a business meeting, or needs to bring a parcel to a specific place.But when a person takes a stroll, the walking itself is the goal. It is not a means but das ding an sich, the thing itself. Every step is its purpose. At such a moment, a human being is connected with his very being. He is walking with himself in peace and in complete harmony. He is carrying only himself.Green mountains walk in the sense that they, in an existential way, stroll with themselves. They need not do anything but be mountains.Nothing outside themselves disturbs them in being mountains.They need not go anywhere; therefore they just stroll.A man must know how to carry himself. He should know that his inner being is the goal of his life. It is his internal life that needs to spiritually and morally grow. His happiness depends not on outside circumstances but on his attitude toward those conditions. The rare and simple pleasure of being himself will compensate for all his misery. If he meets his family or friends, he will not want to own them as objects but to relate to them in a mode in which they stroll with him, accompanying him while spiritually growing. He realizes that being is becoming.No longer is the goal of life about obtaining an object, or being somewhere for the sake of proving himself, achieving external goals, or making money. He refuses to be the slave of his own inventions, whether it is his car, computer, mobile or parcel. What he acquires on Shabbat is a way of life that brings the joy of tranquility or, as Spinoza calls it – sub specie aeternitatis – a perspective of eternity.When the Jew is told not to carry in the public domain on Shabbat, he is essentially asked not to see his life goals in the public sphere, where life is about getting somewhere. While for livelihood one no doubt needs to go places, that activity remains a weekday endeavor, a means to something but never das ding an sich.On Shabbat the Jew turns his outer mode into a being mode, and for one day a week he becomes a person who by just carrying himself, and nothing else, is able to deal with a world that has little knowledge of the soul’s needs. On Shabbat the Jew strolls even when he goes to synagogue. Only then will he realize how great he is and that nobody can make him inferior without his own consent.In a world where we refuse to take notice of what is beyond our sight, where we turn mysteries into dogmas and facts, ideas into a multitude of words and routine, the Jew is asked to surpass himself by being himself; he is summoned to discover another world.Refraining from carrying is an act of protest against the shallowness of our world. And while today we are permitted to carry outside our homes if an eruv is in place, we should never forget the great symbolic meaning inherent in the prohibition against carrying on Shabbat, which can advance us – both spiritually and morally – further than anything else.Our society stands on the precipice, and one false step can plunge us into the abyss. We have, for the most part, become a civilization of notoriously unhappy people – lonely, anxious, depressed, destructive and dependent – people who are glad to kill time that they are trying so hard to save.Shabbat is a day of truce in the midst of the human battle with the world. It teaches us that even pulling out a blade of grass is a breach of harmony, as is lighting a match.And while we need to carry objects on weekdays, so as to physically survive, one day in the week we are taught that what really counts is our ability to carry our own selves.Shabbat teaches us that the survival of the human race depends on a radical change of the human heart.The time has come for all of mankind to observe Shabbat. We need it badly. The Lord of the universe has told us to do so. And Rabbi Goldstein has delivered the goods. May he be blessed.
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli the former action boss of the Colombo crime family and fellow mobster Dino “Little Dino” Saracino had their motion for a new trial denied. Brooklyn Federal Judge Brian Cogan ruled that the favorable defense evidence the defense claimed the government withheld was not at a level of importance to have upset the jury’s guilty verdicts. Gioeli was arrested back in 2008 on charges of murder and racketeering, he was acquitted of the six murder charges but was found guilty of racketeering and now faces up to 20 years in prison. Saracino was also convicted of racketeering and obstruction of justice but like Gioeli was acquitted on murder charges. Prosecutors are pushing for not only the 20 year maximum sentence for the racketeering charge against Saracino but also an added 80 years in prison for the obstruction of justice charges.
“Thomas Gioeli (left) and Dino Saracino (right)”
Judge Cogan said that even the most favorable of the new evidence presented by the defense which included tape recordings by an alleged participant in the murder conspiracy that Gioeli was part of was but a pebble on the mountain of material they already put before the jury. The judge said he remained confident in the previous verdict and was unmoved by the aspects of the defense motion. Gioeli is set to be sentenced on November 4 and Saracino on November 22. Many believe that both mobsters will receive fairly stiff sentences running closer to the maximum then the minimum guidelines. So looks like the Colombo family will be with out two more of its members for an extended period of time as the assault by law enforcement on the New York mafia continues.Female protesters were beaten, raped and intimidated in a post-election crackdown by the Iranian authorities. Silenced by stigma and fear, these women are now using social media to bear witness to the horror
A young woman is speaking to the camera, her face obscured to prevent her being identified. Her voice heavy with emotion, and hands gesturing, she describes the rape and torture she endured at the hands of her guards while imprisoned during the post-election crackdown in Iran. "Death was my first wish," she says after recounting the physical and sexual assaults that began when she was picked up on her way home from university and thrown into a van. "I wanted it to be over. I wanted to die."
Bruised from her beatings, she was taken to a detention centre where her interrogator told her, before he raped her: "I will do something you will never forget. I'll make it so you never want to leave your house again, so any time you hear my name, you will tremble." The young student was ordered to copy a "confession", which said she was a "rioter" and a terrorist who had endangered national security. "I didn't even have nail clippers in my purse for them to say I had anything remotely sharp or dangerous," the woman retorts. "All I had done was give one vote and that was to Mousavi. A vote that was never counted."
The 22-year-old filming her statement is one of 300 women known to have been arrested in Iran since the disputed election of June 2009, when supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi took to the streets in protest against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Some cases, such as that of film-maker Mahnaz Mohammadi and Maryam Majd, a photojournalist, have been criticised, but most, like that of the young student, are unlikely to attract international attention. "No one came to look for me. No one knew when they were raping me, or when they were burning me with cigarettes," she says.
Few post-election detainees have spoken about about their experiences because they fear not only being re-arrested, but also the stigma of rape that exists in Iran. But social media is one way of bearing witness. The student's 100-minute testimony is the most detailed account of the treatment of prisoners in Iran since the crackdown began, says Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New York based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. A 28-minute segment of it has had more than 75,000 views and has been shared widely on social networks including Facebook and Twitter. It has opened up discussion about abuse, torture and rape of ordinary protesters, says Ghaemi, and fuelled his campaign to get the UN to hold Ahmadinejad to account for human rights abuses ahead of his appearance before the assembly in New York.
"The regime has capitalised on not only the fear of retribution but also the social and cultural attitudes towards rape," explains Ghaemi. "Two years after the post-election crackdown, the Iranian regime is intent on erasing any memory and documentation of the widespread violence it unleashed against protesters. This young woman's testimony is a brave act of defiance against this trend."
But the student is part of a younger generation of women who are more willing to challenge traditional attitudes about their position in society, says journalist and women's rights activist Parvin Ardalan. "Rape is something that is very difficult to talk about because of the attitude that exists, not only in Iran, that victims are to blame for what happens to them," she says. "But attitudes are slowly changing and women are starting to talk more. By going in front of a camera [the student] has challenged traditional thinking that if something happens to you, then you don't say anything.
"Social media gave the young woman a voice, enabling her to speak out about her experience and encourage other women on the margins to follow her example, but the power of social media on its own is not enough," says Ardalan. "We still have to challenge the fact that when people hear what happens to her they are less likely to believe her because she is a woman, or that she might still be blamed for what happened to her."
While victim-blaming is a problem women face around the globe, the consequences for women who speak out about rape can be deadly. Rana Husseini, a Jordan-based journalist whose book Murder in the Name of Honour is an investigation of so-called "honour killings" around the world, says: "Some women who are victims of rape could face extreme punishments that could lead to death not only because of the negative societal view of women who are raped, but because of the fact that they have lost their virginity in the process."
The stigma has been such a barrier to women reporting rape in Libya that women's rights activists have said it is unlikely that the true extent of sexual violence against women will ever be known. The risks women face were illustrated dramatically when Iman al-Obeidi went to a Tripoli hotel in March this year and told foreign journalists there that she had been gang-raped by Muammar Gaddafi's troops. She was later denounced as a "whore" by the state TV presenter Hala Misrati who claimed a decent family would not spread news about their daughter's rape. "With time they may even kill the girl herself," she concluded.
In Sudan, however, one woman has come forward to claim that she was kidnapped, assaulted and gang-raped by members of Sudan's National Intelligence and Security Services. Safiya Eshaq, a 25-year-old member of an anti-government youth group Grififna posted a video on YouTube earlier this year describing how she was attacked by secret intelligence police during protests in Khartoum. The fact that she did was brave enough – to do so with her face uncovered caught the attention of Sudan's media, which reported her claims. But Eshaq has since been forced to flee Khartoum and so far two journalists have been imprisoned and others are awaiting trial after they were accused of publishing Eshaq's "lies".
In Egypt, where the power of social media was harnessed so effectively in the revolution, women are using video, blogs, Twitter and Facebook both to hold the authorities to account and to challenge attitudes that keep women silent about rape and sexual harassment. The fact that women prisoners were subjected to torture and "virginity tests" when they were arrested in Tahrir Square in March came to light because women such as Salwa-Al-Housiny Gouda were prepared to make statements in public meetings that were posted on YouTube. This determination to bring issues to light is behind Harassmap, a project that utilises open-source mapping technology to allow women to report incidents of sexual harassment by sending a text message. "It enables women to share their feelings anonymously but it also helps highlight the problem more, to bring it into the media spotlight and make the issue heard," says Harassmap co-founder Engy Ghozan.
In partnership with Nazra, an organisation for feminist studies, Harassmap recently took part in a day of blogging and tweeting about sexual harassment, joining activists in Syria, Sudan and Lebanon. Both women and men took part, writing hundreds of blog posts in Arabic and English discussing the issue, commenting on a Facebook page and sending messages on Twitter using the hashtag #endSH in their tweet.
Prominent activist Manal Hassan wrote: "The worst thing abt sexual harrasment is it's always looming over u.. it's not abt something happening, it's the constant fear of it."
While the day of blogging helped raise awareness about the issue, some of the comments on Twitter suggesting that women are to blame and even encourage sexual harassment reveal the challenges ahead. "Perceptions need to change and we need to see an end to victim-blaming," says Ghozan. "The whole of society needs to start to take responsibility for the problem."
• A typographical error in the picture caption of this article was corrected on Monday 26 September. The original said that the film clip had been viewed more than "75,00" times online.
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Former Oakland Tribune reporter Chauncey W. Bailey Jr. is seen in this undated file photo. Bailey, as editor of the weekly Oakland Post, was shot to death in Oakland, Calif., on Aug. 2, 2007, while investigating a Black Muslim splinter group's financial dealings. Bailey has been named the posthumous winner of the George Polk Award for local journalism, one of the top prizes in U.S. journalism. (AP Photo/Oakland Tribune) **NO SALES; MAGS OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT ** less Former Oakland Tribune reporter Chauncey W. Bailey Jr. is seen in this undated file photo. Bailey, as editor of the weekly Oakland Post, was shot to death in Oakland, Calif., on Aug. 2, 2007, while... more Photo: AP Photo: AP Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Prosecutor: Evidence links bakery, Bailey killing 1 / 3 Back to Gallery
A wealth of ballistic evidence links the slayings of an Oakland newspaper editor and two other men to Your Black Muslim Bakery, whose former leader ordered all three killings but never pulled the trigger himself, a prosecutor told jurors Monday.
Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey, 57, was shot dead as he walked to work in downtown Oakland because he was planning to write a story about the now-defunct black empowerment group's financial problems, Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Melissa Krum told a jury in the triple murder trial of Yusuf Bey IV and a bakery associate, Antoine Mackey, both 25.
Another victim, Odell Roberson Jr., 31, was the uncle of a man who had shot and killed Bey's brother in a botched 2005 carjacking in North Oakland, Krum said. A third victim, Michael Wills, 36, was shot and killed simply because he was white, the prosecutor said.
Spent shotgun shells found at the scene of Bailey's slaying matched one found in Bey's bedroom andseven located on the roof of the bakery when it was raided a day after the killing, and the same SKS assault rifle was used to kill Roberson and Wills, said Krum, who showed the jury graphic autopsy and crime-scene photos of all three victims. She held up the shotgun used to kill Bailey.
"This case is voluminous in the amount of evidence, but it's not complicated," Krum said during her two-hour opening statement in the Oakland courtroom of Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon.
The three slayings, along with the shooting of an unoccupied car belonging to a man who had gotten into a dispute with bakery members were "committed upon the order of Yusuf Bey IV for the benefit of Your Black Muslim Bakery," Krum said.
No defense statements
Defense attorneys declined to give opening remarks on Monday but could do so after the prosecution rests. The jury of five men and seven women, which includes a black man and a black woman, will begin hearing evidence in the case today.
Outside court, Bey's attorney, Gene Peretti, said the defense will focus its efforts on cross-examining Devaughndre Broussard, a former bakery handyman who pleaded guilty in 2009 to two counts of voluntary manslaughter for killing Roberson on July 7, 2007, near the San Pablo Avenue bakery and Bailey on Aug. 2, 2007, near 14th and Alice streets in downtown Oakland.
In exchange for testifying truthfully during the trial - he could take the stand as early as this week - Broussard, 23, will be sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Stolen shotgun
Broussard killed Bailey with three shotgun blasts after he and Mackey staked out the journalist's home, Krum said. A day later, an Alameda police officer taking part in a multiagency raid of the bakery saw Broussard throwing the 12-gauge Mossberg shotgun out of a bakery window. The shotgun had been stolen by bakery members in 2005 when they vandalized one of two West Oakland liquor stores to curb alcohol sales, Krum said.
Broussard initially denied killing anyone, Krum said. Broussard eventually admitted to investigators that Bey had ordered him to kill Bailey - but had demanded that Broussard be a "good soldier" and take sole responsibility for the slaying.
Broussard told police that Bey had told him, "You can't miss. If you miss, they are coming down hard on the bakery," according to Krum. Bey also said, "This is going to be big," the prosecutor said, referring to Bailey's slaying.
Gary Sirbu, Mackey's attorney, said outside court, "The prosecution has an extremely difficult case to prove. They have an accomplished liar who they're calling to the witness stand who's changed his testimony every which way, and they've got to persuade a jury that this man is to be trusted."
Peretti agreed, saying, "He's lied before, he's lying again. He's completely inconsistent with his tale, and I think the jury's going to see he's a liar."
Two more killings
Prosecutors say Broussard used the SKS assault rifle to kill Roberson on July 7, 2007, the same weapon that Mackey used five days later to kill Wills. Krum said that Wills' killing was racially motivated and that he was chosen simply because he was white.
Errol Cooley, Bailey's brother who was among several family members in court Monday, said hearing the evidence in the case is like "opening up a sore, a wound all over again. Our hearts are heavy as far as our family is concerned," Cooley said. "It's not going to bring Chauncey back, but I believe justice will be served."Hundreds of cabbies associated with ride-hailing apps Uber and Ola reportedly went off the roads in Bengaluru on Jan. 23, protesting against a slew of issues they face.
Cab-aggregators have faced partial disruption in services since morning, though they are yet to formally assess the impact of the situation, an official from Uber said. There was no word from Ola at the time of publication. However, several commuters stranded in the city took to social media to complain about the lack of cabs.
The drivers in India’s Silicon Valley are demanding better remuneration structures, relief from long work hours, and a cut in the rate of commission payable to the companies.
In fact, the protest began over the weekend, news reports said. The drivers gathered in the city’s Town Hall area on Sunday, seeking intervention by the authorities to ensure that the cab aggregators follow the rules set by the Karnataka state government last year. According to these rules, commissions taken by the two companies from drivers are to be capped.
Drivers typically pay the companies a 10% commission on every ride. However, in the last few months, Uber and Ola have hiked the rates to 30%, leaving little with the drivers.
“For the past several months we have been demanding that Ola and Uber do away with flat rates and other offers which are not benefiting the drivers. Ola expects a driver to work for 20 hours to get an incentive of Rs 6,000,” Harish, a taxi-driver in Bengaluru, told the Bangalore Mirror newspaper. “It is humanly impossible to work for long hours considering the city’s traffic,” Harish added.
In an email response to Quartz, an Uber spokesperson said the company regrets the disruption caused earlier in the day. “We strive to be a mobility option for everyone in Bengaluru and we regret the disruption caused to our rider and driver community by a small group of individuals. We remain committed to serving the city, ensuring driver partners can continue to access a stable income, while giving riders a convenient, reliable option to get around their city.”
India’s ride-hailing market is expected to touch $7 billion by 2020, estimates by SoftBank Group show. However, the lack of rules over pricing and driver remuneration continue to pose a regulatory hurdle for the sector.
Meanwhile, drivers’ agitation isn’t new for the cab aggregation business which now has over half-a-million cars on Indian roads.
To build up a fleet, the companies initially showered the drivers with generous compensation and perks. However, with the number of vehicles growing, drivers’ earnings have dipped.
Services were disrupted in the city of Hyderabad in December as cabbies went off the road, demanding that the aggregators enroll fewer cars to ensure that earnings of the existing drivers aren’t hit.The dream of Halifax landing a Canadian Football League expansion franchise is once again alive.
Halifax Mayor Mike Savage confirmed that he recently met with the CFL commissioner Mark Cohon in an effort to discuss a new stadium.
Savage said the economic climate has changed, and there's a strong desire in the city — not just for a football team, but a world class venue.
"We've never given up on the idea of a stadium. At the time that we looked at it, everything wasn't in play that we needed," he said.
"We didn't have the partners at the other level of government and I think we need private sector support as well. But I think that there's some appetite and we |
I thought I was gonna die in the car at that time. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to be able to see my kids and my wife. - Derrick Bishop
When the armed thief turned his gaze away from the 20-year NYPD vet, Bishop pulled out his legal Glock.9mm and blasted Ocampo four times in the chest and neck, he said.
“I thought I was gonna die in the car at that time,” Bishop said, wiping away tears. “I didn’t want to die. I wanted to be able to see my kids and my wife.”
Ocampo tried to run but quickly collapsed on Georgia Avenue, where officers found him clutching his gun. He later died at Brookdale Hospital.
Bishop said that one of the responding officers told him that Ocampo’s gun had jammed, preventing him from shooting Bishop.
“Believe me I feel blessed and lucky – you name it,” he said. “Whoever his name is up there, God, Jehovah, Buddha, whatever it is, I believe it.”
Meanwhile, Thompson ran to his home on nearby Cozine Avenue and told his mother that someone had shot at him before she dragged him back to the scene of the crime, where investigators took him into custody and is currently being questioned, sources said.
The ex-detective, who patrolled Crown Heights before retiring in 2003, was rushed to Kings County Hospital, where he was treated for an asthma attack.
Sources said surveillance video shows Ocampo and Thompson approaching the car and then running away after the shots were fired, but does not actually show the robbery and subsequent shooting.
“He’s a very conservative person. He’s very gentle and calm,” the manager of the bottling plant said of Bishop. “I know he was caught off guard.”
Police commissioner Bill Bratton said the gun Bishop used to kill Ocampo was legal.
Bishop is not expected to be charged with a crime, sources said.Image copyright Orouba Barakat Image caption Orouba Barakat and Halla Barakat's family said they had been "assassinated"
A prominent Syrian opposition activist and her journalist daughter have been found dead in Turkey, police say.
The bodies of Orouba Barakat, 60, and her 22-year-old daughter Halla were discovered overnight in their apartment in Istanbul's central Uskudar district, after friends raised the alarm.
Orouba's sister, Shaza, said they had been stabbed to death.
In a post on Facebook, she also alleged the two women had been assassinated "by the hand of tyranny and injustice".
"Orouba wrote headlines for the front page, and she pursued criminals and exposed them. Her name and her daughter's name, Halla, are now in the front-page headlines," she added.
Turkish media reported that Orouba had been investigating allegations of torture in prisons run by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Halla was working as an editor for the pro-opposition website Orient News.
Both women were also friends with US aid worker Kayla Mueller, who was kidnapped by so-called Islamic State in Syria in 2013 and died in captivity two years later.
In an interview with ABC News last year, they spoke about their work with Mueller aiding Syrian refugees, including mothers and children.
"Just saying Kayla's name in front of them, they smile," Orouba told the American news site.
"Orouba and Halla were like a mother and sister to Kayla. They never gave up on saving her," Mueller's parents said in a statement to ABC after the news of their deaths emerged.
The US Department of State said it was "deeply saddened" by their deaths, paying tribute to the "courageous" work of Orouba Barakat. "The United States condemns the perpetrators of these murders and we will closely follow the investigation," it added.
Tributes have also been paid on social media, including one by fellow journalist and friend of Halla, Razan Saffour.
It is not the first time for tragedy to strike the family: a cousin - Deah Barakat - was shot dead alongside his wife and sister in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 2015.
The killings sparked international outrage, especially on social media where the hashtag #ChapelHillShooting was used hundreds of thousands of times.
Their neighbour, Craig Hicks, was charged with their killings. The family believe it was a hate crime targeting Muslims, but this was disputed by the US Attorney for North Carolina after initial investigations. A trial date has not yet been set.
Image copyright Our Three Winners/Facebook Image caption From left to right: Deah Barakat, his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha were killed in the US two years ago
Since the start of Syria's civil war six years ago, Turkey has become home to more than three million Syrian refugees, many of them opposition supporters.
In 2015, three Syrian activists from Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, an activist group that opposes so-called anti-Islamic State (IS), were murdered in Turkey.
A Syrian journalist who reported on the fight against IS was shot dead last year.Love is a deep emotion that makes us feel alive, we have butterflies in our stomach, think we can do anything, only the sky is the limit. But often people find it difficult to express their romantic feelings. They do all sorts of things to show their affection, but it is still very hard for them to say the notorious “I love you”.
Luckily for us, people smarter and wiser than us also found love to be the greatest of all human feelings. As a result, today we have endless number of various love quotes and sayings for every moment and occasion. From Aristotle and Plato to Oscar Wilde and Marilyn Monroe, you can always count on finding the perfect quote by perfect author just when you need it.
Here is our selection of only the best and most memorable romantic quotes you can write on an anniversary, birthday or Valentine’s Day card, send it in an e-mail or just say it to make the person you love feel special.
Love quote of the day: “True love stories never have endings” (Richard Bach)
If a hug represented how much I loved you, I would hold you in my arms forever. M. Hampton
Come live in my heart and pay no rent. Samuel Lover
For more amazing love quotes visit: ROMANTIC QUOTES THAT WILL MAKE YOUR HEART SKIP A BEAT[Note for TomDispatch Readers: In the past weeks, you could catch original pieces by Noam Chomsky, James Carroll, Pepe Escobar, and Mike Davis at this site. It's the sort of line-up you might otherwise find in a top-notch magazine. So perhaps you could think of TomDispatch as The Little Site That Could. Every piece posted here, after all, is -- we hope -- original, well written, well edited, thoughtful, informative, and provocative. We try, in any case.
The 22,000 of you who get email notices whenever a new piece is posted, as well as the tens of thousands who bookmark TomDispatch or read its pieces reposted elsewhere, can help make this The Far Bigger Site That Could by encouraging new readers to sign on or check us out. TD spreads mainly by word of mouth, a formidable force in the on-line world. For those of you already hooked, I want to urge you to lend the site a little more of that word-of-mouth power. I hope you'll consider putting together a modest list of friends, colleagues, relatives, or, for that matter, people you like to argue with who might benefit from getting TomDispatch regularly. You could urge them to go to the "sign up" window at the upper right of the main screen, put in their e-mail addresses, answer the confirmation letter that will quickly arrive in their email in-boxes (or, fair warning, their spam folders), and join the TD crew.
By the way, once again a small bow of thanks to all of you who have already availed yourselves of the "Resist Empire. Support TomDispatch" icon, also to the right of the main screen, and generously sent in contributions. Every bit of support, believe me, matters to us and we're appreciative. Tom]
Here's a snapshot in words of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner when he was still president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank from a recent portrait in the New York Times:
Small world, don't you think? This catches something of the lifestyle of Wall Street's rich and financially powerful as well as those who "regulate" them. It's no longer news that the revolving door from Wall Street to Washington and back now spins endlessly. Hence, the increasingly popular moniker "Government Sachs."
"Crony capitalism" was once a term applied to the powerful oligarchs of "emerging economies" or -- a term not heard so much these days -- banana republics. Now, however, as economist Simon Johnson has written, the U.S. is beginning to look startlingly more like one of those "emerging economies" in meltdown. And overseeing the response to the crisis are, of course, representatives of the same crony capitalists and oligarchs who helped create it.
Not surprisingly, the "solution" to the crash of '08 crafted by former Goldman Sachs chairman Henry Paulson, Jr. -- Rubin held the same job before going to Treasury in the Clinton years -- and former New York Fed chief Tim Geithner (who made Mark Patterson, a former Sachs lobbyist, his chief of staff and kept on Sachs alum Neel Kashkari to lead the bailout effort) is clearly meant to staunch the wounds of their world, not ours. TomDispatch regular Andy Kroll, who's read all the latest economic reports so you wouldn't have to, suggests below just what an instrument of Wall Street their rolling bailout program has really been. Tom
On October 3rd, as the spreading economic meltdown threatened to topple financial behemoths like American International Group (AIG) and Bank of America and plunged global markets into freefall, the U.S. government responded with the largest bailout in American history. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, better known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), authorized the use of $700 billion to stabilize the nation's failing financial systems and restore the flow of credit in the economy.
The Greatest Swindle Ever Sold How the Financial Bailout Scams Taxpayers, Subsidizes Wall Street, and Props Up Our Broken Financial System By Andy Kroll
The legislation's guidelines for crafting the rescue plan were clear: the TARP should protect home values and consumer savings, help citizens keep their homes, and create jobs. Above all, with the government poised to invest hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in various financial institutions, the legislation urged the bailout's architects to maximize returns to the American people.
That $700 billion bailout has since grown into a more than $12 trillion commitment by the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve. About $1.1 trillion of that is taxpayer money -- the TARP money and an additional $400 billion rescue of mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The TARP now includes 12 separate programs, and recipients range from megabanks like Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase to automakers Chrysler and General Motors.
Seven months in, the bailout's impact is unclear. The Treasury Department has used the recent "stress test" results it applied to 19 of the nation's largest banks to suggest that the worst might be over; yet the International Monetary Fund as well as economists like New York University professor and economist Nouriel Roubini and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman predict greater losses in U.S. markets, rising unemployment, and generally tougher economic times ahead.
What cannot be disputed, however, is the financial bailout's biggest loser: the American taxpayer. The U.S. government, led by the Treasury Department, has done little, if anything, to maximize returns on its trillion-dollar, taxpayer-funded investment. So far, the bailout has favored rescued financial institutions by subsidizing their losses to the tune of $356 billion, shying away from much-needed management changes and -- with the exception of the automakers -- letting companies take taxpayer money without a coherent plan for how they might return to viability.
The bailout's perks have been no less favorable for private investors who are now picking over the economy's still-smoking rubble at the taxpayers' expense. The newer bailout programs rolled out by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner give private equity firms, hedge funds, and other private investors significant leverage to buy "toxic" or distressed assets, while leaving taxpayers stuck with the lion's share of the risk and potential losses.
Given the lack of transparency and accountability, don't expect taxpayers to be able to object too much. After all, remarkably little is known about how TARP recipients have used the government aid received. Nonetheless, recent government reports, Congressional testimony, and commentaries offer those patient enough to pore over hundreds of pages of material glimpses of just how Wall Street friendly the bailout actually is. Here, then, based on the most definitive data and analyses available, are six of the most blatant and alarming ways taxpayers have been scammed by the government's $1.1-trillion, publicly-funded bailout.
1. By overpaying for its TARP investments, the Treasury Department provided bailout recipients with generous subsidies at the taxpayer's expense.
When the Treasury Department ditched its initial plan to buy up "toxic" assets and instead invest directly in financial institutions, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Jr. assured Americans that they'd get a fair deal. "This is an investment, not an expenditure, and there is no reason to expect this program will cost taxpayers anything," he said in October 2008.
Yet the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP), a five-person group tasked with ensuring that the Treasury Department acts in the public's best interest, concluded in its monthly report for February that the department had significantly overpaid by tens of billions of dollars for its investments. For the 10 largest TARP investments made in 2008, totaling $184.2 billion, Treasury received on average only $66 worth of assets for every $100 invested. Based on that shortfall, the panel calculated that Treasury had received only $176 billion in assets for its $254 billion investment, leaving a $78 billion hole in taxpayer pockets.
Not all investors subsidized the struggling banks so heavily while investing in them. The COP report notes that private investors received much closer to fair market value in investments made at the time of the early TARP transactions. When, for instance, Berkshire Hathaway invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs in September, the Omaha-based company received securities worth $110 for each $100 invested. And when Mitsubishi invested in Morgan Stanley that same month, it received securities worth $91 for every $100 invested.
As of May 15th, according to the Ethisphere TARP Index, which tracks the government's bailout investments, its various investments had depreciated in value by almost $147.7 billion. In other words, TARP's losses come out to almost $1,300 per American taxpaying household.
2. As the government has no real oversight over bailout funds, taxpayers remain in the dark about how their money has been used and if it has made any difference.
While the Treasury Department can make TARP recipients report on just how they spend their government bailout funds, it has chosen not to do so. As a result, it's unclear whether institutions receiving such funds are using that money to increase lending -- which would, in turn, boost the economy -- or merely to fill in holes in their balance sheets.
Neil M. Barofsky, the special inspector general for TARP, summed the situation up this way in his office's April quarterly report to Congress: "The American people have a right to know how their tax dollars are being used, particularly as billions of dollars are going to institutions for which banking is certainly not part of the institution's core business and may be little more than a way to gain access to the low-cost capital provided under TARP."
This lack of transparency makes the bailout process highly susceptible to fraud and corruption. Barofsky's report stated that 20 separate criminal investigations were already underway involving corporate fraud, insider trading, and public corruption. He also told the Financial Times that his office was investigating whether banks manipulated their books to secure bailout funds. "I hope we don't find a single bank that's cooked its books to try to get money, but I don't think that's going to be the case."
Economist Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, suggested to TomDispatch in an interview that the opaque and complicated nature of the bailout may not be entirely unintentional, given the difficulties it raises for anyone wanting to follow the trail of taxpayer dollars from the government to the banks. "[Government officials] see this all as a Three Card Monte, moving everything around really quickly so the public won't understand that this really is an elaborate way to subsidize the banks," Baker says, adding that the public "won't realize we gave money away to some of the richest people."
3. The bailout's newer programs heavily favor the private sector, giving investors an opportunity to earn lucrative profits and leaving taxpayers with most of the risk.
Under Treasury Secretary Geithner, the Treasury Department has greatly expanded the financial bailout to troubling new programs like the Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP) and the Term Asset-Backed-Securities Loan Facility (TALF). The PPIP, for example, encourages private investors to buy "toxic" or risky assets on the books of struggling banks. Doing so, we're told, will get banks lending again because the burdensome assets won't weigh them down. Unfortunately, the incentives the Treasury Department is offering to get private investors to participate are so generous that the government -- and, by extension, American taxpayers -- are left with all the downside.
Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel-prize winning economist, described the PPIP program in a New York Times op-ed this way:
"Consider an asset that has a 50-50 chance of being worth either zero or $200 in a year's time. The average 'value' of the asset is $100. Ignoring interest, this is what the asset would sell for in a competitive market. It is what the asset is 'worth.' Under the plan by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the government would provide about 92 percent of the money to buy the asset but would stand to receive only 50 percent of any gains, and would absorb almost all of the losses. Some partnership!
"Assume that one of the public-private partnerships the Treasury has promised to create is willing to pay $150 for the asset. That's 50 percent more than its true value, and the bank is more than happy to sell. So the private partner puts up $12, and the government supplies the rest -- $12 in 'equity' plus $126 in the form of a guaranteed loan.
"If, in a year's time, it turns out that the true value of the asset is zero, the private partner loses the $12, and the government loses $138. If the true value is $200, the government and the private partner split the $74 that's left over after paying back the $126 loan. In that rosy scenario, the private partner more than triples his $12 investment. But the taxpayer, having risked $138, gains a mere $37."
Worse still, the PPIP can be easily manipulated for private gain. As economist Jeffrey Sachs has described it, a bank with worthless toxic assets on its books could actually set up its own public-private fund to bid on those assets. Since no true bidder would pay for a worthless asset, the bank's public-private fund would win the bid, essentially using government money for the purchase. All the public-private fund would then have to do is quietly declare bankruptcy and disappear, leaving the bank to make off with the government money it received. With the PPIP deals set to begin in the coming months, time will tell whether private investors actually take advantage of the program's flaws in this fashion.
The Treasury Department's TALF program offers equally enticing possibilities for potential bailout profiteers, providing investors with a chance to double, triple, or even quadruple their investments. And like the PPIP, if the deal goes bad, taxpayers absorb most of the losses. "It beats any financing that the private sector could ever come up with," a Wall Street trader commented in a recent Fortune magazine story. "I almost want to say it is irresponsible."
4. The government has no coherent plan for returning failing financial institutions to profitability and maximizing returns on taxpayers' investments.
Compare the treatment of the auto industry and the financial sector, and a troubling double standard emerges: As a condition for taking bailout aid, the government required Chrysler and General Motors to present detailed plans on how the companies would return to profitability. Yet the Treasury Department attached minimal conditions to the billions injected into the largest bailed-out financial institutions. Moreover, neither Geithner nor Lawrence Summers, one of President Barack Obama's top economic advisors, nor the president himself has articulated any substantive plan or vision for how the bailout will help these institutions recover and, hopefully, maximize taxpayers' investment returns.
The Congressional Oversight Panel highlighted the absence of such a comprehensive plan in its January report. Three months into the bailout, the Treasury Department "has not yet explained its strategy," the report stated. "Treasury has identified its goals and announced its programs, but it has not yet explained how the programs chosen constitute a coherent plan to achieve those goals."
Today, the department's endgame for the bailout still remains vague. Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, wrote in the Financial Times in May that the government's response to the financial meltdown has been "ad hoc, resulting in inequitable outcomes among firms, creditors, and investors." Rather than perpetually prop up banks with endless taxpayer funds, Hoenig suggests that the government should allow banks to fail. Only then, he believes, can crippled financial institutions and systems be fixed. "Because we still have far to go in this crisis, there remains time to define a clear process for resolving large institutional failure. Without one, the consequences will involve a series of short-term events and far more uncertainty for the global economy in the long run."
The healthier and more profitable bailout recipients are once financial markets rebound, the more taxpayers will earn on their investments. Without a plan, however, banks may limp back to viability while taxpayers lose their investments or even absorb further losses.
5. The bailout's focus on Wall Street mega-banks ignores smaller banks serving millions of American taxpayers that face an equally uncertain future.
The government may not have a long-term strategy for its trillion-dollar bailout, but its guiding principle, however misguided, is clear: What's good for Wall Street will be best for the rest of the country.
On the day the mega-bank stress tests were officially released, another set of stress-test results came out to much less fanfare. In its quarterly report on the health of individual banks and the banking industry as a whole, Institutional Risk Analytics (IRA), a respected financial services organization, found that the stress levels among more than 7,500 FDIC-reporting banks nationwide had risen dramatically. For 1,575 of the banks, net incomes had turned negative due to decreased lending and less risk-taking.
The conclusion IRA drew was telling: "Our overall observation is that U.S. policy makers may very well have been distracted by focusing on 19 large stress test banks designed to save Wall Street and the world's central bank bondholders, this while a trend is emerging of a going concern viability crash taking shape under the radar." The report concluded with a question: "Has the time come to shift the policy focus away from the things that we love, namely big zombie banks, to tackle things that are truly hurting us?"
6. The bailout encourages the very behaviors that created the economic crisis in the first place instead of overhauling our broken financial system and helping the individuals most affected by the crisis.
As Joseph Stiglitz explained in the New York Times, one major cause of the economic crisis was bank overleveraging. "[U]sing relatively little capital of their own," he wrote, "[banks] borrowed heavily to buy extremely risky real estate assets. In the process, they used overly complex instruments like collateralized debt obligations." Financial institutions engaged in overleveraging in pursuit of the lucrative profits such deals promised -- even if those profits came with staggering levels of risk.
Sound familiar? It should, because in the PPIP and TALF bailout programs the Treasury Department has essentially replicated the very overleveraged, risky, complex system that got us into this mess in the first place: in other words, the government hopes to repair our financial system by using the flawed practices that caused this crisis.
Then there are the institutions deemed "too big to fail." These financial giants -- among them AIG, Citigroup, and Bank of America -- have been kept afloat by billions of dollars in bottomless bailout aid. Yet reinforcing the notion that any institution is "too big to fail" is dangerous to the economy. When a company like AIG grows so large that it becomes "too big to fail," the risk it carries is systemic, meaning failure could drag down the entire economy. The government should force "too big to fail" institutions to slim down to a safer, more modest size; instead, the Treasury Department continues to subsidize these financial giants, reinforcing their place in our economy.
Of even greater concern is the message the bailout sends to banks and lenders -- namely, that the risky investments that crippled the economy are fair game in the future. After all, if banks fail and teeter at the edge of collapse, the government promises to be there with a taxpayer-funded, potentially profitable safety net.
The handling of the bailout makes at least one thing clear, however: It's not your health that the government is focused on, it's theirs -- the very banks and lenders whose convoluted financial systems provided the underpinnings for staggering salaries and bonuses while bringing our economy to the brink of another Great Depression.
Andy Kroll is a writer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His writing has appeared at TheNation.com, Alternet, CNN.com, CBSNews.com, and Truthout, among other places. He welcomes feedback, and can be reached at his website.
Copyright 2009 Andy KrollCognitive behavioral therapy and second-generation antidepressants are equally effective as treatments for major depression, according to new, evidence-based clinical guidelines published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Major depressive disorder can be debilitating. Major depressive disorder can be debilitating.
The guidelines urge physicians to discuss the effects of treatment, possible adverse effects, cost, accessibility and preferences with patients before choosing an approach.
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a serious medical condition. In 2014, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), around 6.7% of American adults, or 15.7 million of those aged 18 years and over, reported experiencing at least one major depressive episode in the previous year.
The effects of MDD include a lack of energy and loss of interest in things previously enjoyed, but symptoms can lead to disability and absenteeism from work or study, physical disease and even early death.
Variety of treatments includes CBT and medications
Treatments for MDD include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and second-generation antidepressants (SGAs), but primary care physicians, usually the first port of call for patients with depression, often start by prescribing SGAs.
Fast facts about depression MDD accounts for 3.7% of all US disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)
It accounts for 8.3% of years lived with disability in the US (YLDs)
In 2014, depression was most common in the 18-25 year age group, at 9.3%. Learn more about depression
SGAs include including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRIs), bupropion, mirtazapine, nefazodone and trazodone.
Adverse effects include constipation, diarrhea, nausea, headache, dizziness, sexual dysfunction, difficulty sleeping and drowsiness.
CBT combines cognitive and behavioral therapy. It focuses on changing a person's thoughts and beliefs and their impact on mood and actions.
This can reduce unhealthy behavior patterns and help the individual to become healthier and more adaptive.
In minor and moderate depression, CBT can help to restructure negative thought patterns, to recognize the source of depression and to change the actions that exacerbate it.
Other non-drug treatments include complementary and alternative medicines or exercise therapies and combination therapies.
New guidelines compare effectiveness of therapies
In the new guideline, the American College of Physicians (ACP) summarize and grade evidence comparing the effectiveness and safety of non-drug treatments and SGAs, alone or in combination, for MDD in adults.
The team evaluated response to treatment, remission, functional capacity, quality of life, reduction of suicide or suicidal ideation, hospitalizations and harms.
Moderate-quality evidence reflected similar levels of both effectiveness and discontinuation rates for CBT and SGAs. Low-quality evidence revealed little difference between SGAs and non-drug treatments in terms of effectiveness and adverse effects as a first-line treatment.
If taking SGAs does not improve a patient's condition, low-quality evidence indicates that switching to another drug, adding another drug or adding or switching to non-drug therapy all have a similar effect as second-line treatment.
St. John's wort: it could be better tolerated than SGAs
Low-quality evidence shows that St. John's wort - an herbal medicine - may be as effective as SGAs; moderate-quality evidence suggests that St. John's wort is better tolerated than SGAs.
However, St. John's wort is not currently regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US, so there are no standards regulating the contents and potency of the medication.
Quality-controlled St. John's wort may, therefore, be hard to find. It may also be difficult to obtain preparations with similar effectiveness as those included in the studies.
Evidence shows that St. John's wort can cause mild gastrointestinal symptoms, skin reactions, fatigue, sedation, restlessness, dizziness, headache and dry mouth. It can also interact with other drugs to cause adverse effects.
ACP President Dr. Wayne J. Riley says:
"CBT is a reasonable approach for initial treatment and should be strongly considered as an alternative treatment to SGAs where available, and after discussing treatment effects, adverse effect profiles, costs, accessibility and preferences with patients."
Medical News Today recently reported on research suggesting that depression passes from mothers to daughters.The Republican National Convention on Thursday night showcased a tweet from a white supremacist account during 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 acceptance speech for the GOP presidential nomination.
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The tweet appeared on four large screens in the Quicken Loans Arena during Trump's speech as part of a series of tweets that were highlighted and curated by the Republican National Convention, according to Time.
"'Tonight I'm with you, I will fight for you, and I will WIN for you!' - Donald J Trump. It's time to start WINNING again!#TrumpIsWithYou," the account, called @Western_Triumph, tweeted Thursday, quoting a line from Trump's speech.
The user behind the account describes themself as "#AltRight," "#ProWhite" and a "#RaceRealist" in the account's bio.
In a tweet Friday morning, @Western_Triump called desegregation a disaster.
"Everyone needs a place of their own. Stop the hate: Separate!"Smoke billowing over Aleppo, Syria Narciso Contreras / AP Syria's secular and moderate rebels could be on the brink of their biggest defeat yet.
According to a report published by the International Crisis Group on September 8, the regime of Syrian president Bashar al Assad and the jihadist group ISIS are squeezing the rebels out of Aleppo, the strategic and symbolic center of the country's three-year-old revolution.
The report warns that if the rebels' hold on the city is broken, Syria's conflict could slip into an even more dangerous and anarchic phase — and the U.S. and its allies would lose their most valuable partners on the battlefield, a fighting force with local credibility and years of experience fighting both ISIS and Assad.
"Rebel-held areas in and around Aleppo remain the most valuable of the mainstream opposition's dwindling assets," the report states. The Assad regime is "on the verge of severing the last rebel supply line linking it to Turkey." And although the Syrian rebels handed ISIS one of its most significant defeats in January of 2014, when it drove the jihadist group from the city, that achievement is now in danger: ISIS is attacking the rebels from the north, as the city's defenders remain bogged down against regime forces moving in from west of town.
The national-level appeal, and indeed the very survival of the Syrian revolution, depends largely on its ability to hold Aleppo.
Mike Nudelman/Business Insider
The rebels have endured a series of setbacks since mid-2012, when some observers believed the Assad regime was on the brink of collapse.
The American-brokered Syrian chemical weapons deal effectively destroyed any chance of game-changing U.S. support against Assad, a development that the Crisis Group says fractured the rebel coalition and forced certain factions into a pragmatic alliance with al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al Nusra.
Subsequently, the Assad regime's brutal barrel-bombing campaign against rebel-held areas, its systematic murder of over 10,000 anti-government activists, internal fracture within the rebel coalition, and the rapid advance of ISIS, have diminished the Syrian opposition to the point where it no longer appears a realistic, viable alternative to Assad, as it did throughout 2012 and much of 2013.
But it isn't totally beaten, partly because of its ability to hold Aleppo.
"What's at stake in Aleppo is not regime victory, but opposition defeat," the report states — with ISIS sweeping through former rebel territory in Syria's east, and Assad laying siege to rebel areas "to the point of starvation in some cases," Aleppo is the revolution's last remaining beachhead.
The International Crisis Group predicts that if the rebels lose Aleppo, the war would continue between ISIS and Assad. The regime isn't strong enough to reconquer territory taken by ISIS, who would probably begin hunting down the remnants of the secular revolution while consolidating control over its vast domain in eastern and northern Syria.
In such a situation, there would be even less of a credible path to a negotiated solution to Syria's civil war — and, most importantly, no fighting force committed to Syria's survival as a country.
The Assad regime has an Alawite-sectarian bent, and has retreated to the Syrian coast, where most of the minority religious sect lives. Assad has conceded territory in the east to ISIS, a group that's unilaterally nullified the Iraqi-Syrian border and whose declaration of a Caliphate highlights its trans-national ambitions. ISIS's Caliphate runs counter to Syria's very existence.
If Aleppo falls, the idea of a united Syria could fall with it. The only combatants left would be a serial human rights abuser that's beat a tactical retreat to a sectarian enclave in the west — and ISIS, perhaps the richest and best-armed jiihadist group in history.
The Syrian civil war has already displaced over 9 million people, and killed over 200,000. A conflict that's already one of the worst humanitarian and political cataclysms of the 21st century could be on the verge of getting even worse.The White House on Tuesday escalated its feud with Sen. Bob Corker Robert (Bob) Phillips CorkerBrexit and exit: A transatlantic comparison Sasse’s jabs at Trump spark talk of primary challenger RNC votes to give Trump 'undivided support' ahead of 2020 MORE, sending an unmistakable signal to other Republicans that public criticism of President Trump will be met with a fierce public scolding.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders used her news briefing to tear into Corker, saying he had “rolled out the red carpet” for the Iran nuclear deal. She also voiced ambivalence about calls from Trump allies for the Tennessee Republican to resign.
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The barbs followed a fresh Twitter blast from Trump, in which the president gave the 5-foot-7-inch Corker a new disparaging nickname, “‘Liddle’ Bob,” and said he had been made to look like a “fool” in an interview.
While many Senate Republicans were hoping to move on from the dispute, which began over the weekend, the White House appeared interested in underlining the consequences for any Republican who crosses Trump.
In comments criticizing Trump over the weekend, Corker openly worried that the president could lead the country into World War III and said that almost every other Senate Republican shared his concerns.
Those remarks had to alarm a White House that has struggled to move forward with its agenda.
Still, the attacks on Corker are unlikely to help Trump notch a much-needed legislative victory.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman is a key player on the issues expected to dominate Washington this fall, including tax reform. He also joins a growing list of Republican senators who may have reason to balk at White House demands.
Sanders seemed ready to take on Corker from the opening of her briefing, saying the senator was partially responsible for the Obama-era nuclear pact with Tehran, which Trump has called “the worst deal ever.”
“Sen. Corker worked with Nancy Pelosi and the Obama administration to pave the way for that and rolled out the red carpet for the Iran deal,” Sanders told reporters.
The criticism was especially cutting, given that Trump is expected to decertify Iran’s compliance with the agreement in the coming days. Corker will have a major say over whether Congress acts to reimpose sanctions on Tehran if the president takes such a step.
Challenged on the remark later in the press conference, Sanders said she stood by her comments.
Conservatives have long criticized Corker’s role in the Iran deal, arguing that he had virtually assured its creation by supporting a process that allowed a vote of disapproval against the deal that required 60 votes to pass. The vote was blocked by Senate Democrats in a 56-42 vote.
On Tuesday, Corker’s office defended the review legislation, saying he drafted it against the wishes of the Obama White House to ensure lawmakers were able to review the agreement.
The claim from Sanders was “not true,” Corker’s office stated.
Sanders on Tuesday bristled at Corker’s charge that chaos sown by Trump endangers national security, rattling off a list of accomplishments that included new sanctions on North Korea and battlefield gains against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
“Sen. Corker may have an opinion, but the facts certainly don’t lie,” she said. “The president’s been very successful on this front.”
Asked if Trump agrees with some of his supporters, including former chief strategist Stephen Bannon, that Corker should step down, Sanders replied, “I think that’s a decision for Sen. Corker and the people of Tennessee.”
Some GOP allies worry Trump’s feud with the influential senator could |
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Bokhari has not yet responded to request for comment.Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has opened a 16-point lead over Republican Donald Trump among likely voters in Virginia (48%-32%), according to The Roanoke College Poll. Libertarian Gary Johnson received the support of 8 percent of likely voters, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein trailed the field with 3 percent, while 9 percent remain undecided. In a two-way matchup, Clinton's lead extends to 19 points (55%-36%). The candidates were tied in the May Roanoke College Poll.
The Roanoke College Poll interviewed 803 likely voters in Virginia between August 7 and August 17 and has a margin of error of +3.5 percent.
Voters care about outcome, but not pleased with candidates
Nearly two-thirds of likely voters (64%) said they were very interested in the campaign (27% were somewhat interested), and 88 percent said they care a good deal about who wins the presidential election. Democrats (71%) are now more likely to be very interested in the campaign compared to Republicans (61%), and more likely to care a good deal about who wins (93% of Democrats; 67% of Republicans).
Clinton has improved her standing among Democrats since May (91% support her now compared to 78% in May), and Trump's support among Republicans has declined slightly from 80 percent in May to 78 percent in August. Clinton holds strong leads among both political Independents (43%-25%) and self-described moderates (57%-22%). About half (49%) of Clinton supporters said their vote was more of a vote for her than against Trump (38%), while Trump backers were more likely to say their vote is one against Clinton (49%) rather than for him (35%).
Clinton's favorable ratings, though not good, have improved from May (39% favorable; 45% unfavorable compared to 35% and 50% in May), while Trump's numbers are very poor and marginally worse than in May (23% favorable; 63% unfavorable down from 23% and 56%).
We asked how voters would feel if either candidate was elected president in November. One-in-five (20%) respondents said they would feel proud, with another 32 percent satisfied, but 28 percent would be disgusted if Clinton wins. Those numbers are largely unchanged in three months. Again, Trump's numbers are even worse and very similar to May (7% proud, 27% satisfied, and 49% disgusted). While party affiliation has a large impact on those numbers, 2 percent of Democrats said they would be disgusted with a President Clinton (43% would be proud), while 8 percent of Republicans would be disgusted with a President Trump (only 17% would be proud).
Clinton was preferred by likely voters to Trump on a variety of issues, including the economy (50%-43%), terrorism (55%-38%), health care (57%-33%), race relations (66%-21%), immigration (56%-36%), foreign policy (64%-28%), and firearms policy (47%-43%). Clinton (9% very honest; 39% somewhat honest) was marginally viewed as more honest than Trump (11% very honest; 31% somewhat honest), and 72 percent said she is qualified to be president (42% very qualified; 30% somewhat qualified) compared to 36% who said Trump is qualified (10% very qualified; 26% somewhat qualified). Clinton was also seen as a having a temperament that is fitting for president (72%) compared to 28 percent for Trump. A majority of respondents said she at least somewhat understands the problems of people like them (56%), while just over one-third (36%) said the same about Trump.
Vice-presidential candidate and Virginia Senator Tim Kaine is viewed favorably by a majority (52%) of respondents. That is a significant increase from 32 percent in January, the last time we asked that question. Republican VP candidate Mike Pence has a favorable rating of only 24 percent, but 4-in-10 (40%) don't know enough about him to have an opinion.Posted on August 20, 2014 by Fons "Fonzy" Leenaars
Hello once again awesome people,
It’s been a busy week here at Merlini’s Police HQ. The last post regarding the Twitch VoD changes received some very useful feedback on Reddit as far as our options were concerned, and you have my thanks for that!
So what did we end up doing?
Highlight everything!
We could have highlighted every single VoD in its full duration, thus allowing the backbone of the catalog (the VoDs) to continue existing, but we chose to step away from this option. Although it would fix the current problem we’re facing, we decided to just move away from Twitch as the storage/hosting facility of the content in general. We’ll obviously continue to use it for the live stream, but as far as cataloged content goes; we’ll be switching services.
Export to YouTube
The next logical option was mass exporting everything. I was worried we wouldn’t get this done in time, but after setting up a list of all the VoDs that would have to be exported (a nice round 700 of them) it turned out it wouldn’t be a problem after all. At the moment I’m about 1/3 through but I probably won’t finish the rest of the VoDs as I’ll be using option 3 for the actual catalog content. As for why I stopped with the exports: It turns out YouTube cuts the VoDs into 2 hour segments. This wasn’t a problem until I then discovered that the YouTube editor doesn’t work with any videos >= 2 hours in length. That meant that I couldn’t cut the VoDs into single games once exported. Such a shame, this really would have been the easiest solution otherwise!
Download everything!
A rough calculation gave me “3.3TB” of data as a reasonable assumption for the size of Merlini’s VoDs. “Well shit” was the first thought running through my head. After that I realized that Twitch also divides VoDs into 30 minute segments, and I had never stored those references when indexing the catalog. Luckily a few quick google searches allowed me to obtain all the links to the source files for all the VoDs. The only thing remaining was having all those bits & pieces automatically downloaded and stored somewhere. We went out and got a 4TB external hard drive (and of course whenever you buy something with 4TB, it only has 3.6TB of actual space, love those little facts) and I set up a quick automated download script that is currently running.
So, what about the catalog then?
After the download completes (hopefully in time) I might be needing your help, and I’ll let you know about that in the next post (it has to do with indexing the end time for all the games). Then we’ll upload all the individual games to YouTube, reindex those new YouTube links in our catalog and that should make everything work again! We’ll have some more manual editing work in the future because of this change, but in the end I think it’ll make for better content, and easier for you guys to browse & enjoy.
Last but not least; we would all like to say thank you for your support! “We” being myself (Fonzy), Protease & Merlini. A lot of this stuff we’ve done, from the catalog to the silly sub-olympics streams is with the hope that you can all enjoy & perhaps learn something from Ben’s content. It’s our absolute pleasure to continue providing these.
And as always; stay awesome folks!
Here’s a marginally-awkward picture from Ben at ESL for reading this whole thing. He’s asleep at the moment so he won’t notice for a couple of hours!The statement "the personal is political" may have lost clout for some (and never had any for others), but not for me. I don't mean party political, but rather the workings of power in general. If my personal beliefs are out of sync with my activities in the world, then my life is not what it could be.
To be repeatedly put down and witness others being put down induces a sense of powerlessness. Anger is for fighting back, righting wrongs, striking a blow for justice. It is evolutionarily adaptive. Anger is what brings people out onto the streets. It brings about anti-discrimination legislation and Arab Springs. Anger is also why — given half a chance — the disenfranchised tear things apart.
Just as suicide bombings are not cowardly acts, vandalism and rioting are not mindless. Don't get me wrong. Saying that something is neither cowardly nor mindless is not to say it's right. Describing is not endorsing. And as philosopher Peter Singer points out, just because something is doesn't imply that's how it ought to be. For example, out of our awareness of the innate human capacity to inflict damage come our collective efforts to curb it. In contrast, rather than curbing the meanest and greediest of activities, market economics applauds them. Why enforce laws against violence and theft at the same time as freeing the market to take whatever it can?
The question isn't rhetorical and the answer's not rocket science. What investment banker has to spend more than the odd moment (for eample using public transport, having forgotten to remove his Rolex) worrying about imminent physical attack? On the other hand, what investment banker doesn't spend a great deal of time worrying about losing a centillionth of his freedom to reap in squillions for doing precisely nothing productive? The 1 per cent knows how to look after itself.
Which brings me to the Occupy movement. As an aside, I'd target the top 10 per cent that owns 85 per cent of global wealth. The rest is the 90 per cent; more than half of which shares just 1 per cent of the wealth. Current statistics on global wealth disparity equate it to a scenario where, out of a 100-person population, one person receives $900 and each of the others, $1.The office of the Sydney Morning Herald has been a busy place since Paul Sheehan wrote his infamous piece on “Louise”. The column’s racially charged rape allegations have since unravelled. In the two weeks or so since it was published, it has yielded a video plea from the author to the subject, at least five separate apologies, a correction, a retraction, a press council complaint and an internal investigation by the editor-in-chief of the Herald.
That has now concluded. The editor-in-chief, Darren Goodsir, was said to be distraught at the damage done, and made an impassioned speech to staff on standards. In a public statement he said he had found “unacceptable breaches of fundamental journalistic practice”. And at the end of all this came … a suspension. Sheehan wasn’t even mentioned by name in Goodsir’s statement. As the sun went down last Friday, one of the longest and strangest careers in Australian journalism was diminished, even disgraced. Yet, somehow, it continued.
Even the newspaper’s own staff were incredulous. People inside and outside the paper drew comparisons with the columnist Mike Carlton, who resigned ahead of a reported suspension for swearing at readers in correspondence. Not exactly a cardinal sin. Yet it was the very severity of Sheehan’s repeated transgressions that made him immovable.
“Why do they keep him?” is a question that has been asked for much longer than a fortnight. The usual answer is that he is a useful figleaf. When the suits complain about a lack of conservative writers, “but we’ve got Sheehan” is the response.
The deeper answer is more subtle. Over his decades-long career, Sheehan has made himself an intermediary. He is an essentially tabloid journalist at a broadsheet paper, an insurgent in enemy territory. He is a populist rightwinger in genteel left-liberal surrounds. He is an old-school newspaper columnist who has assiduously learned the language of clicks and shareability, becoming one of the most read and shared commentators in the Fairfax stable.
More than that, he is a conduit between the mainstream media and the fringes, someone who operates somewhere between research and anecdote, who can slide all the way down the line from fact to rumour to falsehood. His articles show a fixation, even an obsession, with race, immigration and crime.
Sheehan’s worldview is shot through with paranoia. Not only has a criminal “other” permeated western society, to his mind, but leftwing do-gooders refuse to face that reality. He believes he is one of the few brave enough to name the crime out loud.
The media generally does a poor job of expressing anxieties about immigration, either reflecting too many or too few. A writer who publishes things that are thought but not said, or said but not read, finds an immediate and grateful audience.
It’s also a valuable one. Before the media grafted for clicks online, newspapers had another debased currency of value: letters. Sheehan was always one for working the mailbag.
The Louise debacle is inexplicable without this context. (For some it’s inexplicable even with it.) Other news organisations are reviewing their own processes in the wake of the scandal, but remain incredulous.
“We just can’t believe it,” says a senior editor at another Australian newspaper. “It’s unthinkable that something like that could end up on page one. It should never – could never happen …
“Sheehan’s reportage has always been a trouble. I remember reading parts of Among the Barbarians [Sheehan’s 1998 book] and thinking, ‘This sounds like bullshit.’ They should have been alert to it.”
And staff at Fairfax were alert to it. Sheehan’s enthusiasm for dubious contacts was well known. Take almost any lunar-right figure in Australia – Cory Bernardi, the Australian Liberty Alliance, Kirralie Smith from Halal Choices – and Sheehan has written a quote-heavy column in their favour, usually rounded out with some kind of oblique endorsement.
Such pieces were widely shared among anti-mosque campaigners and anti-halal groups. They also attracted “hate-reads”, and resonated beyond the fringe, given the anxieties of a white and ageing broadsheet readership. Pieces like this got far greater social media reach than, say, Sheehan’s lighter columns about the dangers of feral cats or the deliciousness of Koko Black chocolate.
But trucking with such characters carried risks. Add in strained editorial resources and Sheehan’s bullying personality and the combination became toxic and unstable. A former senior editor at the Herald describes the fraught culture that developed around the late-career columnist:
Previous opinion editors had been warned that every fifth or sixth piece Sheehan wrote would be unpublishable. They were warned that he would ignore the concerns of anyone but the most senior staff. They were told the pieces would be easy to recognise, and that when they came, the editor should be alerted, who would take care of it. Sometimes pieces were salvaged by some editorial heavy lifting, others were binned at a glance. Former Herald editor Amanda Wilson was particularly unyielding when it came to Sheehan’s sloppiest work. Sheehan was more attuned than any other op-ed writer at the SMH to the power of clicks and comments. He was by far the most-read and often the most commented-upon columnist online, and took great pride in being so. But it was like a drug: the more he obsessed about it, the more pornographic his columns became.
The Louise piece was the most pornographic of all, a racial “outrage” story that recalled the most lurid strains of old-fashioned yellow journalism. Louise claimed she was a former nurse who had been gang-raped and left for dead by a group of Arabic-speaking males. She claimed she had been treated in hospital afterwards but never identified, and that police had failed to take an interest in her case. (No evidence for any of this has yet emerged.)
The column was also a demonstration of how grossly distorted the power imbalances had become between junior and senior staff, and how weak the paper’s fact-checking had grown. Three people in the editorial chain are understood to have queried the story, but were beaten back by Sheehan’s insistence. Both the acting opinion editor, Leigh Tonkin, and the print editor, Heath Gilmore, asked the writer if he had contacted the police. He told them this was unnecessary as it was a comment piece. He was adamant he had all the evidence needed to run the story.
In reality he had almost nothing. He had not even found the Facebook page belonging to Louise when he googled her real name. He had failed to find a video of her speaking at a Reclaim Australia event. The technology was beyond him.
He had not called the hospital where she supposedly worked, or asked how she could have stayed as a patient, unnamed and uninvestigated, for months. He had not inquired after her 79 broken bones, an injury which would put her in a trauma category alongside Evel Knievel. And he had not seen the diaries in which she recorded the incredible attack, for one simple reason: Sheehan had never met Louise.
Louise has a manner of storytelling that quickly escalates into fantasy. That alone should have alerted Sheehan to the fact she was not what she said she was. But he never had a chance to experience it face to face: they only spoke over the phone. They had been introduced by an intermediary, who had met Sheehan and then passed his phone number to Louise. Sheehan was told early on that he would never be able to access the diaries which supposedly contained contemporaneous accounts of her attacks and others. He was not deterred and it wasn’t until the day before the Herald ran his column that he really pressed for more evidence. It didn’t come but he proceeded to publication anyway.
Perhaps even more critical than him not meeting Louise is Sheehan’s failure to speak to police. As I wrote last month, had her story been brought to police, and had the police failed to act, it would have represented a unique failure of the public services. But if he had called the police, not only could they have told him there were no records of any such crime, they may have been able to tell the columnist something else – that Louise was well known to them.
John (not his real name), a former confidant of Louise, was present in 2013 when police raided her flat. Officers had often come looking for her in the past but this time they arrived in more serious numbers. “She told me they were trying to bust her for stealing OxyContin and selling it to homeless people,” John says. Louise told John that the same officers often arrived after calls related to other disturbances, apparently disgruntled they had been unable to make the charges stick. She had a reputation for becoming belligerent when housing authorities were called. Louise really had been a nurse, but was last registered in 2003.
“I had heard the story of this supposed attack many times,” says John. “But it was always nine men, not six. And it wasn’t until after the Martin Place siege [in December 2014] that she changed her story to include Middle Eastern Muslim men. The Man Monis business gave rise to some anti-Muslim sentiment in Australia and I think she was trying to take advantage of that to get more sympathy.”
Sheehan had been obsessed with rapes by ethnic minorities since writing a book – Girls Like You – about the trials of the Skaf and K brothers in the early 2000s. He was convinced these offences were only the tip of the iceberg, that Muslim rape gangs had acted with impunity in the face of impotent, “culturally sensitive” policing. The story of Louise was the corroboration he’d been looking for.
So began the breakdown in journalistic systems at the Sydney Morning Herald. Sheehan was adamant his source was legitimate, and that was enough.
But where did the sense of urgency to go to press come from? There was plenty of time. The story described alleged events 14 years old and there was no danger of anyone else running it. Conducting checks on Louise’s story, perhaps even identifying possible perpetrators, may have even improved the tale, if it was true. And several people weren’t at all sure that it was. But every story in a newspaper becomes urgent if there is nothing else to replace it. Sheehan was not going to let relatively junior staff chip away at his authority. After all, he had written a book on integrity in journalism in the digital age (even though the Herald’s own writers criticised The Electronic Whorehouse).
If that was all, perhaps we could leave the story of Sheehan and Louise here. A credulous columnist with a fixation on racially motivated crimes taken in by a persuasive manipulator, and a news organisation struggling with fact checking and the chain of command in the digital age. But things like this have happened to Sheehan too many times for it to be an accident, and for too long.
It was 30 years ago, in October 1986, that the Herald printed the story that cemented Sheehan’s reputation. Then a news writer, Sheehan made 40 phone calls in a day to get a quote from Malcolm Fraser on the “Memphis trousers affair”. The former prime minister had been found dishevelled, trouser-less and disorientated in the foyer of a hotel. The story, and Fraser’s quote – “I wish I’d never been to bloody Memphis” – entered journalistic folklore.
But just a month earlier, Sheehan had been caught perpetrating a major fabrication. In September 1986, the paper sent him to Punta Del Este in Uruguay, to report on major 92-nation trade talks. He duly began filing reports, describing the negotiations in detail. But Sheehan wasn’t in Punta Del Este at all. He was in fact elsewhere, having a tryst with the woman who would become his wife. Other correspondents were asked why they were missing the colour Sheehan was getting. It was because they were actually present.
The ruse was discovered, and he was packed off to Punta. In the beery, matey world of 1980s journalism, the deception was treated a bit like an outrageous prank.
Sheehan now claims this version of events is wrong. “I reported on the GATT conference at the GATT conference, the only way I could find out what was going on. I recall no problems with the stories.” But this does not match the recollection of those present.
The consequences weren’t serious. They never really became serious. And so a line shifted, and kept on shifting, until no one, perhaps not even Sheehan, knew where it was any more.
After Uruguay came the US, where Sheehan’s ambitions became more serious. He tried to write for the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly but found their production protocols glacial and their insistence on thorough fact checking irritating. He also discovered a topic that was to define his future output: race crime. On his return to Australia he described his “own experience with black Americans in the past decade, which includes attempted murder, assault, theft, bottle-throwing, being showered with beer, and being called ‘cracker’, ‘honkey’, ‘motherf…er’, ‘white trash’, and ‘blue-eyed devil’.” That piece, published in 1995 as part of a series called ‘Four stories the US media refuse to tell’, was called ‘The race war of black against white’. It has since become a staple of white supremacist websites. On the largest, stormfront.org, Sheehan’s name appears hundreds of times. The story contains this line: “In the mid-1960s … there was a sharp increase in black crime against whites, an upsurge which, not coincidentally, corresponds exactly with the beginning of the modern civil rights movement.”
Australia in the late ’90s was changing. Paul Keating’s Asian outlook was giving way to John Howard’s white-armband visions, and Sheehan’s views on race found their natural milieu. At least rhetorically, the forces of multiculturalism were in retreat, and Pauline Hanson was voicing the belief that Australia was “in danger of being swamped by Asians”. It was in this environment that Sheehan wrote a series on Asian crime that the then Herald editor, John Lyons, refused to publish.
The claims in the series were so astonishing that Lyons was concerned they might promote racist attacks. Sheehan said a three-month investigation had uncovered Medicare rorting, widespread marriage scams, electricity theft, tax avoidance and Asians calling white Australians “dogs”. But when Lyons pressed for evidence and sources, they seemed to be missing. There was nothing from the Australian Taxation Office, the police or Medicare. Sheehan’s information came from interviews with only a few sources, all unnamed.
He identified an entire Vietnamese family of seven as welfare frauds but hadn’t contacted them for comment. His major piece of evidence for the “rorting” turned out to be a single news story, about the theft of a wallet in Kings Cross, when only a Medicare card was taken. Unconvinced, Lyons killed the series.
“Apart from a few books people had written saying Chinese immigrants were criminals, he was not able to produce a single piece of documentation supporting his claims,” Lyons later told the writer Gideon Haigh. “In my view it was poorly researched. No editor who cared about his paper’s reputation would have published this stuff. Not one of the Herald editors I spoke to thought the piece was of a standard to be published.”
Sheehan published the material anyway, in his book Among the Barbarians. It became a huge bestseller, with more than 80,000 copies in print.
Strangely, Asian crime no longer seems to concern its author. If he still thinks that Asians are culturally primed for totalitarianism and corruption, he now keeps the belief to himself. Colours change as fashions change, and so Sheehan’s concern has moved from black people to Asian people to Middle Eastern Muslims.
The Herald sometimes tried to curb his worst impulses. In 2008 he wrote in the print edition that “thousands of Australians have paid a heavy price for the failed refugee-vetting processes in the 1970s and 1980s, when thousands of parasites who should never have been allowed into the country were approved”. The online copy was quickly amended to read “many people” instead of “thousands of parasites”.
But by this time the Herald’s culture was already running into difficulties. Lyons had moved on and so had many around him. Those with the authority and the knowledge to stand up to Sheehan were thinning; he had outlasted them. Others he manipulated – from the start of his career he had shown a knack for cultivating the affection of older men. Younger women were less impressed.
In 2003 he wrote a bizarre column about the deliciousness of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. It was unusually detailed: “Customers can watch the doughnuts being made behind large glass walls and everyone gets a free Original Glazed, the most popular of the 15 varieties on sale ($1.50 each, or $10.90 for a dozen Original Glazed, or $1.80 and $12.90 a dozen for everything else).”
Sheehan went on to become a significant shareholder in Krispy Kreme, and his longtime friend David Coe became a director. In 2010, when Krispy Kreme Australia went into receivership, the Age’s business columnist Michael Evans wrote: “A maze of companies reveals it is a subsidiary of another company controlled by Kinghorn and John McGuigan. Other shareholders in the structure include David Coe via his private company Monetti, Greg Jones … and journalist Paul Sheehan.”
Sheehan was furious about the disclosure and, at his insistence, senior Fairfax staff scrubbed the reference from one of their websites and removed it from later editions of the paper.
The pattern repeated when Sheehan promoted a magical water with healing properties on the pages of the Good Weekend magazine. The 2002 story made Sheehan a laughing stock among other journalists – he had swallowed wholesale the claims of a cure-all potion, and done almost nothing to check its creators’ credentials. Again, the story was too good to be true:
Miracle water? Can something as simple as this mineral-rich water really combat arthritis, fatigue and osteoporosis … and help you live longer?
The answer was no. It didn’t seem to hurt Sheehan with many readers though, who bought his claims of naivety when Unique Water’s owner fled the country.
But another Sydney Morning Herald contributor was livid. Ben Hills investigated Sheehan’s claims and found they were baseless. He submitted an investigation to the paper in 2005, detailing the many deceptions of Unique Water. But the then editor, Robert Whitehead, sat on the story. It went through an extremely unusual six-week editing process. In the meantime, Sheehan was allowed to file a follow-up piece, in which he insinuated that Unique Water’s founder may have murdered his own wife. Characteristically, Sheehan felt bullied. “I’ve complained to the editor-in-chief about an abusive phone call from Ben Hills,” he told Media Watch.
Hills’ article did run eventually. It noted that “no medical trials had been conducted to test the efficacy of the water” and that it relied on an “endorsement by Sheehan – and the five other people, one dog and one cat (deceased)”.
It described the interplay between Sheehan and the water’s inventor, “a 54-year-old veterinarian named Russell John Beckett, who was quoted copiously, largely uncritically, throughout the article. Sheehan says he spent two months fact-checking the article, producing an 8,000-word commentary containing 42 sources, to satisfy his editors on the credibility of Beckett’s claims. However, much appears to have been overlooked.”
There were huge, glaring falsehoods in Beckett’s story, which Sheehan had put to print intact. As long as the fabrications were coming from someone else, his position was assured. He took leave then returned to work as though nothing had happened.
At times it seemed the paper would back him no matter what. As the federal election campaign ramped up in 2013, so did a notorious rightwing troll on Twitter. His name was Peter Hill, and his repellent postings would not have been worth noting except for one unusual detail. Hill was the estranged, abusive father of a senior Greens staffer and he was trying to ruin her life. He had previously said he would love to see immigrants “rape the shit” out of one of Fairfax’s female writers.
“He was looping in journalists from the get-go,” says the Greens staffer now. “Miranda Devine, Latika Bourke – from the start he wanted to get media attention to the allegations that I had travelled on the public purse.” Sheehan, the writer of last resort, was the only one who took the bait – even as Hill was being banned from Twitter for his abusive behaviour.
The column, published in August 2013, was called ‘An uncivil war: father v daughter, Greens v greens’, and made unsubstantiated allegations that the staffer and Senator Scott Ludlam were using publicly funded trips to facilitate private activism.
Astonishingly, Sheehan’s piece contained examples of Hill’s abuse, followed by Hill’s own commentary. The two were in contact.
Peter Hill has taken the unusual course of attacking his daughter’s political activities in public, via Twitter. In one caustic message, he wrote: ‘I am so sick of people with snouts in the public trough. I am at a loss on your funded trips to the UK (Assange), Japan, USA, Burma. F---. Your carbon footprint must be an embarrassment.’ ‘Shortly after this tweet,’ he told me, ‘I got my account suspended by Twitter.’
An enraged Ludlam wrote to Goodsir. “I find it utterly unacceptable that [Sheehan] has taken personal aim at a staff member of mine, and that he chooses to quote her violent, estranged father Peter Hill as an authoritative source.”
Goodsir responded: “The SMH stands by the story and its main themes. But having said that I generally accept your points about the use of your staff member’s father in the article.”
First the column was rewritten to remove Peter Hill, with a rider added: “This column has been amended subsequent to publication.” The excisions meant it made no sense. On 27 October the paper issued an apology and the piece was finally pulled from the internet. For the staffer, the affair was so traumatic she changed her last name.
Sheehan didn’t respond but on 24 March 2014 he ran a column with the title ‘King of the trolls Scott Ludlam stripped bare’. It began:
There is nothing more popular on the internet than pornography, and that extends to political pornography, the territory of trolls and zealots. Senator Scott Ludlam knows this, and Ludlam is fighting for his survival. He has only just narrowly averted disaster and now he is appealing to the fringe because he cannot appeal to the majority.
The attack was only tangentially related to reality – Ludlam had done not much more than make a rousing speech. The “political pornography” description seemed better suited to Sheehan than his quarry. The columnist had shown no contrition and had suffered no consequences. Now he was attacking one of the complainants as personally as possible. He kept doing what he had always been doing. He had outlasted or overpowered anyone capable of stopping his worst excesses. Any complaint, any whining from ethnic minority councils or social media, was just more evidence of the bravery it took to write his columns.
As a former Herald editor says: “This isn’t just Sheehan’s fault. He and the paper have to share the blame 50:50. His name was on the story so the fundamental errors are his, but the newspaper and the editors are culpable.”
Now their culpability has extended to this. They were given a sensational and unlikely story of race crime. Its creator was a white supremacist-affiliated fantasist known to police, whom their senior columnist had never met, and never vetted in any serious way. And their response was not to balk, or check, or stand their ground. It was to give it top billing.
On this day, at this moment, Sheehan’s aura and history culminated in an awesome failure of institutional memory. A man who had messed up so many times was given one last calamitous benefit of the doubt.
“Hindsight has a ruthless clarity,” Sheehan wrote in his strange non-apology apology for the Louise story. It was at that stage appended to a correction that also wasn’t a correction: it was simply a version of the Louise story with the Arabic-speaking men taken out. And you realised, reading the amended version, that there was no reason for it to be published, that without the sensation of Middle Eastern villains it would never have made the paper. It had no animus.
Louise knew her audience, and so did Sheehan. Hindsight has not yet been ruthless enough.
CORRECTION: Two paragraphs of this story have been altered to reflect that David Coe was not a Krispy Kreme executive at the time Sheehan wrote about the company, and Sheehan only became a shareholder after his column was published.In sentencing Kilic, County Court Judge James Montgomery said that "the courts have to send a message to the community that violence against women will not be tolerated under any circumstances". But the Court of Appeal rebuked Judge Montgomery for being too "emotional". Kilic began his rampage by threatening his girlfriend and two others with a samurai sword when she decided to leave the relationship. After failing to drag her out of a friend's car, Kilic doused her in petrol and set her on fire. The victim, who was 12 weeks' pregnant with their child, spent nine days in intensive care with life-threatening burns. In March last year, Kilic received a total of 15 years' jail with a non-parole period of 11 years for a series of charges related to the incident. The charge of intentionally causing serious injury attracted a sentence of 14 years, which is the second longest on record. Judge Montgomery said he "found it hard to recall a more serious example of this type of offending in my 38 years in the criminal law".
"Can we open the newspapers on any day without an account of some man inflicting violence on a woman in a minor or major way?" he asked. "I made the comment before that it leads me to a conclusion that for some men, it seems like there is a war on women. So I have to impose a sentence that sends a message to the community that this just will not be tolerated." But the Court of Appeal decided to slash the "manifestly excessive" sentence after finding the judge gave "too much weight to aggravating factors and too little weight to mitigating factors, current sentencing practices, the applicable maximum penalties, and the principle of totality". Justices Robert Redlich and Simon Whelan expressed particular concern at Judge Montgomery's decision to sentence Kilic so soon after first viewing pictures of the victim's burns, which they noted were "objectively horrific". "Every judge, no matter that they may have great experience in the area of the law in which they are presiding, is at risk of being unduly influenced by factual matters which are unexpectedly placed before them. [The photographs] were the sort of matter that was inherently likely to elicit an emotional response," the justices said.
They cited an exchange between Kilic's barrister and Judge Montgomery when the court was told the victim had filed no impact statement. Judge Montgomery replied: "Well, do I need one? I've seen the photos. Has your client seen the photos?" Justices Redlich and Whelan found it would have been "prudent" if Judge Montgomery had taken more time to give "measured consideration" to other sentencing factors. "The wisdom occasioned by time and calm reflection is likely to have been of benefit to the sentencing exercise," they said. Among those factors was Kilic's relative youth at 22 years of age, his "genuine remorse" and lack of premeditation, and the fact that the victim did not sustain the same "lifelong major physical or mental disabilities" as victims of similar assaults by fire. The Court of Appeal also queried whether Judge Montgomery had taken into account that Kilic had also suffered extensive burns to his hands and arms because he had attempted to put out the flames after setting his partner on fire.
Kilic was resentenced to 10 years and 10 months' prison, with a non-parole period of seven years and 6 months. Victims of Crime Commissioner Greg Davies said he was disgusted by the appeal court decision and the judges' rationale. "At a time when the entire country is focused on the violence by men against women, it defies belief that a judge would overrule and castigate a colleague for being unduly affected by a horrific images of a victim's injuries," Mr Davies |
information and track guns beyond Britain’s borders. America uses it too, but tracking the guns used in crimes there would be a Sisyphean task: few guns are used repeatedly there because it is so easy to buy new ones. Gun-starved Britons cannot be so cavalier.Link #92: Ancient Romans Used Urine As Toothpaste!
Writing the last post about the people in the Mongol Empire made us clench our teeth and wash our faces but even that didn’t prepare us for what the ancient Romans did.
You know how you use toothpaste to brush your teeth every day and detergent to wash your clothes regularly? Well, the ancient Romans did too. However, that’s not good news because they didn’t have toothpastes or cleaning detergents back then.
So, what did the ancient Romans use in the place of those things? They used the last thing you would think of. They used their urine!
Did Ancient Romans Use Urine to Clean Their Teeth?
Since science wasn’t as advanced at the peak of the ancient Roman civilisation, Romans did indeed use urine as toothpaste. Not only this, they also used urine as mouthwash. The big question is, why?
The answer is that urine contains ammonia. Ammonia is one of the best naturally occurring cleaning agents on the planet. In fact, it is good enough to be a major component of a number of cleaning agents that we use even today.
Ammonia is also a natural whitener which means that when the ancient Romans used it as toothpaste or mouthwash, they were improving the whiteness of their teeth.
What Else Did They Use Urine For?
The fact that urine contains such a strong cleaning agent meant that the ancient Romans could use it for a wide variety of purposes. While ammonia in urine could make teeth white, the same thing was used for cleaning clothes too.
Ancient Romans had a tendency to wear plain white robes or togas which would get dirty fairly regularly. So they started using urine for cleaning their clothes too. The Romans even had a dedicated Laundromat which they called the Fullonica.
How Did the Ancient Romans Get So Much Pee?
You’re now most probably wondering how they sourced the urine needed for washing their teeth and clothes. Did they pee on their clothes and put their own pee in their mouths? No, they did not. Besides, the amount of pee one person creates would most probably not be enough for the really rich Romans who boasted of multiple clothes.
In fact, the ancient Romans had a whole system for getting the required pee. Supposedly, jars would be kept at street corners in ancient Rome. People walking by could use these jars for peeing in public. When the jars would fill up, designated individuals would come and take them to the Roman Laundromat.
What Was the Process Behind Using Urine As a Cleaning Agent?
Once the pee was brought to the Laundromat, slaves would dilute it first by mixing water in it. This mix would then be put in large tanks with the clothes. In addition to this, one of the slaves would be assigned to get into the tank with the pee to stomp on the clothes.
This action was designed to serve the same purpose as the agitators of modern day washing machines. After this process was complete, the clothes would be taken out of the stinky mixture and rinsed off with water. This was done to take the smell of urine out of the clothes.
Can you Guess the Next Link in the Chain?
What will be the next link in our Chain of Facts? Think you might know? Scroll down to add a comment below with your best guess.
You can view the full list of links in the chain here.
Sources:
http://bizarretoday.blogspot.in/2013/08/message110-by-general-eerie.html
http://www.mikemalonedds.com/blog1/ancient-rome-survive-without-toothpaste/
http://www.omgfacts.com/lists/10292/Ancient-Romans-used-urine-as-toothpaste-mouthwash-and-laundry-detergent-Why
http://unbelievablefactsblog.com/post/49505057565/the-ancient-romans-used-urine-as-toothpaste-mouthwash-an
http://unbelievablefactsblog.com/post/49505057565/the-ancient-romans-used-urine-as-toothpaste-mouthwash-anDespite how it sounds, potcakes have nothing to do with illicit substances. They’re mixed-breed, indigenous dogs from the Bahamas or the Turks & Caicos islands.
Nobody knows for sure where the name originated, but many Bahamians believe it came from the thick, leftover mixture remaining at the bottom of a pot of rice after multiple reheatings. This “potcake,” as it was known, was often fed to stray mutts.
Given the relatively small gene pool from which they evolved, many potcakes exhibit similar traits. Typically, they’re slim, short-haired, medium-size hounds. Most are tan, brown, black or some combination thereof.
Though strays can weigh as little as 25 pounds, a healthy, well-cared-for potcake weighs 35-50 pounds. As any potcake owner will attest, they’re lovely and loving dogs, with beautiful features and gentle temperaments.
It’s said that there are more than 5,000 stray potcakes roaming the streets in Nassau, and another 2,500 stray and/or unaltered dogs on Abaco and its cays. It’s heartbreakingly common to see these malnourished strays foraging for food and water alongside the road.
Fortunately, a number of organizations, including Royal Potcake Rescue USA, Potcake Rescue Bahamas, the Humane Society of Grand Bahama, Abaco Shelter, the Bahamas Alliance for Animal Rights and Kindness (BAARK), Operation Potcake and the Hope Town Humane Society are working to improve the plight of the potcake. They rescue strays, spay/neuter them, provide medical care and find them forever homes – not just in the Bahamas, but in the U.S., Canada and beyond.
To help control and reduce Abaco’s potcake population, Royal Potcake Rescue USA (“RPR”), and Abaco veterinarian, Dr. Derrick Bailey, are teaming up to hold a spay/neuter clinic in Marsh Harbour April 25-27. Their goal is to spay/neuter 250 potcakes — 100 more than were sterilized during a similar clinic held this past October.
Several veterinarians will travel from Nassau to Abaco on their own time and provide services and supplies at significantly reduced prices. Aside from medical staff, the clinic will be manned by Bahamian and American volunteers. Total cost per animal will be approximately $50, or $12,500 total.
To raise these funds, RPR is undertaking several initiatives. They still have a fair way to go to achieve their fundraising goal, so please, please help if you can.
Here’s how:
DONATE through Royal Potcake Rescue’s online Indiegogo fundraising campaign, which runs until April 3, 2014.
RPR is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit pet rescue organization, meaning American donors will receive tax receipts for donations. Depending on the level at which you donate, you could also receive an exclusive Potcakes of Abaco bumper sticker, can cooler, T-shirt or tote bag.
Donations can also be made through RPR’s website or mailed to: Royal Potcake Rescue USA, PO Box 56050, Atlanta, GA 30343.
VOLUNTEER at the April spay/neuter clinic. RPR relies on volunteers to help with trapping, transporting, vet assistance, recovery, cleaning, record-keeping and other tasks. If you’re interested in an enjoyable and rewarding “spaycation”, here’s the volunteer application.
TRANSPORT A POTCAKE back to the U.S. If you’re traveling from Abaco to Florida or Atlanta, you can help by bringing a potcake puppy back with you. RPR looks after all paperwork and provides the carrier. All you have to do is bring the pup (which usually weighs 10 lbs or less), in its carrier onto the plane and keep it under the seat in front of you during the flight. A RPR volunteer will meet you at the airport to collect the puppy and deliver it to its foster or forever home. For more information, visit RPR’s How You Can Help page.
FOSTER A POTCAKE. If you live in or near Atlanta, GA, consider fostering a potcake until its forever home can be found. RPR takes care of all medical costs — all you have to do is provide a home, the day-to-day basics and lots of love. If you’re in Florida and can pick up a potcake pup at the airport, you could foster him/her for a short period of time until RPR can arrange to get the dog back to Atlanta. For more information, visit RPR’s How You Can Help page.
Should you need a bit more motivation to lend a hand, here are just a few of the potcakes currently available for adoption through Royal Potcake Rescue USA and Potcake Rescue Bahamas. Who could say no to these adorable faces?
Photos courtesy of Royal Potcake Rescue USA and Potcake Rescue Bahamas.
Next time: Adopting Your Own Bahamian Potcake
SaveIn Government We Trust?
by Ron Paul by Ron Paul
DIGG THIS
Many who agree with me on a lot of other issues do not understand my enthusiasm for gold and sound money or why I spend so much time studying and talking about monetary policy. It’s true that I talk about money differently than most, but the fact is sound money offers many benefits. For example — peace.
Can sound money really bring about peace? Actually, it plays a big part in peaceful international relationships. Money based on commodities, rather than paper, is not subject to government manipulation, and is a key component to free and honest trade. History shows that if countries engage in trade with each other, their governments tend to find ways to get along for the same reason you do not kill your customers at your place of business, even if they occasionally annoy you. If someone outright cheats you, however, you may engage in war by taking them to court, for example, and the relationship will sour. Governments and central banks with unfettered power to manipulate currency also have the ability to cheat their creditors. One way they do this is to simply create enough currency to pay off debts. This devalues the currency and cheats the recipient out of what they are owed. It would not be fair if you watered down your product the way our government waters down its currency, so it is not hard to understand, in these simplified terms, why loose monetary policy contributes so much to ill will and war around the world.
Sound money, on the other hand, simply is what it is. Removing governmental power to manipulate money removes the temptation for government to spend, print and cheat. Sound money ensures that our government’s spending priorities would be brought into sharp focus and reduced to only what we can afford.
Sound money also limits the ability to wage wars of aggression. Imagine how much more careful Washington would have to be about starting a war if they did not have this financial sleight of hand at their disposal! Fiat currency allows government to do expensive things they should not be doing while paying the bills with cheap money. The Federal Reserve has lately been auctioning off large amounts of treasury bills as a way to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our crushing entitlement burden. The resulting devaluation of the dollar is quickly eroding our image as a good trading partner in the world. As a consequence, there is therefore more talk of economic isolation and war.
This vicious cycle of spending, fighting and inflating is not what Americans want. It is what the government wants, and it has had to deceive the citizens into allowing and supporting it. Sound money curbs the government’s ability to engage in these shenanigans and reduces the wars we fight to only truly defensive ones, for which Americans are more than willing to stand and fight. So in these ways, sound money is very conducive to peace.
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Cyberbullying is simply awful, and its consequences can be utterly horrific. Canadians have known this all too well since 17-year-old Rehtaeh Parsons' suicide in 2013, after photos of her alleged rape circulated online.
It's only human to want to put a stop to it. But is it worth spying on kids?
To wit, the Canadian government is looking for a person or organization to "conduct an evaluation of an innovative cyberbullying prevention or intervention initiative" in a "sample of school-aged children and youth," according to a tender notice published by Public Safety Canada last week.
Although nothing has been finalized, the government will consider letting the organization spy on kids' digital communications to do it, Barry McKenna, the Public Safety procurement consultant in charge of the tender, told me.
"The tender doesn't preclude or necessarily require digital monitoring," said McKenna. "But there are certainly products on the market that do that, and I would guess that that kind of intervention would be one of interest."
The school board overseeing the school used in the study would have to sign off on digital surveillance of kids, McKenna said, and so would Public Safety. McKenna would not disclose whether any person or organization has responded to the tender yet. The government has budgeted $60,000 for the program, the notice states.
"Cyberbullying isn't a technological problem"
"Any use by government of technology to scan the internet and read somebody's communications obviously raises privacy issues," said David Fraser, a Canadian privacy lawyer consulting on a new cyberbullying law for Nova Scotia. "Fewer privacy issues if it's following an intervention and it's targeted," he continued, "way more if they're trying to single out kids in Canada and assess what they're saying."
"What we've seen come out of Public Safety and most law enforcement agencies is a pretty un-nuanced, heavy-handed, over the top model," Fraser added. Nova Scotia's previous cyberbullying law, passed in the wake of Parsons' suicide, was ruled unconstitutional and struck down for being too broad and infringing on people's civil rights.
If the Public Safety study ends up taking a more blanket approach to monitoring kids instead of targeting surveillance after an incident, it could also risk undermining communication between kids and their teachers or parents, according to US Cyberbullying Research Center co-director Sameer Hinduja.
"Installing tracking apps undermines any sort of open-minded communication [that] youth-serving adults might have with these kids, because you're tracking them surreptitiously," said Hinduja. "Kids, as they get older, want more privacy and freedom. It's natural—you want it, and I want it."
This isn't the first time somebody has considered surveillance as a solution to the complex social issue of kids being absolutely horrific to each other, and it likely won't be the last. In 2013, The LA Times noted that the Glendale Unified School District in Southern California reportedly paid a firm $40,000 to monitor kids' social media accounts to combat bullying. The move raised the ire of privacy advocates in the US then, too.
The point, according to Hinduja, is that bullying isn't a uniquely digital problem. You don't solve bullying forever by putting a teacher in every hallway, and you don't fix crime by putting a cop on every corner.
"Cyberbullying isn't a technological problem," said Hinduja. "You can't blame the apps, the smartphones, or the internet. Instead, cyberbullying is rooted in other issues that everyone has been dealing with since the beginning of time: adolescent development, kids learning to manage their problems, and dealing with stress."I’ve received a lot of feedback regarding my Beaver Babies, all of it wonderful, and by wonderful I mean people are disgustingly entertained.
I did receive an email from a reader that said I was, “discriminating by not including the man’s vital role in creating life and……..” blah blah blah, scanning the email, blah blah blah “…can’t you make a penis with sperm?” -oooh, now I’m listening!
After reading her email, I asked myself, “Hot Ass (positive self-talk), is there a market for a penis that reverses into a sperm?” and the answer “Who cares?”
I love me a challenge (unless it involves a lot of effort) so I got right to work.
I began by drawing a penis, and I nailed it on the first try (BOOM, joke).
After cutting it out, I realized that the size didn’t allow for shrinkage (the 1/8 inch seam) so back to the penis drawing board I went. I re-drew, re-cut, and guess what? It was still too small. Here I was, the designer of my ideal penis and I couldn’t make it big enough. I’m a therapist’s dream.
Anyway, this went on for a while, and in the end my bedroom floor was littered with them.
18 penises later, I finally had a form I was happy with so I used it to cut my material. The rest was smooth sailing.
PS- This was so much easier and quicker than making a vagina, who knew? I did.
After sewing everything together, it was time to add the pubic hair. And Ladies & Gentlemen, I found the perfect pubic hair at the craft store! Oddly, it was in the doll making aisle. Weird but whatever, doll-making-freaks.
I didn’t repeat my Beaver Baby mistake of using crazy glue (Tip: wool + crazy glue= combustion). This time I was prepared with fabric glue! But the pubes stuck to me just the same…
I now present to you the perfect Beaver Baby companion, Spermie Spunkie (Help! It needs a name!)
He’ll swim right into your heart and fertilize you with love:)Attendees in Philadelphia were overjoyed at the senseless act of violence.
Crowds in Philadelphia's Wells Fargo Arena Monday Night erupted with glee as underdog Roman Reigns won the World Wrestling Entertainment World Heavyweight Championship after leaping in the air to punch a senior citizen in the head last night. The victory was the culmination of more than a year of chasing the title, in which Reigns defeated every superstar the pro wrestling company had to offer - sometimes several at a time. However, it was landing the "Superman Punch" on the 70-year-old man, who was not technically involved in the bout, that finally pushed Reigns over the top.
Reigns, who comes from a family of pro wrestlers and is beloved by children, has had difficulties winning the support of the crowd, often seeing his unsavory opponents cheered during matches. Reigns was soundly booed while feuding over the summer with Bray Wyatt, a hillbilly cult leader who encourages his followers to cheat against his opponents. When Reigns faced WWE Champion Sheamus, an Irish-born wrestler allied with wrestlers from Bulgaria, England, and the fictional nation of Mexamerica who frequently derides the United States in insulting speeches, reactions were mixed at best. Reigns even struggled to earn cheers after soundly and fairly defeating twenty-nine other wrestlers in the annual Royal Rumble match in January. However, after getting a running start, leaping into the air, and pummeling the elderly grandfather of six, whose testicles Reigns described earlier in the night as "shriveled prunes," Reigns was finally able to win over the fickle wrestling fanbase.
"When that old guy crumpled to the ring apron and lay still for several minutes, I was overcome with excitement," said one fan in attendance at the arena in the City of Brotherly Love. "I especially liked when, after the match was over and the man was still clearly unconscious, possibly requiring medical attention, Roman kicked him to the floor and posed for the crowd."
Below, you can see shocking video of the 6'3, 265 pound Reigns assaulting the confused man, who just stood there, defenseless. Be warned: the footage is not for the faint of heart:
At press time, Roman Reigns was set to appear at a Philadelphia children's hospital to cheer up sick kids, where it is expected he will kick a puppy to the children's delight. We'll keep you posted.WASHINGTON -- Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Sunday expressed skepticism over whether the government's vast intelligence-gathering program is entirely necessary to thwart terrorist plots.
"It's unclear to me that we've developed any intelligence through the [phone call] metadata program that's led to the disruption of plots that we couldn't obtain through other programs," Udall said on CNN's "State of the Union."
Udall, who in recent days has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of the Obama administration's surveillance methods, conceded that a different government program known as PRISM -- which monitors the Internet activity of foreigners -- has paid some dividends. Still, he emphasized his criticism of the government's phone record collection program.
"Maybe Americans think this is OK, but I think the line has been drawn too much toward we're going to invade your privacy rather than we're going to protect your privacy," he said.
Debate over the intelligence-gathering efforts had been set off by The Guardian's recent report that the Obama administration ordered Verizon to turn over millions of phone records to the National Security Agency. The move, congressional leaders say, was part of a broader strategy to prevent terrorist attacks.
No names were attached to the records sent to the NSA and the contents of the conversations were never disclosed. But that's little comfort to Udall, who said the government can extrapolate a lot from "when you call, where you call."ELKHORN, Wis. — It was supposed to be a triumphant Republican Party unification event to push Donald Trump into the closing stretch of the national campaign.
Instead, Saturday's 1st Congressional District Fall Fest showed evidence of a divide between the supporters of the presidential candidate and party members who denounced him after a raunchy tape of comments he made about women emerged.
House Speaker Paul Ryan was greeted with a mixture of boos and cheers at the rally in his Wisconsin congressional district.
Ryan began his comments Saturday by saying "there is a bit of an elephant in the room," referring to the profane comments made by GOP nominee Donald Trump that came to light Friday.
Ryan did not mention Trump by name but said, "it is a troubling situation. It is."
But Ryan says he put out a statement Friday about Trump's comments and "that is not what we are here to talk about today."
Ryan said Friday he was "sickened" by Trump's comments. He also disinvited him from Saturday's rally.
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Trump supporters yelled "Donald Trump!" at Ryan throughout his speech, while most of the crowd cheered the speaker's comments. He spoke for just seven minutes, leaving to shouts of "Shame on you!" and smattering of boos.
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, the Republican vice presidential candidate, dropped plans to attend the event at the Walworth County Fairgrounds.
In a statement released Saturday through Twitter, Pence said he was "offended by the words and actions" from the Trump video that surfaced Friday.
"I do not condone his remarks and I cannot defend them," Pence said. "I am grateful that he has expressed remorse and apologized to the American people."
Pence's exit from Fall Fest is just the latest fallout to hit the Republican Party in the wake of the Washington Post and other news media outlets on Friday publishing reports of Trump making crude comments in a 2005 video about groping and sexually harassing women.
Trump was forced to drop plans to attend Fall Fest amid criticism from Ryan.
Ryan, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., headlined the event that brings together local party activists as well as voters still pondering their decisions.
In an interview, Attorney General Brad Schimel called Trump's comments "indefensible."
"He's going to have to apologize and get to work and focus on real issues here," he said. "I don't know if he can leave that behind."
Undecided voter and Madison resident Adam Kiepert came to the fairgrounds with his uncle and hoped that Trump's speech would help him choose between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. He hadn't yet heard of Pence's expected absence, and jokingly asked if Ryan was still coming.
"We're disappointed, but it will still be interesting to hear Paul Ryan speak," said Kiepert, 27. "I wanted to hear (Trump) address the tape that came out. I never know what to expect from him."
Kiepert's uncle, Al, added that Trump's absence "didn't really surprise me a lot," noting Trump's presence wasn't widely publicized by the campaign.
"Him and Ryan don't really get along. Ryan's not a big supporter of Trump, and Trump has a big debate coming up," said Al Kiepert, 61.
Williams Bay residents George and Kathryn Tenyer wanted to hear Trump and Pence address their plans for the economy and the U.S. Supreme Court. The couple has traveled to Trump's other appearances in Wisconsin and decided they will likely vote for Trump, with one caveat.
"I want to see what dirt still shows up," George Tenyer, 86, said. "(The tape) is old, and everybody has a past. I still want to see what has been dug up on Clinton."
Contributing: Tom Daykin, the Journal Sentinel in Milwaukee
© Milwaukee Journal SentinelNo boys allowed: Only women and children are allowed to watch two matches
The Turkish football association has come up with a radical solution for tackling hooliganism - by banning men from stadiums.
Teams sanctioned for unruly behaviour by fans are instead only allowed to admit women and children aged under 12 to watch games.
On Tuesday, more than 41,000 women and children attended Fenerbahce's match against Manisaspor in Istanbul.
The move followed violence during a Fenerbahce "friendly" in July.
The Istanbul side was initially told to play two home matches behind closed doors after fans invaded the pitch during a game with the Ukrainian champions Shakhtar Donetsk.
We have to thank the ladies for coming to support us. It is difficult playing without fans Joseph Yobo Fenerbahce
But the Turkish authorities later softened their stance and decided to let women and children attend.
Fenerbahce's 1-1 draw with Manisapor kicked off after players from both teams hurled flowers at the fans, while the visitors were greeted with applause instead of the more customary loud jeers.
The home side's captain, Alex de Sousa, said: "This memory will stay with me forever. It's not always that you see so many women and children in one game."
"We have to thank the ladies for coming to support us," his team-mate Joseph Yobo - on loan from Everton - told Lig TV. "It's difficult playing without the fans."
Manisaspor midfielder Omer Aysan agreed: "It was such a fun and pleasant atmosphere."
Before the game, fans were searched by all-women police officers.
Speaking before the match, Yasemin Mercil, a female member of Fenerbahce's executive board, said: "This really is a historic day.
"For the first time in the world, only women and children will watch a game. The women know all the chants. The same anthems, the same chants will be sung."Nigeria certifies foreign journalists to cover up elections – More than 300 international journalists who applied to cover the upcoming general elections have been accredited, ending speculation they may not be permitted to provide coverage.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Folasade Yemi-Esan, confirmed the accreditation of the media professionals in Abuja.
“In line with the mandate of the Ministry of Information to create media access to report on the activities of the Federal Government, it has so far processed 300 applications from foreign journalists to secure visas and come into the country for the elections.
“Hundreds of other applications received by the ministry are being processed at the moment,” said Yemi-Esan.
He said foreign journalists had not been denied access, adding that those who could not secure their visas from Nigerian embassies abroad probably did not follow the due process to secure the accreditation.
“The Ministry of Information therefore appeals to foreign journalists wishing to come into the country to cover the elections to follow the due process in securing the accreditation including the presentation of official correspondence from their organizations.”
The main opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) had accused the Federal Government of frustrating foreign journalists wishing to cover the February 14th elections by not granting them visas.
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Almost two million North Koreans now use the country's only 3G network, reports a blog dedicated to technology news in North Korea.
The figure has been confirmed by 3G provider Koryolink, a partnership between Egyptian telecoms firm Orascom and the North Korean government.
The service can only be used to make voice calls, and all international calls are banned.
At the start of 2012 Koryolink claimed to have one million 3G subscribers.
In January 2013 the government began allowing visitors to the country to bring in their mobile phones for the first time.
Unlike residents, they would now be able to use the 3G network for mobile internet access as well, by purchasing local SIM cards, the country said at the time.
However last month a China-based tour operator called Koryo Tours, which specialises in tourist visits to North Korea, posted a note on its website saying that 3G was no longer available for visitors.
North Koreans only have access to a very limited, state-run set of internet pages.
When Google Chair Eric Schmidt visited the country at the start of the year he urged the government to allow citizens access to the wider internet and said it would be "easy" for the 3G network to include data access.
"As the world becomes increasingly connected, the North Korean decision to be virtually isolated is very much going to affect their physical world and their economic growth," he wrote in a blog post.The Republic of Texas Biker Rally is this weekend at the Travis County Expo Center in Austin. If you want to take a ride near the city, here are some of the best routes you can take:
The Three Sisters (aka The Twisted Sisters): 131 miles
This 131-mile ride has some of the best scenery you can get. Riding alongside rivers and past Texas ranches, this route is one of the best the Austin-area has to offer. The ride is known for its scenery and road quality and not so much its amenities, but a few can be found along the way.
Devil’s backbone/Old Spicewood: 33 miles
On this 33-mile stretch of scenic road, you’ll get a great view of Balcones Fault. You won’t be going too fast, but the road quality is good and so are the amenities.
Gruene-Fredericksburg-Bandera Loop: 239 miles
Clocking in at 239 miles, this scenic route takes you through the countryside and farmland of Central Texas. For amenities you can stop at Gruene, Luckenbach, Fredericksburg, Kerrville and Bandera, which all have great things to see and do.
Day trip to Luckenbach: 72 miles
This 72-mile trip goes through the Hill Country back roads. If you get hungry, stop at a mom-and-pop burger restaurant called the Alamo Springs Café.
South-Central Texas Route 16: 88 miles
If you just want to ride through different towns in the Hill Country, including Kerrville and Fredericksburg, this 88-mile route is scenic with great roads.
Hutto-Granger-Georgetown Loop: 61 miles
This northeast Austin route has good scenery filled with creeks and rives. There are also plenty of curves to ride on. If you are looking for somewhere to eat, there is Louise Miller BBQ in Taylor.
Spicewood Springs Road: 5 miles
Looking for a short ride? The Spicewood Springs has good scenery and road quality. You’ll see some farms with horses and creeks and rivers. Its not a fast road, but you will be able to soak up some Texas beauty.
FM 487: 11 miles
This ride is on the shorter side but it has some nice scenery and good road quality. You’ll be riding through Texas farmland and woods. However, don’t expect there to be many roadside amenities.
Texas Twister: 61 miles
This 61-mile ride has great scenery as you’ll be in Hill Country near the Texas Highland Lakes. The road quality is good, but the road side amenities are not the best.
Hippie Hollow Horror: 40 miles
The Hippie Hollow Horror is 40 miles of great scenery that will take you to the north end of Lake Travis. There are also great roadside amenities with stops in Austin and Four Corners.In recent years, acceptance of gays and lesbians as equal members of society has grown. | REUTERS Poll: Same-sex relationships moral
For the third year in a row, a narrow majority of Americans consider gay and lesbian relations morally acceptable, signaling that this is the new “new normal” in public opinion, according to a new Gallup Poll released Monday just days after President Barack Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage.
More than half of American adults, 54 percent, say gay or lesbian relations are morally acceptable — including 66 percent of Democrats and just 36 percent of Republicans — while 42 percent think they are morally wrong, Gallup found. Since 2010, a slight majority of Americans have found gay relations to be acceptable. Last year, 56 percent said same-sex relations are morally acceptable.
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“Americans’ acceptance of gays and lesbians as equal members of society has increased steadily in the past decade to the point that half or more now agree that being gay is morally acceptable, that gay relations ought to be legal, and that gay or lesbian couples should have the right to legally marry,” Gallup said.
A New York Times/CBS poll released the same morning showed 38 percent of those surveyed said that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, a dramatic increase from just two in 10 who said so in 2004.
In addition, the poll found that 24 percent believed that same-sex couples should be able to form civil unions, while only 1 in three said no legal recognition should be allowed at all for same-sex at all.
Meanwhile, the 57 percent of respondents also agreed with President Obama’s position that the issue of same-sex marriages should be left to individual state governments to decide.
The level of support over the past few years, Gallup said, “makes President Obama’s decision to publicly support gay marriage much less controversial than it would have been even four years ago. Significant pockets of resistance remain — namely Republicans, those 55 and older, Protestants, residents of the South, and, in some respects, men — but majorities of other groups have grown comfortable with gay rights.”
Obama became the first sitting president to back gay marriage last week, saying in an interview, “for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”
Meanwhile, 50 percent of Americans told Gallup that same-sex marriage should be valid, down slightly from 53 percent last year. Still, support for gay marriage is up from levels as low as 40 percent in 2008 and 2009. In this year’s poll, 56 percent of women and 42 percent of men said gay marriage should be legal, and support was weakest among Americans in the South.
Also, 63 percent said they believe gay or lesbian relations should be legal, and just 31 percent believe it should not be legal.
Support for gay or lesbian relations and rights are strongest among women, adults aged 18 to 34 and Democrats, Gallup found.
And about half of Americans — 52 percent — told pollsters at the Pew Research Center that Obama’s support for gay marriage did not affect their opinion of him, according to a poll released Monday. A quarter said his announcement made them view him less favorably, compared with 19 percent who said the opposite.
Just 7 percent of Republicans said Obama’s endorsement made them feel more favorably about him, while 53 percent of Republicans feel less positively toward Obama. For independents, 60 percent said their view of the president is unchanged. And among Democrats, 32 percent have a more favorable opinion of Obama, with just 13 percent saying they have a less favorable opinion now.
The Gallup Poll was conducted May 3-6 among 1,024 adults, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The New York Times poll was conducted May 11-13 with 615 adults, and a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points. And the Pew poll surveyed 1,003 adults May 10-13. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
- Mackenzie Weinger contributed to this report.The decision by Starbucks to voluntarily pay £10m in taxes in each of the next two years has come under fire from critics who say the move makes a mockery of the tax system, while the tax authorities reaffirmed that corporation tax was not voluntary.
Prem Sikka, professor of accountancy at Essex University, criticised "private sweetheart deals" with HMRC, saying this would send a bad signal to other businesses.
On Starbucks, he said it was important to know to which part of the past years the £10m figure relates. He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on Friday: "The last four years they declared a loss of about £145m, so are they saying this £10m relates to the past four years?
"It is a practice of HRMC also to charge interest and penalties for late payments. How exactly is this £10m arrived at? We have absolutely no idea and really Starbucks should publish all its tax correspondence and the tax computation so we can all see."
Sikka said it should be a standard requirement for all multinationals to allow the public to see their contributions to the public purse.
"We should really get them to publish a table which shows the jurisdictions they are operating from. What their sales are, the costs |
into the body to provoke an immune response, building up resistance against the bacteria and acting like a vaccine. But the sugars alone are typically not enough to trigger a strong immune response.
’For a vaccine, you need to make the polysaccharides more active,’ Wang says, but the modifications needed to boost activity can be difficult. Now, Wang and colleagues at Shandong University and Nankai University in China, have found a much simpler way to do this. By supplying the bacteria with ready-modified sugars, the team discovered that the bacteria take them up and incorporate them into the structure.
’We feed the bacteria these chemicals while they are growing, and those chemicals end up in the polysaccharides,’ Wang adds. ’This way, we don’t have to do anything to modify the polysaccharides - we let bacteria do it for us.’
The team demonstrated the technique by switching one of the sugars in Escherichia coli for a number of different analogs. Wang hopes that by harvesting the sugars from mutated bacteria like this, vaccines against a wide variety of bacterial illnesses could be created and produced cheaply.
The lab have already started investigating the potential for a new vaccine against the pneumococcus bacteria - which is typically responsible for causing pneumonia - funded by a $100,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Although vaccines against pneumonia are currently available, at around $50 per injection they are too costly for use in the developing world.
’This is an innovative strategy to reengineer a metabolic pathway,’ says Chris Whitfield, a cell biology expert at the Universityof Guelph in Ontario, Canada. ’Other bacteria and other pathways should be amenable to similar approaches and the cell surfaces can be modified in many different ways.’
There are also other possible applications for the technology, Whitfield thinks. ’One can envisage exploiting these structures to follow pathogens in cells and tissues,’ he adds. ’Also, the modification provides a robust scaffold on the cell surface for applications such as targeted delivery of specific ligands and prodrugs.’
Lewis Brindley
Enjoy this story? Spread the word using the ’tools’ menu on the left.Today, students at college radio station WRAS-FM at Georgia State University (GSU) announced that they have filed an appeal (PDF) against the University System of Georgia (USG) Board of Regents, protesting the university’s decision last year to allow Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) to broadcast over WRAS-FM during daytime hours. The appeal argues that the school misused student organization funds, specifically mandatory student activity fees, which were used for WRAS expenditures that are now benefiting a local public broadcaster. According to the appeal,
The Agreement [with GPB] creates a new mission for WRASAlbum 88 and the students of WRASAlbum 88 were in no way informed or given an opportunity to comment on this change in mission and the redirection of fees that would follow. When implemented, student fees and facilities originally allocated for WRASAlbum 88 were used to purchase equipment, pay for employee time along with other expenses for the support of GPB…GSU administrators have simply altered the mission of this student organization without any input from those students affected or the CSC and spent funds intended for support of WRASAlbum 88 in a way that is inconsistent with the established mission of providing a terrestrial radio station operated and programed by students that has been in place for the past 44 years.”
Specifically, the appeal argues that student activity fees were used for large station expenditures that have provided benefits for an outside group (GPB):
Since 2013, the Administration of GSU has been using fees allocated for the operation of WRASAlbum 88, an established SO [Student Organization], in support of The Agreement. Without SAFC [Student Activity Fee Committee] approval or knowledge, fees have been used for the purchase of a new transmitter, other engineering purchases, employee hours for the station engineer, and numerous other costs. The expenditure of these funds in this manner represents a significant change in the purpose of student activity funds from supporting the terrestrial student broadcast to supporting the broadcast of a private statewide government broadcaster, Georgia Public Broadcasting.”
Additionally, the appeal alleges that GPB has violated FCC rules during the time in which it has been airing programming over WRAS’ FM signal:
…WRASFM (GSU) was issued a warning by the FCC in August 2014 due to GPB’s failure to comply with hourly station identification regulations. The Agreement exposes the university to FCC penalties should GPB fail to remain in compliance with FCC directives governing how broadcast outlets must operate…these instances of noncompliance place GSU at financial risk and, based on the policies governing student fees, place student activity fees at risk.”
Of most interest to me, are the allegations about the use of student activity fees to purchase a new transmitter. Ever since GPB’s takeover of WRAS’ daytime programming, I’d heard discussion about the transmitter purchase. According to the appeal, when seeking student funds for the transmitter purchase, GSU did not reveal that it was in talks with GPB and that GPB would benefit from the transmitter upgrade. The appeal states:
In April 2013, The Administration representatives Dr. Douglas Covey, vice president of student affairs, and Mr. Jeff Walker, WRASAlbum 88 faculty advisor, approached the SAFC to request funds to purchase a new transmitter to carry the WRASFM terrestrial signal. When approaching the SAFC with this request Dr. Covey and Mr. Walker pointed to several reasons for the purchase request. (1) The current transmitter was installed in 1985 and needed to be replaced due to age, (2) increased signal strength would increase access by students on campus as well as increase availability inside buildings, such as the Georgia Dome and the GSU Arena where GSU football and basketball games are respectively held, (3) improved market penetration into northern GA serving to increase the exposure of the university and would as a result have promoted student recruitment, (4) protect the terrestrial WRASFM signal against other stations encroaching on its bandwidth. When making this request to the SAFC the Administration representatives failed to divulge that the Administration was well into negotiations with GPB over the use of the terrestrial WRASFM signal…It was discovered through Open Records Requests that in January 2013, senior GSU administrators and GPB representatives had already began discussion about the funding and operation of a new WRASFM transmitter. Given this information it is reasonable to assume that GSU and GPB had full intention to enter in to this contract and in doing so GPB would become the primary beneficiary of this new transmitter purchase. The Administration representatives had a responsibility to disclose that this transmitter purchase, which was estimated to total $676,000, would not go to solely supporting student organizations. …the purchase of the new transmitter would provide the university with HD radio capability was a capability crucial to execution of the agreement, a fact that was not divulged to the SAFC and likely played a role in the timing of the request to purchase the new transmitter. The Administration had full intention at this time of allowing GPB on 14 hours of daytime terrestrial analog WRASFM broadcast time which encroaches on points (2), (3) and (4) as given by The Administration. Therefore when the SAFC was tasked by the Administration with approving the request it could not make an informed decision on the impact The Agreement would have on students, student organizations, or the University and if this request fell within the policies laid out by the University and the BoR. The Administration failed to provide complete information that would have allowed the SAFC to make an informed decision and in doing so renders the decision void.”
Additionally, the appeal argues that since the agreement with GPB went into effect, WRAS has lost listeners (even over FM), the station has become less influential in the music industry, and students have diminished opportunities to air sports programming. Sadly, WRAS has also seen a dip in station morale, a decrease in student engagement with the station, and diminishing awareness of the station on campus, according to the appeal. The appeal states,
The Agreement has caused a large drop in morale and the engagement of students continuing to work at WRASAlbum 88. The large loss in caller feedback and community support caused by the sharp decline in listenership to the station has caused fewer students to be willing to participate…While the station recently reached 76,300 listeners prior to the agreement, the stream students are delegated to during the day limits them to 250 concurrent listeners. This has significantly limited the input that the music department relies from.”
In its appeal, the student staff and management of WRAS are seeking redress from the Georgia Board of Regents. Specifically, they are asking for “full use of the WRASFM transmitter and the WRASFM terrestrial signal,” as well as a severing of the GSU/GPB agreement through its “exit clause.” They are also asking for GSU to “enter into mediated negotiations with the student staff and management of WRASAlbum 88 and their representatives concerning the creation of a binding operating agreement or charter for the organization to govern future operations and interactions between the University and WRASAlbum 88.” Finally, the appeal calls for a review of GSU processes regarding “the oversight of mandatory student fees” and a subsequent policy update “to insure proper and consistent oversight of student mandatory fees.”
To see the entire appeal, which includes an appendix full of supporting information, take a look at the PDF posted here. We will continue to monitor the situation at WRAS. See all of our WRAS coverage here (and take a look at my 2012 field trip to WRAS on Spinning Indie) and follow @SaveWRAS on Twitter for the most recent updates.“Who goes up north in the winter?” my friends remarked, looking at me as if I had gone completely mad.
Yes, no one goes to the Northern areas in the winter, but when ace mountaineer and brother of the first Pakistani woman to climb Everest, Samina Baig Mirza, Ali Baig invites you to his village in Shimshal for a few days and throws in the words ‘ice-skating’ and ‘skiing’, there was no way I could have refused.
Examine: First Pakistani woman scales Mount Everest
Perhaps I was a little mad. It was -7°C in Hunza. Back home in Karachi, where I was 24 hours earlier, it was 23°C.
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking from the cold, I wore everything I had brought with me, basked in a spot of sunlight like a cat, had a gas heater placed next to my couch and still felt cold. Had I made a mistake?
Hunza is a strange place in the winter — it’s off-season, and so everything was closed. It was like going to the fair after everyone had left.
A few locals I met on the streets were surprised to see a tourist and asked if I was there for a wedding.
No, I responded, receiving confused faces in return.
Everything was closed in Karimabad, Hunza. No coffee, no walnut cakes. I came when the party was over and everyone had gone home. —Photo by author
I was looking forward to the infamous Café de Hunza’s famous walnut cake and some ‘real’ coffee, but that too was closed.
The Hilltop Hotel where I was staying is perhaps the oldest establishment of its kind. The owner, Javed, lives around the corner, sports an American accent that caught me off guard every time and really goes out of his way to make sure that his guests are all warm and toasty and catered to at his establishment — even if it means opening it up for just one lone guest during the season.
There-is no grid electricity, mobile coverage or internet, but there are all kinds of tourists available in Shimshal! —Photo by Henriette Bjørge
Heated blankets are a godsend. I discovered them only as I was climbing into bed and they gave me hope that perhaps a Karachiite can survive in the north in winter.
I pulled the blanket over the laptop and myself and created a small fort so that all of me was warm, and not just the parts that were covered.
“We’re going to go to Shimshal and will spend a night there so that you can acclimatise to the altitude,” said Mirza when I met him the next morning. I wasn’t the only friend going at this time — Henriette from Norway, was on her way from Gilgit, along with Mirza’s older brother Gul.
While we waited, my preparedness for this trip was inspected: my sneakers were rejected for being unsuitable for hiking, and my Karachi winter clothes (turns out they were made of cotton and not wool) were rejected as being anything but ‘wintery’.
With each rejection, it was becoming clear: I was going to die of hypothermia.
Sensing my panic, Mirza reassured me that I wasn’t, in fact, going to die and that there were lots of warm clothes back in Shimshal for me to wear. We then set off to find trekking shoes.
There are a few mountaineering stores in Karimabad, Hunza, that sell pretty much everything one could possibly need — it all just needs a fix here and there and a proper wash. The shoes I liked were quite snug, had to be sent to the cobbler’s to get a tiny hole stitched up and hurt my toe a bit on the short walk down to the hotel. Apparently, it’s good if you wear shoes that are a bit loose.
And off I go wearing a million layers of borrowed clothes, Mirza of course looks like he just stepped out of a winter sports clothing catalogue. —Photo by Henriette Bjørge
Javed came to the rescue. He had these really nice trekking shoes stowed away at the guesthouse, which he had bought from a visiting mountaineer. They were in mint condition and fit perfectly. Henriette had arrived and we were good to go.
The Northern areas have an almost otherworldly beauty in the winter. Most of the boats from Attabad Lake were gone owing to the recent opening of the Pak-China ‘friendship’ tunnel.
The cobalt blue waters of the lake were frozen in some parts and thawing in others. When we passed Gulmit and approached Passu, the Passu Glacier on our right appeared even more majestic as it towered over the Karakoram Highway; it’s icy white offset by the orange-yellow of the Passu cones that stand tall and proud on the opposite side.
Passu cones standing tall and proud. The road to Shimshal lies behind them. —Photo by Henriette Bjørge
The point at which three mountain ranges meet — Hindukush, Karakoram and Himalayas. —Photo by author
The road to Shimshal is behind these cones It took about a good 18 years to build and was finally ‘completed’ in 2003, and yet, it’s nothing more than space enough for one jeep to pass at a time, carved and cleared around the mountain.
There is no asphalt, so a regular car cannot survive the drive. There are 12 hanging wooden and steel bridges that are not secured at the bottom so it moves between the two ends when a jeep gets on it. Landslides are common and clearing those off the roads is a cumbersome task conducted by the authorities.
The ancient Silk Route. —Photo by author
The drive is heart-stopping and precarious but it took us to a winter wonderland, almost magical in its beauty.
Imagine driving in a crevice between two rocky mountains with a clear half-frozen river running below, giant rocks the kind you see in any Tolkien film and on them, frozen waterfalls.
The farther you move and the higher you climb, the colder it gets. The river is a good 300m below.
Once out of there, we drove over rocks and the frozen river to get to the village. We arrived at night, so we couldn’t see our surroundings properly. Shimshal is situated at an altitude of 3,100m.
People in Shimshal live off the grid with solar-powered lights, which is a fairly recent phenomenon. Development here is slow because of its remoteness. There is no mobile coverage and no Internet.
Take a look: How the residents of Shimshal are setting a shining example for Pakistan
We were told that it’s so cold that the water in the bathrooms had frozen up completely — our only option was to walk to an outdoor toilet with our baby wipes and paper. It’s an open-air, three-walled enclosure where everyone does their business on the ground.
Trying to keep warm in -15C in Shimshal by using both the gas heater and the Bukhari (which is being lit for warmth). —Photo by Henriette Bjørge
Woke up to this in Shimshal. This goat later came to give me company while I went about my business in the outdoor toilet. Clearly goats don't understand privacy. —Photo by author
Privacy isn’t always guaranteed, although it is not humans that invade it: the next morning I discovered I was sharing my space with a very curious goat that walked up to me and stared at me the entire time I was there.
Mirza’s home is built in a very traditional manner. It has a common area designed to accommodate up to 60-70 people seated on the ground in a circle.
Mirza and Samina's two sister-in-laws who made sure we were well-fed and warm throughout our stay! —Photo by Henriette Bjørge
The roof is made of beautifully-carved wood in several intersecting square layers, with the top covered with glass and open to sunlight. It is somewhat reminiscent of a yurt — except that it is made with more permanent materials.
In the middle of the room is a bukhari — a coal and wood heater that doubles as a stove — often found in homes in Central Asia. There is a kettle of water on top of it at all times.
One wall was decorated with shields of climbing achievements by Samina and Mirza, and a photo of Samina at the Everest. The latest addition to this being a cup won by their eight-year-old nephew, Gul and Maha’s son, Zarrar for winning the under-10 skiing competition held recently in the area.
The competition was named after Rajab Shah, the first Pakistani (from Shimshal), to summit all five 8,000m peaks in Pakistan. He was also a recipient of the President’s Pride of Performance award. This was also the room where our beds were later laid out and where we were to sleep — under three layers of blankets.
There was French fries and Yak meat in gravy for dinner. —Photo by Henriette Bjørge
Dinner consisted of yak meat in gravy, rice, French fries and green tea — all prepared by Mirza’s sister-in-law Yasmin (who didn’t feel comfortable making an appearance), and lovingly served by his other sister-in-law Maha, who proceeded to spoil us rotten by making sure we were well-fed and warm. Yak, I discovered, is like a saltier version of beef and absolutely delicious.
Each household in Shimshal has a cattle of yak that they drive to the pamirs (pasturelands) near the Pak-China border. Every year, 10 men are selected to go there and spend six months in the cold and snow and take care of everyone’s cattle — which can add up to roughly about 1,000 animals.
During that time, volunteers do the three-day trek between the village and pasturelands deliver food and supplies to the men stationed there.
Every single able-bodied man in the village is required to go, when it is his turn.
“It’s as important as being asked to serve in the military,” said one of Mirza’s old uncles who joined us for a while. “You can’t say no. You have to go.”
Our destination where we were to trek the next day is a place called Zartghurben (‘below brown rock’ in Wakhi) and it falls right in the middle of the route to the Shimshali’s pasturelands.
It was only when I woke up the next morning and stepped outside that I saw what an astounding place Shimshal is. Surrounded by snow-covered peaks and inhabited by frozen earth, people, a cat or two and lots of mountain goats with a lot of character.
I learned the temperature in Zartghurben was -23°C! I was given warm clothes to wear on top of my regular clothes — fleece pants and jackets and another down jacket that made me look like a bright blue penguin, but in this case, fashion had to take a backseat to survival.
These goats have no idea they're about to become dinner tonight —Photo by Henriette Bjørge
We had a six-hour hike ahead of us, and before we left, two of Mirza’s cousins along with his eight-year-old nephew Zarrar headed off to Zartghurben with two goats — the latter had no idea they were supposed to be our dinner at camp that night.
Prepping for the ‘hike’, I had no idea what I was in store for.
This is the first installment of a two-part travel blog.Prime Minister will visit China in May this year, External Affairs Minister said today ahead of her meeting with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
"Modiji is going to come in May. I will give them dates today. This is a preparatory visit," she told the Indian media after she addressed the Indian Community here.
She said her maiden visit to China also focussed on opening the additional route for the for which preparations are on.
"It is a big thing," she said.
The route is expected to provide more comfortable journey experience to pilgrims with a facility to travel to Kailash-Manasarovar directly by buses.
Modi's visit to China is a reciprocal one by President Xi Jinping to India in September last year.
The visit is expected to put at rest concerns in China arising out US President Barack Obama's second visit that some analysts here say is aimed at scuttling burgeoning India-China ties.
Speculation is rife that Modi will be visiting Kailash through the new route when he arrives on his maiden visit to China as the Prime Minister.
Xi is expected to take him to Xian, capital of his home province Shaanxi, to recreate the bonhomie generated by Modi who had taken the Chinese President to Ahemadabad, the capital of his home state Gujarat.
Earlier addressing the Indian community of Beijing at the Indian Embassy here today, Swaraj appealed to the overseas Indian community to join various campaigns like 'Clean India', 'Clean Ganga' and 'Beti Bachao Beti Padao' initiated by Modi to help India progress.
Swaraj will meet her counterpart Wnag today and call on President Xi tomorrow.CNN's Fareed Zakaria previewed his documentary Why Trump Won Monday on Wolf Blitzer's afternoon TV program. Zakaria said Trump supporters are "tribal" and saw the 2016 presidential election as an act of cultural and class rebellion against the "educated" urban professionals.
"We tried to get at that deeper issue, which is really a portrait of America," Zakaria said of his investigation into Trump supporters. "A kind of cultural and class portrait of an America that feels deeply resentful about the direction the country is going in and the people who run the country. People, you know, who are professionals, urban, educated. This is, in a sense, an act of class rebellion. It is an act of cultural rebellion. And Donald Trump is their guy."
BLITZER: Fareed, I'm really looking forward to your special, your documentary that will air later tonight, premiere later tonight, here on CNN about the 2016 presidential election. It's entitled "Why Trump Won."
So tell our viewers here in the United States and around the world the focus of your documentary, the message?
ZAKARIA: Well, what we really tried to ask, Wolf, was not even why he won but why he even came close, because everybody has their own pet theories, whether it was Hillary was a weak candidate, the Comey letter, or Russia. But really the bigger question is, this is the most unorthodox presidential candidate, really. Why did he even win the nomination against 16 very talented politicians? Why did he come close when he made so many statements, gaffes, mistakes that would have blown up the candidacy of anybody? There must have been something there that was deeper.
And we tried to get at that deeper issue, which is really a portrait of America. A kind of cultural and class portrait of an America that feels deeply resentful about the direction the country is going in and the people who run the country. People, you know, who are professionals, urban, educated. This is, in a sense, an act of class rebellion. It is an act of cultural rebellion. And Donald Trump is their guy.
You can -- you can ask -- we tried to explain why he became their guy, but he is their guy and, you know, my sense has always been, they have latched on to him the way you latch on to a sports team. The fact that the sports team is not doing well does not mean you will give up support. So when people keep watching and saying, well, but Trump is not really a conservative. Ideology doesn't matter. They say, well, he's not accomplishing much. Competence doesn't matter. This is some kind of tribal identity and they're sticking with him.As Bernie’s campaign picks up steam the latest results from isidewith.com show the momentum has carried Bernie to a commanding online lead. With 100,000 votes cast in September alone, Sanders is way out in front. Last month, according to I Side With, Sanders was ahead in 49 states with Clinton holding on to a slim lead in her home state of Arkansas but the lead there has vanished as well. Of course as we have said before, this is not a scientific poll by any stretch of the imagination but it shows just how popular the Vermont senator has become. The Summer of The Bern continues. We’d maintain this poll is however a more accurate indicator of what is happening with Bernie’s movement. Traditional polls use landlines phones and usually call people that voted along a certain party line last time – and neither one of those things represents Bernie’s massive amount of support.
State results were calculated from 98,081 voters for September 2015 for the question “If the Presidential election were held today, which candidate would you vote for?”
Sanders also holds a massive lead of over 90% when the poll is broken down into Congressional Districts.
Please contribute to Bernie Sanders’ Official Campaign HERE
Please take a moment and “Like” The Bern Report on Facebook HEREAfter more than a year away Khabib Nurmagomedov is targeting UFC 219 on December 30th as his return date. The opponent he has in mind is current interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson, whom he was supposed to face in March at UFC 209, but had to pull out due to weight cutting issues.
UFC president Dana White already stated that Ferguson’s next fight would be to unify the title against undisputed champion Conor McGregor. But this still leaves Khabib with another opponent option if he does intend to fight at the UFC’s year-end card.
During an Instagram live stream on Tuesday, lightweight contender Edson Barboza revealed that he had been offered to fight Khabib at UFC 219, which he says he already accepted.
“They offered me this fight and I accepted it,” Barboza said (via MMA Fighting). “I said I’ll be ready for December 30, and it’s on him now. We’ll see what he does. I saw an interview with him yesterday and he said he’ll fight me if Conor fights Ferguson, and Dana (White) already said that fight will happen, so I believe my next fight will be against Khabib."
“I definitely want to fight him. He's definitely one of the best and I respect him, I respect his team. He’s definitely one of the best 155 in the world. He’s the No. 2 and I’m the No. 3, and that’s the fight that makes sense for us."
Barboza adds that he is already completely healed from his shoulder injury, and is willing to go to Russia to fight Khabib in his home country.
“If they make this fight with Khabib in Russia? Of course. It's just the two of us in the Octagon,” Barboza said. “People can scream and threat outside the Octagon, but wherever it is, brother, I’ll fight him anywhere.”
"I'm in the best shape of my life. I'm more excited than ever. I'm just waiting for a phone call. I want to fight the best, someone closer to me. I'm ready. You have no idea. I feel 100 percent, and I'm ready for a big war, like always. Every time I step in the cage you guys see a big war, and next time is not gonna be different. I'm really ready for a war."
UFC 219 will take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.Rich Moore (born May 10, 1963) is an American film and television animation director, screenwriter, voice actor and a creative partner at both Rough Draft Korea and Walt Disney Animation Studios. In addition to directing the Disney animated film Wreck-It Ralph (2012) and co-directing Zootopia (2016) and Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), he has worked on the animated television series The Simpsons, The Critic and Futurama. He is a two-time Emmy Award winner, a three-time Annie Award winner and an Academy Award winner.
Early life [ edit ]
Moore was born and raised in Oxnard, California.[1] He studied film and video at the California Institute of the Arts, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1987.[2] While there, he narrated Jim Reardon's 1986 student film Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown.[2] Included in his CalArts class were famous filmmakers such as "Andrew Stanton", "Brenda Chapman", and "Jim Reardon".
Career [ edit ]
Television [ edit ]
After graduating from CalArts, Moore worked for Ralph Bakshi on CBS's Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, co-writing all 13 season 1 episodes in 1987.[3][4] Moore was one of the original three directors of The Simpsons, directing 17 episodes in the first 5 seasons from 1990 to 1993,[5] including some of the show's most famous episodes: "Flaming Moe's", "Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie", and "Marge vs. the Monorail".[6][7] He won a 1991 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program for The Simpsons,[8] and was the sequence director on The Simpsons Movie in 2007.[9]
In 1994, Moore became a producer and supervising director for the animated series The Critic.[5] He then oversaw the creative development and production of Futurama as the show's supervising director. He also directed several episodes of the animated series from 1999 to 2001, including the classic "Roswell That Ends Well",[5][6] for which he won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program.[10]
Moore's other television animation directing credits include Comedy Central's Drawn Together and "Spy vs. Spy" for MADtv.[5] He served as supervising director on the 2009 animated Fox television series Sit Down, Shut Up.[11]
Film [ edit ]
In 2004, Moore directed the Warner Bros. animated short film Duck Dodgers in Attack of the Drones.[5] In 2008, he was invited by John Lasseter to join Disney Animation as a director, with the suggestion that he develop a story set in the world of video games.[12] This would become the 2012 animated feature Wreck-It Ralph, Moore's feature directing debut, and a box office and critical success.[5][6] Moore also supplied the voices for the film's characters Sour Bill and Zangief.[13] Wreck-It Ralph won five Annie Awards, including Best Animated Feature and a Best Director award for Moore,[14] and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.[15]
Moore's next animated feature film, Disney's Zootopia, which he co-directed with Byron Howard and Jared Bush, was released in March 2016, having the biggest worldwide opening for an animated film ever and the second highest-grossing animated feature film of 2016 to Finding Dory.
Awards [ edit ]
2002 – Directing in an Animated Television Production for Futurama ("Roswell That Ends Well") [16]
("Roswell That Ends Well") 2012 – Directing in an Animated Feature Production for Wreck-It Ralph [14]
2016 – Directing in an Animated Feature Production for Zootopia (Shared with Byron Howard)[17]
Filmography [ edit ]
Television directing credits [ edit ]
"Pilot" (season 1, episode 1, January 26, 1994)
"Lady Hawke" (season 2, episode 3, March 19, 1995)
"I Can't Believe It's a Clip Show" (season 2, episode 10, May 21, 1995)
"Bizzy Moves In" (season 1, episode 2, July 28, 2000)1839, only survivor of a slang fad in Boston and New York c. 1838-9 for abbreviations of common phrases with deliberate, jocular misspellings (such as K.G. for "no go," as if spelled "know go;" N.C. for "'nuff ced;" K.Y. for "know yuse"). In the case of O.K., the abbreviation is of "oll korrect."
Probably further popularized by use as an election slogan by the O.K. Club, New York boosters of Democratic president Martin Van Buren's 1840 re-election bid, in allusion to his nickname Old Kinderhook, from his birth in the N.Y. village of Kinderhook. Van Buren lost, the word stuck, in part because it filled a need for a quick way to write an approval on a document, bill, etc. Spelled out as okeh, 1919, by Woodrow Wilson, on assumption that it represented Choctaw okeh "it is so" (a theory which lacks historical documentation); this was ousted quickly by okay after the appearance of that form in 1929. Greek immigrants to America who returned home early 20c. having picked up U.S. speech mannerisms were known in Greece as okay-boys, among other things.
The noun is first attested 1841; the verb 1888. Okey-doke is student slang first attested 1932.The state's teachers union blasted Democrat Douglas F. Gansler Tuesday morning about his new ads in the governor's race that call for "skill over seniority" in the classroom.
In Gansler's 30-second spot about education that began airing in Baltimore Tuesday, he said "In Maryland, we’re proud to have some of the best schools in the nation, but we also have some of the worst, where too many kids get left behind.... For starters, instead of putting ineffective teachers in classrooms because of seniority, let’s put the most effective teachers to work."
The Maryland State Education Association, which backs Gansler's political foe Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, reacted with intense rhetoric, releasing a statement Tuesday that called the advertisement a "reckless campaign communication" and compared Gansler to controversial Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has a long and heated history of fighting with teachers.
The teachers union argued Gansler oversimplified the causes behind marked disparity in achievement among students, and accused him of "blaming" the problem on teachers.
"He raises a red herring issue as a justification to advance an anti-teacher, anti-union, and anti-progress agenda," Sean Johnson, executive director for political and legislative affairs for the teachers' union, said in a statement.
Gansler's campaign responded that his priorities are "in line with those of the Obama administration" and rejected the idea he was anti-teacher.
"Like Doug, Maryland teachers want effective teachers in every classroom because educating kids is their number one mission. Doug's policies will support them, reward excellence and help all our public schools and our children succeed," campaign spokeswoman Katie Hill said in a statement.
The three-way contest for the Democratic nomination has been marked by acrimony, and Tuesday's attack echoes a theme pressed by Brown, the front-runner. Brown, who earned the backing of the teachers, repeatedly tries to cast Gansler as a "Republican" for his ideas, and his campaign staff frequently attempt to portray the attorney general as reckless.
Brown has secured the endorsement of most major labor and interest groups in Maryland, and this is the second time in recent weeks one of those groups has gone on the attack against Gansler.
A veterans group that backs Brown in April seized on Gansler's remark that implied Brown’s work as a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves was not a "real job," and their demand for an apology drove media coverage of the gaffe for days.
The third candidate in the race, Del. Heather Mizeur, has generally declined to engage in attacks. The primary election is June 24.
Gansler's campaign said the brief television ad advances a yet-to-be-released policy proposal about paying teachers for performance - another topic controversial in education circles.
"This is about rewarding effectiveness and paying good teachers more, something that I'm sure even the teachers union bosses agree is important," said Hill, of the Gansler campaign.The Paralympics may have changed attitudes to disability in the UK, but this might be pushing it (Picture: Caters)
If wacky racer Dick Dastardly is ever paralysed in a car wreck, he’ll surely be ordering one of these.
Lance Greathouse’s mobility scooter – christened Lord Humungous – has a flame-thrower that spits fire 10m (35ft), around the length of a double-decker bus.
The dental equipment engineer, who sends disabled people ‘pimped’ wheelchairs, spent a month and $1,000 (£645) building the contraption out of en electric golf cart, a helicopter seat, all-terrain tyres and old dental machines.
Great wheels of fire: Take that, cacti! (Picture: Caters)
‘I love fire and wheelchairs so I thought why not put them together,’ the 52-year-old, from Phoenix, Arizona, said.
‘I would like to see some street gang member mess with someone in one of my chairs.’Emory Admissions Sends Unintended Copies of Air Bud: Golden Receiver to Non-Admitted Students
The Emory University Office of Admission admitted yesterday that it had accidentally sent out 400 copies of the film, Air Bud: Golden Receiver, to non-ad |
to a new immutable value. You can never change a value in place. An atom will have mechanisms for "only update if nobody else has updated since I last read" and so on, so you can have some control.
The observant reader will have noticed that what I just described is the state model in Clojure. So that is what my operating system will have. State will have to be modelled as a succession of immutable values.
The immutable memory model
So, a process will have atoms which points to immutable values, and all values are immutable. And by all, I mean all. You will be able to store plain bytes in a value. But these bytes are immutable. Bit shift? New value. "Change" byte 4? New value.
In this model, memory can safely be shared across processes. What's unsafe about passing an immutable value to another process? Nothing. It's completely safe. No defensive copying or protection semantics are needed. Only atoms needs protection. There will probably also be a mechanism for sharing atoms across processes, but the process that created the atom will need to allow it.
Process forking is close to a no-op. In Linux, a fork has very clever (and good) COW semantics so a fork is initially no-op, but as soon as either processes starts to change their memory, copies are made. There's obviously some overhead to this. When values are immutable, though, there's absolutely no overhead and no copying is needed. Immutable is immutable! The only callenge is the atoms, which can either be copied O(N) style (a process will probably only have 10s of atoms), or have Linux style COW semantics.
All of this will break horribly if one can do pointer arithmetic. But the plan is for the system language of this operating system to not have pointers. Pointers are places, and we don't like places. We only want values.
There can be various optimizations, of course. Clojure has transients, which basically means "inside this function, use a mutable value under the hood while building up the value, but make it immutable before it's returned". So for the outside world, the function doesn't really mutate anything other than the mutable value that was only visible internally to the function that was called. I will experiment with automatically detecting this for you. We can also do things like monitoring whether someone else actually has a reference to your list of bytes, and if nobody has, we can mutate the bytes under the hood. Purely as an optimization, completely invisible to the programmer.
Garbage collection
A system of immutable values needs garbage collection. This will happen at the operating system level.
A garbage collector that knows that all values are immutable will be rather interesting, I think. Typically, a garbage collector will stop the world (i.e. halt execution) to do heap defragmentation of the old generation. When all values are immutable, though, you can defragment the heap by copying a value to another fragment and just swap the internal pointer to the value.
On a related note, one could even optimize the internal byte encoding values without stopping the world, in a similar copy-and-swap-pointer manner. Suppose we detect that value X in the old generation is a map that hasn't changed for some time. Perhaps we can optimize it to be some kind of struct instead, meaning copying it to a different location in memory but with a different and hopefully more efficient encoding. Nobody but the kernel needs to know, and no execution needs to be stopped.
Performance
At no point will design desicions be made to achieve better mechanical sympathy. In fact, it's a specific goal to have as much of the C code in the OS as possible be replacable with hardware. One of my overzealous pretentions dreams are to present this OS to Intel, and have someone in the audience proclaim loudly "finally we can replace traditional RAM with [insert new idea X]!" Or whatever. I'm not a hardware designer. But garbage collected memory of immutable values and atoms, in hardware? Om nom.
This doesn't mean I won't work to get as good performance as possible. Perhaps this OS will even perform better than traditional OS-es at some things, since there's no need for COW and defensive copying, values can be shared freely. And processors already cache code much more efficiently than data, since the processor assumes code is immutable. Perhaps L1 and L2 caches can be much more efficient if the CPU knows which data pages in memory are immutable? Perhaps we can get across the von Neumann bottleneck by copying data to multiple chips, it's immutable after all and completely safe to copy. Who knows! Time will tell.
Files
Haven't thought a lot about this. Frankly I don't use files a lot in my programs, I tend to talk to databases. So I'm thinking that perhaps the durable storage system in the OS could be a key/value database. Perhaps with Datomic-like append only immutability. Or perhaps the file system can and should be an immutable place even in this new fancy immutable OS. Again, who knows.
The system language
It will be Lisp. Kind of. I will define a bytecode format for a Lisp, probably similar to EDN. This isn't really compiled bytecode, so perhaps bytecode is the wrong word. The idea is that the AST of a lisp will be encoded with a smart format that isn't just plain text. Plain text sucks. This format will then be read by a JIT compiler (probably LLVM) and compiled to native machine code.
Code will of course also be immutable. So it will be safe to do hot deploys, existing code will keep on running, and new top-level invocations will use the newly hot deployed code.
Not sure if it will be static or dynamic. It will probably be whatever is easiest to prototype.
And once again, it shows that this operating system is very much a derivative work of Clojure. I'm not sure if the system language will be a Clojure (Clojure is already deployed to multiple platforms, JS, JVM, CLR,...). Once again, who knows.
I'm probably wrong
This is the first operating system I've written.
I might be horribly wrong about everything. This is why I'm making it. It's a research project, where no pragmatic goals such as working around buggy firmware will be made. Dare I say: "just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu". I don't want to propose talks at conferences about my ideas until I've actually proven to myself that they make sense and aren't completely incorrect.
The learning curve is immense, so there's not a lot of stuff up and running yet. You will probably hear from me again when I've got a basic process and GC env up and running.
Questions or comments?
Feel free to contact me on Twitter, @augustl, or e-mail me at [email protected] editorial writer Quinta Jurecic says President Trump's reprehensible, and legal, pardon of former sheriff Joe Arpaio reveals weaknesses in the American system of government. (Gillian Brockell,Kate Woodsome/The Washington Post)
On Wednesday, we reported on two surprising developments relating to the pardon of ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio: a challenge to the president’s pardon power and a court’s decision to hold a hearing rather than summarily dismiss the case. Even if you believe there is no effective limit on presidential pardons (e.g., the president could pardon every white cop who kills an African American youth), the Arpaio pardon has opened a can of worms — and previewed the firestorm that would erupt if Trump tried to pardon associates and family members with regard to the Russia investigation.
To begin with, a pardon only gets one off the hook for federal criminal matters. The Arpaio contempt order, for example, stemmed from a civil suit brought by the ACLU. Any orders or remedies obtained in that action are unaffected by a pardon. Likewise, as Lawfare blog recounted earlier this summer, there is a “sleeper” civil suit against the Trump campaign and Roger Stone over the Russia scandal:
The suit alleges that the campaign and Stone conspired with the Russians to release information about the plaintiffs—who are not public figures—in a fashion that violates their privacy rights under D.C. law. and intimidates them out of political advocacy.... There’s just no question that this complaint alleges injury in fact or that it seeks relief of a type courts normally grant. What’s more, the case does not present in any sense a political question or a matter that courts are likely to duck. And cleverly, it also doesn’t name the President himself as a defendant, so there’s no argument—as there is with some other cases—that the suit cannot proceed because of presidential immunity.
In short, Arpaio may still face civil lawsuits from those he harmed. In the Russia scandal, a presidential pardon won’t prevent the Russia lawsuit (complete with discovery including depositions) from going forward.
In addition, state criminal prosecutions can certainly attach to much of the behavior that may be at issue. Arizona prosecutors so far aren’t proceeding with any state law prosecutions, but it’s not impossible to imagine state indictments for assault, false imprisonment, etc. In the context of the Russia investigation, Trump’s family and associates would be subject to the eagle eye of New York state and city prosecutors for example, who might explore possible financial crimes and state laws prohibiting obstruction of justice, perjury and other potential claims arising out of the subsequent investigation by the FBI and the special prosecutor. According to NBC News, use of state criminal law is already under contemplation:
According to U.S. intelligence and public accounts, Russian efforts included criminal hacking into Democratic National Committee emails, a conspiracy to distribute that stolen material, and separate computer intrusions into state election systems. That activity could form the basis of felony cases in several states, and conspiracy charges if any Americans were found to be involved. Local prosecutors have not disclosed investigations of such conduct. Typically, state and local prosecutors defer to federal investigators, especially in national security cases. But pardons could change that. According to a source with knowledge of one state attorney general’s preparations, the office is already studying its potential state jurisdiction for Russia-related crimes.
Now civil suits and state law prosecutions against those pardoned are one side of the coin, but there are also dire consequences for Trump that may flow if he decided hand out pardons.
For one thing, the courts may push back, as Josh Blackmun writes:
At bottom, the pardon amounts to an executive nullification of a district judge’s finding of criminal contempt of court. There is no allegation that the district court erred, or that Arpaio was the victim of a miscarriage of justice, or that the sentence was unjust (for, indeed, no sentence had even been imposed). To the contrary, as far as I understand, most of Arpaio’s most egregious conduct will go unpunished. Combined with his frequent attacks on the judiciary, this latest episode will no doubt harden Pharaoh’s proverbial heart. The consequences are predictable. This coming term at the Supreme Court is shaping up to be an incredible blockbuster season, with decision after decision affecting the scope of the President’s powers. The Solicitor General’s task becomes even more intractable as a result of this presidential action. Further, lest we forget, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s decision about whether to retire or not may well be conditioned by the current state of affairs at term’s end.
Moreover, pardoning associates to hide one’s own misconduct is precisely the sort of thing that would fall under “high crimes and misdemeanors,” keeping in mind that impeachment does not require any finding of criminal liability. Certainly if the Democrats take the House majority in 2018, impeachment would proceed. But a flagrant attempt to evade investigation by firing both the FBI director and the special prosecutor (in the vein of the Saturday Night Massacre during Watergate) might convince even squeamish Republicans to exercise their constitutional responsibilities.
Congress is not without power to act now — and in this case Democrats have. On Wednesday, all House Judiciary Committee Democrats wrote to the committee’s chairman, Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), asking him to hold an oversight hearing:
We ask for several reasons. The pardon sends an unequivocal signal that institutionalized racial profiling as practiced by Sheriff Arpaio is acceptable; the pardon is disrespectful to the rule of law in general and to the federal courts in particular; and the President issued the pardon in the complete absence of any advisory role by the Department of Justice and after the President had already asked Attorney General Sessions to drop the case completely. As you are well aware, although the President has wide constitutional authority to issue pardons, there is also ample precedent for our Committee to review pardons as controversial as this one.
(They of course refer to hearings after President Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon and after President Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich.)
The Democrats cite the injury to the rule of law as one reason to examine the pardon. (“The pardon not only disregards the rule of law, it directly flouts the courts themselves by signaling that it is acceptable for parties to ignore court orders. President Trump regularly and needlessly criticizes both the judiciary in general and specific judges on a personal basis.”) But then comes the most important reason, namely that Trump in pardoning Arpaio called attention to his own effort to get the attorney general to drop the case. And that seems awfully similar to Trump’s effort to get former FBI director James B. Comey to lay off Michael Flynn:
Although Department leadership is to be commended for advising the President that his request was inappropriate, the conversation fits into a larger pattern of improper contact between the Trump White House and the Department of Justice. Our Committee has long defended the view that presidents should avoid involvement in specific criminal cases in order to avoid even the perception of politicizing the administration of justice. President Trump regularly ignores that standard. If our Committee is unwilling to even debate the matter, what is to stop this president—or any other president—from doing so again?
Goodlatte is a pro-Trump loyalist so do not expect him to grant the request. But the Senate is another matter. And of course the special prosecutor may find interesting a pattern of attempts to prevent prosecution of the president’s pals.
In sum, controversial pardons will only spare Trump’s friends and family from federal prosecution, not from civil suits and state prosecutions. Moreover, his actions will certainly be included in any impeachment effort. And if you think a president can be prosecuted for actions in office, then Robert S. Mueller, one would think, could certainly construct a compelling case for obstruction of justice that includes the president’s desire to shut down the case against Arpaio.Reviews for Apple’s new MacBook Pro have yet to officially go live, despite a couple false starts earlier this week. Those should arrive any day now ahead of a retail release for the machine, but one pro video editor today published his early hands-on review after using the new 15-inch model in a real-world setting. The review also aims to address some of the early criticisms of the new MacBook Pro from pros, showing how the machine held up in a real-world, professional environment.
The author Thomas Grove Carter works at Trim Editing, a studio in London where he edits “high end commercials, music videos and films” using Final Cut Pro.
The best 4K & 5K displays for Mac
The review specifically focuses on the experience using the machine in a professional video editor’s daily workflow. Carter’s conclusion is that the new 15-inch model he was using (he doesn’t detail specs), is more than capable of handling daily editing in FCP X with 5K ProRes footage. He also notes that machine “tears strips off ‘superior spec’d’ Windows counterparts in the real world.”
First off, It’s really fast. I’ve been using the MacBook Pro with the new version of FCP X and cutting 5k ProRes material all week, it’s buttery smooth. No matter what you think the specs say, the fact is the software and hardware are so well integrated it tears strips off “superior spec’d” Windows counterparts in the real world. This has always been true of Macs. If you’re running software with old code which doesn’t utilise the hardware well, you’re not going to get great performance (as pointed out here)
When it comes to addressing the issue of dongles that might be necessary for pros now that the new MacBook Pro has all USB-C ports, Carter explains that it isn’t an issue for his setup: “I already use USB-C Samsung T3 SSD’s as my external drives. These things are super fast and have the footprint of a credit card. The only change here is that I don’t need a USB-A to C cable to use them now, they’ll plug straight in. I’ll probably have a Thunderbolt 3 dock at my desk for expandability but that will ultimately just replace the Thunderbolt/mini-display converters I already need to support legacy displays.”
The rest of the review mostly focuses on the Touch Bar, which Carter notes he quickly warmed up to and started using to replace keyboard shortcuts after initially being skeptical. Here is a video of Carter using the Touch Bar:
You can read the full review at Huffington Post.
Apple officially started preparing some MacBook Pro with Touch Bar preorders for shipment earlier today. The first orders are expected to arrive early next week to customers.Madison — Governor-elect Scott Walker reached out to a Milwaukee train manufacturer Friday, seeking to keep its operations in the state long-term as he advocates for stopping a passenger rail project involving the company.
"Governor-elect Walker is reaching out to leadership at Talgo to encourage them to stay in Wisconsin," Walker spokeswoman Jill Bader said Friday.
A spokeswoman for Talgo, the U.S. unit of the Spanish firm Patentes Talgo, said that Walker told company officials that his decision to stop a proposed Madison-to-Milwaukee passenger rail line is "not final."
Walker, a Republican, campaigned on an unambiguous promise to end the passenger rail line, funded with $810 million in federal stimulus money, which he has called a boondoggle. Bader said Walker was not backing away from that promise.
This week, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, a supporter of the project, halted work on that line temporarily after Walker's election.
That has thrown some doubt over jobs at Talgo, which is building two trains for an existing Milwaukee-to-Chicago rail service and had plans to build two more for the proposed Milwaukee-to-Madison line. The company has a site at the former Tower Automotive property.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore said Friday during a briefing in her Milwaukee office that other states are clearly in line to take the funds if Wisconsin turns them down. A lack of public transportation is a significant cause of the high unemployment in the central city because residents there can't reach jobs in the suburbs, she said.
"Walker has a record of being anathema to public transportation," Moore said.
New York Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo made a pitch for the rail money that the governors-elect in Wisconsin and Ohio have pledged to reject. He sent a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asking that the roughly $1.26 billion be redirected to pay for a rail project that would connect New York City, upstate New York, Toronto and Montreal.
"High-speed rail is critical to building the foundation for future economic growth, especially upstate," Cuomo said in a statement. "If these governors-elect follow through on their promises to cancel these projects, a Cuomo administration would move quickly to put the billions in rejected stimulus funding toward projects that would create thousands of good jobs for New Yorkers."
Walker has said repeatedly he wants to ask Congress to redirect the $810 million from the rail project to make it available for the state's pressing needs to upgrade its roads and bridges. But Doyle and the state transportation officials have repeatedly said that won't happen.
Operational costs
Even with the federal government picking up the line's full remaining construction cost, Walker has said he doesn't want state taxpayers to pay operating costs, projected at $7.5 million a year, starting in 2013. A state transportation official has said state taxpayers' share could be as little as $750,000 a year if federal aid covers 90% of operating costs, as it does for Amtrak's existing Milwaukee-to-Chicago Hiawatha line.
Talgo spokeswoman Nora Friend said the company hopes that Walker can be convinced of the value of the project.
"He was very kind to explain that the decision is not final. He's just trying to understand the implications of the big project. He needs time, and we think that's fair," Friend said.
But Bader said Walker hadn't changed his mind.
"Scott remains opposed to the train. He reached out this afternoon to encourage Talgo to remain in Wisconsin," Bader said. "He needs time to have discussions next week with the Doyle administration on their intentions when it comes to this project, and will continue to examine all legal options to stop the train."
Friend emphasized that Talgo has work to keep its employees busy through 2012 and would not make any layoffs immediately. The company has already hired about 40 people for its current contracts and plans to have a total of 125 on board by next year. If it gets contracts to build trains for the Milwaukee-to-Madison line and for other states, it could keep the plant in operation beyond 2012 and expand it.
"This is a very challenging process, and we're in the hiring stage and we want to attract good employees from the area," Friend said.
Construction employment on the line itself was projected to peak at 4,732 jobs in 2012, with 55 permanent jobs to operate and maintain trains, stations and tracks.
Pat Goss, executive director of the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association, and Joseph Strohl, a lobbyist for the union that represents heavy equipment operators, said they knew of no major effort to try to persuade Walker to change his mind on stopping the train.
"I think Scott was very clear where he stood on this, and he's also been very clear on how he stands on other transportation infrastructure," Goss said. "He's following through on the promise he made."
The Operating Engineers Local 139, which Strohl represents, endorsed Walker because of his strong support for road building.
Steve Baas, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, said there had not been a consensus among the region's business community that the project needed to go forward.
"The business community was divided on the merits of the train," Baas said. "Quite frankly, we weren't consulted before any decision (to spend stimulus money for it) was made."
Cari Anne Renlund, executive assistant to state Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi, had no comment on Friday.
Patrick Marley of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this article.Top 10 NFL WRs in one-on-one situations
By Sam Monson • Sep 30, 2016
You better bring help.
The Miami Dolphins benched starting cornerback Bryon Maxwell for Thursday night’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals, starting a rookie (Xavien Howard) and a former college wideout (Tony Lippett) at corner to face off against one of the league’s premier receivers in A.J. Green.
Like lambs to the slaughter, those two combined to surrender 150 receiving yards to Green, and he picked up another 23 against other Miami defenders in Cincinnati’s 22-7 win. Green is one of a number of receivers in the league that are simply too good to be left one-on-one against anything but the best corners the league has to offer. If you don’t have one of those, you better bring some reinforcements and come with more creative ways to bracket or double cover him, because he’s going to destroy that corner one-on-one.
With that in mind, let’s take a shot at ranking the 10 most dominant receivers one on one – 10 guys who demand additional attention from the defense:
1. Julio Jones, Atlanta Falcons
The one kryptonite any wide receiver has is a quarterback who just starts missing him with the ball. Matt Ryan has been playing well so far this season, but has simply been missing Julio too much on underneath passes. When you turn on the tape, however, Jones might be the league’s most physically imposing receiver, with an elite blend of size, speed and quickness that makes him near impossible to cover one-on-one. Last week he was held to just one catch for 16 yards on seven targets, but if you look at those targets he was open pretty much all day — Ryan just wasn’t able to put the ball where it needed to be. If you’re facing Jones one-on-one and you’re not one of the game’s best corners, you’d better hope Ryan has one of those off-days.
2. Antonio Brown, Pittsburgh Steelers
Brown doesn’t have the athletic gifts that Jones does, but he has devastating route-running skills and the ability to release from the line untouched. His playing speed is far quicker than his 40-yard dash time (4.48 seconds), and your one hope as a corner is that you’re close enough to try and win the physical battle at the catch point, because otherwise he is capable of making defensive backs look silly both before and after the catch. He might be the single toughest cover in the game right now, but loses out to Jones because of the extra margin for error Jones has with his size and athleticism.
3. Odell Beckham Jr., New York Giants
We saw against Washington’s Josh Norman last week that even the game’s best corners can’t contain Beckham all game long. Sooner or later he is going to break one and make a big play, whether it’s over the top, or underneath and after the catch. He has ridiculous hands, with the ability to make catches no other receiver can, and high-end quickness and speed to go along with those. About the only flaw in his game is the tendency to lose control of himself emotionally and get out of his game because of it. If he can keep himself together, he is one of the toughest receivers in the game to deal with.
4. A.J. Green, Cincinnati Bengals
Look no further than Thursday night for evidence of this. Miami started two dangerously under-experienced cornerbacks against Green and he went off, but the truth is it probably wouldn’t have made a difference if it had been Byron Maxwell covering him, instead. Green did the same to the Jets’ Darrelle Revis earlier in the season, and if you’re going to leave one guy on him, it had better be the best of the best, because he will take anybody else to the cleaners. He is dangerous at all levels of the defense, and has caught 76.2 percent of the passes thrown his way this year.
5. DeAndre Hopkins, Houston Texans
There aren’t many star receivers who have been dealing with a worse QB situation than Hopkins over the past couple of seasons. Last year the Texans went through a revolving door of disaster QBs, and yet he was still able to put up huge numbers. This season Brock Osweiler was supposed to solve all of those ills, but has been little better overall, and yet Hopkins continues to make plays. He makes one-handed catches for fun (and often necessity, given the passes thrown his way), and is excellent at using his body to shield the ball from defenders — you can be close to Hopkins in coverage, but you’re still going to struggle to stop him from catching the ball.
6. Mike Evans, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Evans looks like a more imposing figure this year. He has always been a dangerous receiver, but now he is rounding out his game and becoming a scary proposition for opposing defensive backs. He scored a touchdown against Arizona’s Patrick Peterson in Week 2, and put 106 yards and a score on the Rams’ Trumaine Johnson – the cornerback the Rams elected to keep around over Janoris Jenkins (who signed with the Giants in free agency) in the offseason. Evans is an impressive deep threat, but has that easy ability to make spectacular catches that all great receivers have. He isn’t uncoverable just yet, but you need to have somebody pretty elite on him if you’re going to shut him down.
7. Alshon Jeffery, Chicago Bears
Jeffery’s biggest limiting factor over the past couple of seasons has simply been staying on the field. Last season he was one of the best-graded receivers in the game, ending the year third in PFF grades with a 91.9 mark, but he only played 517 snaps due to injury. This year he is once again suffering through QB problems, with an inconsistent and then injured Jay Cutler trying to get him the ball, but in isolation Jeffery is a special receiver who can take most defensive backs to task. He has caught 70 percent of the passes thrown his way in 2016 and averaged 19.4 yards per reception, dropping just one ball.
8. Allen Robinson, Jacksonville Jaguars
There may be no better receiver at the catch point than Robinson. Dating back to Jets rookie QB Christian Hackenberg’s freshman season at Penn State, Robinson showed the ability to make spectacular aerial grabs, elevating and taking the ball away from defenders in the air. He still does that to this day, and it’s his best trait, but he is an accomplished and well-rounded receiver on top of it. After last year he looked primed for a truly monstrous season in 2016, but Jaguars QB Blake Bortles’ regression seems to have put a drag on that.
9. Brandon Marshall, New York Jets
He is slowed by injury right now, but Marshall remains one of the game’s best receivers, especially one on one. His biggest flaw has always been dropped passes, but he has always compensated for that with the ability to win contested catches, outmuscle defenders with the ball in the air and bail out his quarterback. Nowhere has that been more in evidence than in New York, where Ryan Fitzpatrick practically relies on that ability to generate production, just heaving the ball at Marshall and hoping for the best.
10. Terrelle Pryor, Cleveland Browns
It’s time to admit that Pryor hasn’t just successfully converted to wide receiver, but looks like he could be a dominant force at the position. When I was at Browns camp this preseason it struck me how natural he looked as a route-runner. He was smooth, sharp and accomplished in that area of the game, leaving only hands to work on. So far this season he has yet to drop a pass, while doing a pretty good Josh Gordon impression with his work as a receiver. This is effectively the first real year of Pryor playing wide receiver, so his potential and ceiling are scary going forward.The Syrian regime isn't using its chemical arsenal on its opposition, at least not yet. But it's starting to look like Bashar Assad is throwing everything else he has against the rebels, from Scud missiles to incendiary weapons. He's even chucking naval mines onto dry land to attack his foes.
Hours after announcing it will recognize a revamped Syrian opposition coalition as a revolutionary government, the Obama administration said it had indications that regime forces have recently fired at least six Scud ballistic missiles at rebel positions in the north. Countries typically fire Scuds at their foreign enemies, like Saddam Hussein did to Israel in 1991, not their own populations. (Moammar Gadhafi provides a recent exception to that rule.) NATO, for instance, recently delivered a Patriot missile battery to Turkey out of fear that Assad would turn his Scuds against the Turks.
But to the Assad regime, northern Syria practically* is* a foreign country these days. It's controlled by the rebels. And those rebels have advanced surface-to-air missiles that can take down regime planes. It's not hard to see why Assad's commanders might elect to fire off a few Scuds instead – especially as the rebels continue to make advances on key regime facilities.
Robert Farley, a professor at the University of Kentucky, said the use of the Scuds most likely indicated an attempt to strike deep inside rebel-held territory, since they have a longer range than Assad's artillery. They probably also indicate that Assad is freaked out about the rebels' potential to shoot down his planes and helicopters with shoulder-fired missiles. "A typical fighter bomber can deliver a lot more ordnance, probably with more accuracy," Farley tells Danger Room. "You use these for surprise, or because you're concerned about enemy air defenses."
According to Jane's Defence Weekly, Assad has three varieties of Scuds, capable of striking targets up to about 435 miles away. But Scuds also have a psychological dimension: They're capable of carrying chemical warheads. Farley cautions that Assad can only bluff so much – each Scud that doesn't come equipped with a Sarin gas shell may diminish the fear that the next one will – but that's an easier assessment to make when the Scuds aren't crashing down on your neighborhood. As a psychological weapon, even a conventional Scud is a formidable thing, especially because they're not particularly accurate weapons. They could hit anywhere.
Human Rights Watch says this image shows the Bashar Assad regime firing incendiary weapons onto a playground in the Syrian city of Quseir. Photo via Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch says this image shows the Bashar Assad regime firing incendiary weapons onto a playground in the Syrian city of Quseir. Photo via Human Rights Watch
But Assad isn't just firing Scuds at his adversaries. According to Human Rights Watch, Assad is also firing so-called incendiary weapons – munitions filled with flammable agents that cause severe burns – at civilian areas. Napalm, white phosphorus and thermite can all be counted as incendiaries, but it's not clear to Human Rights Watch what sort of incendiary Assad loyalists are using. Its best guess is thermite, contained within Soviet-era ZAB-series bombs dropped from aircraft. (Assad, in those areas at least, appears to be less concerned about aircraft shoot-downs.)
"The bombs hit a school called 'Ghaleb Radi' Al Rifiat and several residential buildings next to it," someone Human Rights Watch identifies as a "local activist" in Quseir, Syria, told the organization. "The bombs... caught fire as they were going down from the MiG warplane. I heard a big explosion and several smaller ones. We saw smoke in the air and when we arrived to the Al Rifiyat street I saw at least nine houses on fire."
Incendiaries are sometimes mistaken for chemical weapons, but they don't kill through toxicity, as sarin, VX and other chemical agents do. They are hard to avoid in a barrage: an RBK-250 ZAB-2.5 bomb of the sort Human Rights Watch reports Assad uses, releases "48 incendiary ZAB 2.5 submunitions over an area the size of a football field."
The Obama administration told The New York Times that Assad's use of the Scuds indicates his desperation. Perhaps that's true: Elliot Higgins, who has been tracking the arsenals of both sides of the 20-month Syrian civil war, observes that Assad's aircraft are dropping naval mines as if they're bombs – except without any kind of guidance system or even tail fin that guides a bomb to its intended target, indicating that accuracy isn't exactly a big concern for Assad. But the Scuds, incendiaries and mines might simply reinforce that Assad is an inventive killer who doesn't mind using the munitions he's got to eliminate his foes.After growing up in a middle-class home in Edmonton, Patricia Huculak moved to Toronto 11 years ago to escape a violent spouse and has struggled with poverty and homelessness ever since. But things are finally looking up for the 47-year-old single mother. In July, Huculak began receiving a $500 monthly housing allowance through a recently beefed-up federal-provincial homelessness prevention program that has allowed her to rent a one-bedroom apartment close to public transit.
Patricia Huculak, 47, and her daughter Alicha, 13 outside their Toronto apartment on Sept. 13, 2017. Huculak moved to Toronto from Alberta 11 years ago and has struggled with homelessness and precarious employment. But after a decade of despair things are looking up, she says. ( Vince Talotta / Toronto Star )
Next week, she will graduate from a 12-week advocacy program that has given her the confidence to apply for a well-paying job with the city of Toronto as a street outreach worker where she hopes to put her life experience to work helping others. And her daughter Alicha, 13, a budding track star, is trying out for a girls basketball team that plays competitively throughout southern Ontario. “It used to be every day getting up and asking where am I going to get the next meal and how am I going to get shoes for my daughter?” says Huculak. “But I’m breathing a little easier. For the first time in a long time I have hope.”
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Canadian incomes have risen by more than 10 per cent over the last decade, fuelled by a booming resource sector, while the number living on low incomes is rising in Ontario where growth has been sluggish, Statistics Canada says. However, the agency cautions that census results do not account for the sharp drop-off in oil prices that hit the economy and stalled the resource sector in 2015 and 2016. As well, the Ontario economy has started to rebound, showing strong growth in the first quarter and low unemployment. New data from the 2016 census reveals that the median income of Canadian households rose to $70,336 in 2015, up 10.8 per cent from $63,457 in 2005. The jump is attributed to high resource prices that attracted investment and workers to Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland, pumped up the construction sector and saw wealth filter through the economy, Statistics Canada said Wednesday. The picture wasn’t so rosy in Ontario, where the downturn in the manufacturing sector slowed income growth and the proportion of low-income residents has been on the rise.
The median income in Ontario was $74,287 in 2015, up just 3.8 per cent over the last decade, the slowest growth of any province or territory during that time. That’s attributed to the gutting of the manufacturing sector and the loss of 318,000 jobs, down 30 per cent since 2005.
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From 2005 to 2015, almost every metropolitan centre in Ontario saw below average income growth, compared to the booming Prairies, where incomes rose above average. The Greater Toronto Area had a median income of $78,373 in 2015, up 3.3 per cent. In the GTA, Oakville had the highest median income at $113,666. The City of Toronto had the lowest at $65,829. The last decade has also seen a rise in low-income rates in Ontario’s urban centres, led by London (17 per cent, up from 13 per cent) and Windsor (17.5 per cent, up from 14 per cent). The Toronto region’s low-income rate rose to 15.6 per cent from 14.1 per cent a decade ago. Across Ontario, 14.4 per cent of residents — some 1.9 million people — were low income in 2015, an increase from 12.9 per cent in 2005. Nationwide, the low-income rate edged up slightly over the decade to 14.2 per cent in 2015, |
-The option chain the day of the release of news for ADHDIf you thought you could sell the OTM calls at the open, you couldn't, the market makers aren't that dumb. The OTM calls all opened with 0 bid and 0.05 offer.As the day progresses, the available short shares available at IB shrinks along with the stock price.ADHD Borrow rates leading up to the news release.Short Strangle ($5 puts and $40 calls) chart-Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from any investigation involving last fall’s election is prudent — but it won’t satisfy the Democrats now channeling the ghost of Sen. Joe McCarthy.
Back in the ’50s, the Wisconsin senator was famously accused of seeing a Russian under every bed. And now Democrats seem to be conducting the same kind of “witch hunt” as his investigations of Soviet infiltration of the US government.
see also Jeff Sessions recuses himself from Russia investigations Amid a swirl of controversy over his contact with the...
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and others are demanding Sessions’ resignation over the news that he met twice with Moscow’s ambassador last year.
Some Democrats say the meetings themselves compromised Sessions — even though senators meet with foreign ambassadors all the time, and Sessions was a member of the Armed Services Committee to boot.
In a bizarre sideshow, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) tried to pile on Sessions Thursday, saying she’d never had a call or meeting with the Russian ambassador in her 10 years on Armed Services. Oops: Her own Twitter feed shows at least one call and one face-to-face in the last four years.
Driving it all is the fevered far-left theory that a Russia/Trump-campaign conspiracy stole the election from Hillary Clinton — though few Democrats admit that as they rail over the supposed horrors of any association with the Russians.
Now Schumer says the problem is that Sessions, under oath, denied any meetings. In fact, it’s clear from the actual Q&A that he was speaking about representatives of the Trump campaign — while his meetings were solely in his role on Armed Services. (Sessions now admits he should have mentioned them anyway.)
Of course, Democrats don’t just want Sessions’ head: They’re also calling for a special prosecutor — which would guarantee a years-long partisan probe. (Think the Valerie Plame case.)
When it comes to investigating the election, we’re with Sen. Marco Rubio, who says there should be no “cover-up” — but no “witch hunt” either. No matter how shrill the Democrats’ McCarthyism.At the ancient site of Charax Spasinou, military activity has left an indelible mark. Should it be viewed as modern damage – or as an important record of historical events?
Modern conflict archaeology, the study of 20th and 21st century conflicts, is a new and slightly uncomfortable discipline in the world of archaeology. It’s problematic in a number of ways. Firstly, very little of it involves what most people would recognise as archaeology – digging up cultural material from the ground for study. Most of the material legacies of modern conflicts remain above ground and embedded in current society, necessitating a more anthropological, interdisciplinary approach. Secondly, the time periods under study are often within living memory, and often remain highly contentious within the affected regions. This means that modern conflict archaeology can be a political minefield – as well as an actual minefield.
I’m currently working in Iraq down in Basra province at the two thousand-year-old city of Charax Spasinou, founded by Alexander the Great in 324 BC. Thirty years ago, however, the site was home to thousands of Iraqi soldiers. The Iran-Iraq war was dragging towards its end, both sides exhausted by the waves of offensives which had made 1987 the war’s bloodiest year. That spring the Siege of Basra had cost the lives of at least 60,000 Iranian and 20,000 Iraqi soldiers.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Map of the area around Basra showing the position of Charax Spasinou. The Iran-Iraq border is marked in yellow, with the main Iraqi defensive lines protecting Basra and the Basra-to-Baghdad highway marked in blue. Illustration: Mary Shepperson/Google Earth
Charax Spasinou wasn’t the only archaeological site re-occupied during the eight-year conflict. The border area between Iran and Iraq is phenomenally rich in archaeology, and archaeological sites often made the best defensive positions – rising ground into which earthworks could be dug. There’s hardly an ancient tell in eastern Iraq that doesn’t have the remains of an artillery emplacement or observation post dug into the top of it. At Charax Spasinou it was the ancient city’s still imposing ramparts which led to the site being incorporated into the Iraqi defensive lines north of Basra.
Despite landmines, snakes and dodgy gin, Iraq is an archaeological paradise Read more
The surviving mudbrick ramparts on the northern and eastern sides of the city (conveniently the directions from which Iranian attacks were most likely) stand to a height of up to eight metres above the flat alluvial plain and run for almost 3.5km. When the Iraqi army arrived, engineers refortified Charax Spasinou for modern warfare. At least 45 gaps were punched through the upper level of the ancient walls, with ramps of debris on the inner side so that tanks and artillery could be embedded in the ramparts. Along the top of the ancient walls, infantry positions were dug into the mudbrick and connected by trenches running behind them along the reverse slope. At least 199 of these dugouts are still visible on the top of the ramparts, each big enough for between two and four men. In some areas the remains of sandbags can still be seen emerging from the silt.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Drone video of the Parthian ramparts of Charax Spasinou. Some of the numerous alterations to the walls made by the Iraqi army during the Iran-Iraq war are highlighted.
The alterations to the ancient wall are the most visible reminder of the war at Charax Spasinou, but the greater impact on the archaeological site was from activity inside the walls, which damaged the city’s buildings just below the surface. In front of the walls and behind them the army used bulldozers to throw up berms, as well as digging auxiliary trenches and storage pits for equipment and ammunition. Hundreds of vehicles; tanks, APCs, fuel tankers and supply trucks, were stationed behind and around the walls of Charax. Each was protected by bulldozed banks of ancient archaeological deposits, usually heaped into a horseshoe shape to give protection on three sides and escape via the fourth. So far I’ve counted 212 such vehicle emplacements within the five square kilometres of the ancient city, not including the many more which are visible immediately outside the ramparts.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Vehicle and artillery emplacements around, what Ali Wehayib tells me, was the central army camp at Charax Spasinou. Photograph: Charax Spasinou Project/Courtesy of the Charax Spasinou Project
As might be expected from such an intensive occupation of the landscape, a considerable amount of military material remains on the surface, although this is quickly disappearing in the harsh environment of southern Iraq. Metal fragments are everywhere, most are unidentifiable but there are large vehicle fragments in clusters where trucks and troop transports have been left to disintegrate. Corroded green copper bullets mix with the ancient Parthian and Sassanian coins.
More personal items are sometimes in evidence. An occasional helmet, buttons, the zip from a coat, an Iraqi army sock; the small leavings of the men who fought here through some long, hard years.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Helmet liner from an Iraqi infantry helmet. Photograph: Mary Shepperson/Courtesy of the Charax Spasinou Project
Ail Wehayib Abdul Abbas, who keeps an eye on the site for the antiquities authorities and is currently helping us with our geophysics, remembers the war at Charax Spasinou. He was conscripted into the army at the age of 18 and fought in the northern sector around Halabjah before being transferred to the southern front in the later stages of the war. The army engineers arrived in 1984, he tells me, and cut the ancient walls and dug their trenches. Hundreds of tanks and troops were based at the site and the local villagers were moved to nearby towns.
Piecing back together an Iraqi archaeological gem blown sky-high by Isis Read more
The Iranians never quite reached Charax Spasinou. Ali Wehayib says they were stopped at Majnoon, now an important oil field a kilometre north of the site, during their closest offensive in 1987. Nevertheless, Charax Spasinou carries deep scars from the conflict, as does Ali Wehayib, who rolls up his trouser leg to show me.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ali Wehayib Abdul Abbas. Iran-Iraq war veteran, site guardian and gradiometry expert. Photograph: Mary Shepperson/Courtesy of the Charax Spasinou Project
The recording of the Iran-Iraq war remains at this site and the surrounding area forms a part of the archaeological survey we are carrying out here, and one that I’m very happy be working on. In every respect, the military legacy at Charax Spasinou represents an important phase of occupation at the site, as well as being the material record of significant historical events which had a profound impact on Iraq and the wider region.
When we consider military activity at archaeological sites, particularly those related to the recent and ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Syria, they are too often bewailed purely as damage to the archaeological record. While the use of archaeological sites as military positions is an unfortunate aspect of war, it’s important to remember that these activities are also the record of important historical and political events in a landscape which continues to be shaped by human occupation.
The Charax Spasinou project is supported by the British Council’s Cultural protection fund, which is set up in partnership with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and by the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage.It’s the joy of sext!
Sexting is now a normal part of human relationships, according to a massive new study of sex and tech — 74 percent of Americans say they exchange saucy electronic messages with their lovers
“Sexting may be becoming a new, but typical, step in a sexual or romantic relationship,” said Amanda Gesselman, a research scientist at the Kinsey Institute, which released its annual International Sex Survey this week.
The researchers surveyed more than 140,000 people from 198 countries about the role of tech in their sex lives, and found Americans are some of the most prolific sexters on the planet — second only to South Africans. Japanese and South Korean adults are the least likely to trade racy missives.
Worldwide, 67 percent of adults said they’ve sexted — a staggering increase from just five years ago, when only 21 percent said they engaged in the practice.
“This increase, and this large of a proportion of respondents suggest that incorporating tech into our private lives may be becoming normal,” Gesselman said.
An old-school text message is still the most common way for people over 18 to transmit their salacious thoughts, with 65 percent of Americans saying they’ve sent sexy SMSes, while only 38 percent used Snapchat.
The study also revealed that a third of Americans have used an app like Tinder to find a date or get laid — but more say they’re looking for a relationship than a one-night stand.
Thirty-six percent said they used apps to find long- or short-term relationship, while only 20 percent were seeking to satisfy their carnal desires.
Swedes are the most plugged-in when it comes to online dating, with 46 percent saying they’ve used a dating app, while Russians are Luddite lovers, with only 3 percent reporting that they’ve used an app for a hookup.A porn clip “accidentally” posted on the Goa Congress’ official WhatsApp media group on Saturday allegedly by a former party office-bearer led to much embarrassment for the opposition party.
Goa Congress chief spokesperson Sunil Kawthankar later apologised to the media for the gaffe and removed Whatsapp member and alleged culprit Barnabe Sapeco from the group.
WhatsApp group is an official channel of the Goa Congress for media communication and is used to send out press statements and press conference invites to journalists.
The group has over 80 Congress leaders and journalists as members.
“It is a very serious issue. The erring member has been removed from the group. As an admin, I apologise to all members for this act of one of the members on the group. Such irresponsible act is highly objectionable and cannot be tolerated,” Kawthankar said.
Sapeco, a former state Congress general secretary, said, “It happened by accident. It was sent to me by someone. It must have been posted on the WhatsApp group accidentally. I apologise for the inconvenience.”
First Published: Jul 08, 2017 16:54 ISTThere's a race afoot to give biofuel wings in the aviation industry, part of an effort to combat soaring fuel prices and cut greenhouse gas emissions. In 2008, Virgin Atlantic became the first commercial airline to fly a plane on a blend of biofuel and petroleum. Since then, Air New Zealand, Qatar Airways and Continental Airlines, among others, have flown biofuel test flights, and Lufthansa is racing to be the first carrier to run daily flights on a biofuel blend.
However, researchers at MIT say the industry may want to cool its jets and make sure it has examined biofuels' complete carbon footprint before making an all-out push. They say that when a biofuel's origins are factored in -- for example, taking into account whether the fuel is made from palm oil grown in a clear-cut rainforest -- conventional fossil fuels may sometimes be the "greener" choice.
"What we found was that technologies that look very promising could also result in high emissions, if done improperly," says James Hileman, principal research engineer in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, who has published the results of a study conducted with MIT graduate students Russell Stratton and Hsin Min Wong in the online version of the journal Environmental Science and Technology. "You can't simply say a biofuel is good or bad -- it depends on how it's produced and processed, and that's part of the debate that hasn't been brought forward."
Hileman and his team performed a life-cycle analysis of 14 fuel sources, including conventional petroleum-based jet fuel and "drop-in" biofuels: alternatives that can directly replace conventional fuels with little or no change to existing infrastructure or vehicles. In a previous report for the Federal Aviation Administration's Partnership for Air Transportation Noise and Emissions Reduction, they calculated the emissions throughout the life cycle of a biofuel, "from well to wake" -- from acquiring the biomass to transporting it to converting it to fuel, as well as its combustion.
"All those processes require energy," Hileman says, "and that ends up in the release of carbon dioxide."
In the current Environmental Science and Technology paper, Hileman considered the entire biofuel life cycle of diesel engine fuel compared with jet fuel, and found that changing key parameters can dramatically change the total greenhouse gas emissions from a given biofuel.
Land-locked
In particular, the team found that emissions varied widely depending on the type of land used to grow biofuel components such as soy, palm and rapeseed. For example, Hileman and his team calculated that biofuels derived from palm oil emitted 55 times more carbon dioxide if the palm oil came from a plantation located in a converted rainforest rather than a previously cleared area. Depending on the type of land used, biofuels could ultimately emit 10 times more carbon dioxide than conventional fuel.
"Severe cases of land-use change could make coal-to-liquid fuels look green," says Hileman, noting that by conventional standards, "coal-to-liquid is not a green option."
Hileman says the airline industry needs to account for such scenarios when thinking about how to scale up biofuel production. The problem, he says, is not so much the technology to convert biofuels: Companies like Choren and Rentech have successfully built small-scale biofuel production facilities and are looking to expand in the near future. Rather, Hileman says the challenge is in allocating large swaths of land to cultivate enough biomass, in a sustainable fashion, to feed the growing demand for biofuels.
He says one solution to the land-use problem may be to explore crops like algae and salicornia that don't require deforestation or fertile soil to grow. Scientists are exploring these as a fuel source, particularly since they also do not require fresh water.
Feeding the tank
Total emissions from biofuel production may also be mitigated by a biofuel's byproducts. For example, the process of converting jatropha to biofuel also yields solid biomass: For every kilogram of jatropha oil produced, 0.8 kilograms of meal, 1.1 kilograms of shells and 1.7 kilograms of husks are created. These co-products could be used to produce electricity, for animal feed or as fertilizer. Hileman says that this is a great example of how co-products can have a large impact on the carbon dioxide emissions of a fuel.
Hileman says his analysis is one lens through which policymakers can view biofuel production. In making decisions on how to build infrastructure and resources to support a larger biofuel economy, he says researchers also need to look at the biofuel life cycle in terms of cost and yield.
"We need to have fuels that can be made at an economical price, and at large quantity," Hileman says. "Greenhouse gases [are] just part of the equation, and there's a lot of interesting work going on in this field."
The study is the culmination of four years of research by Hileman, Stratton and Wong. The work was funded by the Federal Aviation Administration and Air Force Research Labs.Executive producer Marc Guggenheim says Tommy and Moira aren't taking a dip in the pit, and "we have an explanation for why that is the case."
[Warning: spoilers ahead for Wednesday's episode of Arrow, "The Fallen."]
Thea (Willa Holland) may have gotten a new lease on life in Wednesday's Arrow, but don't expect the dead characters of the CW drama to be joining her.
Oliver (Stephen Amell) made the agonizing choice to join the League of Assassins in exchange for access to the Lazarus Pit and its restorative powers to save his sister, who was close to death after being attacked. The decision was all the more painful because Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) finally confessed her love for him — going as far as drugging Oliver in a failed attempt to bring him back to Starling City from Nanda Parbat.
See more 'Arrow': Everyone Who Has "Failed" Starling City (Photos)
Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim knows fans will likely clamor for dead characters such as Oliver's best friend Tommy (Colin Donnell) and mother Moira (Susanna Thompson) to be revived with the Lazarus Pit, which in comic book lore can raise the dead. Despite the lengthy roster of deceased characters on the show, Guggenheim says the producers don't have plans to use the Lazarus Pit in that way.
He notably doesn't mention Caity Lotz's Sara as being on the "no Lazarus Pit list." Lotz is slated to appear in the untitled Arrow/Flash spinoff, though her character Sara died earlier this season.
In a chat with The Hollywood Reporter, Guggenheim also weighs in on Oliver's potentially dark future, the complications Thea faces after her dip in the pit, and Roy's (Colton Haynes) goodbye.
Is the Lazarus Pit on the table for other people?
Now that we've got it in our world, and we have a lot of dead characters in our world, we will be addressing how it works and the circumstances and things of that nature. I know that is something our fans are going to be very interested in. I'm sure after the events of episode 20, there will be a lot of, "Get Tommy in the pit. Get Moira in the pit." We don't have any plans to do that, but we have an explanation for why that is the case.
See more Behind the Scenes of the CW's 'Arrow'
Thea seems OK, but is it safe to assume there will be complications from her dip in the pit?
Everything in the show has consequences, and that's something we've been consistent about. It's something you will continue to see not just through the end of season three but into season four.
We got a sense of Ra's backstory, with him being torn away from them by the previous Ra's. Where did that come from?
One thing we try to do on the show is give our villains a relatable backstory. Very few of our villains come into the world completely evil. They sort of become evil over time. We were just consistent with that philosophy when it came to Ra's. It would be very convenient if he was born evil and then joined an evil organization.
Ra's used to be a loving family man, but is now a brutal killer. Is Oliver in danger of going over the edge like that?
That's very much the concern. In many ways, 320 is a cliffhanger, because it ends with Oliver joining this organization, with us knowing that this is an evil organization. The League of Assassins is not the name of a nice group. Now that he is a member, who knows what he is going to have to do in the course of his ascension to Ra's. It's a true cliffhanger. You don't know where the show is going to go after, after the events of episode 320.
Is Felicity and Ray's breakup part of Brandon Routh transitioning to the spinoff?
Ray is going to remain a big part of Arrow throughout the remainder of the season. We didn't break up Felicity and Ray because of the spinoff. We really had to do it to make it for Oliver and Felicity to sleep together, because we didn't want Felicity cheating on Ray the first time she hooked up with Oliver. That would not be cool.
After his exit last week, Colton Haynes comes back as Roy one more time this season. What are some of the circumstances of that?
The one loop we haven't tied off is the relationship between Roy and Thea. That storyline in episode 22 is really designed to put a punctuation mark on their love affair.
How much Roy will we see in season four?
It's totally based on Colton's availability and what stories we have. We haven't slotted particular episodes yet. We're just at the early stages of planning out the overall storylines for season four. We haven't gotten down to the point where we'd say it's going to be episodes X,Y, and Z. it will be a situation where we have an idea, and then we'll go to Colton, and then find out what his storyline will be.
Arrow airs on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.YouTube adds more details, and restrictions, around which videos can be monetized More guidance for video creators and three new types of ad-unfriendly content
YouTube is taking new steps today to get a handle on content that might offend advertisers or, conversely, prevent a YouTube creator from monetizing their videos. Several major brands left the platform’s ad program recently to avoid being linked with hateful and offensive videos. And many creators were upset when videos they saw as benign started to be de-monetized.
YouTube has promised to give advertisers greater control over where their ads appear and to give creators a better sense of what they need to avoid if they want their videos to make money. Today the video service is expanding its creator guidelines on what constitutes an “ad-friendly” video, offering up more details about dos and don’ts, and, importantly, adding three new categories of videos that won’t be eligible for advertising.
YouTube is trying to walk a careful line with these new guidelines. The company needs to give brands more assurance that their ads won’t be placed before objectionable content, while also minimizing any negative reaction from popular creators who depend on ad revenue. It’s a necessary dance as YouTube tries to balance the freewheeling nature of creation with all the ad money flowing through its business.
The new guidelines, according to YouTube VP of product management Ariel Bardin, “take a tougher stance” on:
Hateful content: Content that promotes discrimination or disparages or humiliates an individual or group of people on the basis of the individual’s or group’s race, ethnicity, or ethnic origin, nationality, religion, disability, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other characteristic associated with systematic discrimination or marginalization. Inappropriate use of family entertainment characters: Content that depicts family entertainment characters engaged in violent, sexual, vile, or otherwise inappropriate behavior, even if done for comedic or satirical purposes. Incendiary and demeaning content: Content that is gratuitously incendiary, inflammatory, or demeaning. For example, video content that uses gratuitously disrespectful language that shames or insults an individual or group.
The first and second points are straightforward enough. For one, YouTube is getting much stricter about discriminatory content and making an effort to be transparent about it. The second section also makes clear that YouTube plans to crack down on videos that feature recognizable family entertainment characters in unseemly situations.
That third area, though — “incendiary and demeaning content” — might be the hardest for YouTube to incontestably define for both creators and brands. There’s plenty of room for debate over where the “gratuitous” line falls. To that end, YouTube says it’s working to improve the appeals process for creators who object to having a video marked as “not advertising friendly.”
To be clear, many videos that fall under the above descriptions will still be permitted on YouTube — they just won’t be allowed to receive advertising dollars. “We hope this additional information will provide you with more insight into the types of content that brands have told us they don’t want to advertise against and help you to make more informed content decisions,” said Bardin.The Mexican star says he, the Mexican federation and Bayer Leverkusen are in agreement over the decision.
Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernandez has elected to play in the Copa America Centenario rather than the Olympics, the Mexican striker said Thursday.
Hernandez told the LA Times in a phone interview that while he wanted to play in the Olympics, he has decided to play in the June tournament taking place in the United States instead. The Bayer Leverkusen attacker added the Mexican federation was in agreement with the decision.
"The Mexican federation wants me to go to the Copa America," Hernandez told the newspaper. "It’s not only my decision. It’s like 50-50, the decision. The federation wants me to go to Copa America and I decided to go to Copa America.
"Not because I don’t want to go to the Olympics. It’s because it’s the best for...my club, for me and for the federation."
Hernandez revealed his club team, Bayer Leverkusen, also did not approve of Chicharito playing in both tournaments, and preferred he take part in the Copa America instead.
"The most important thing here is what my club as well wanted," Hernandez said. "If we finish fourth, I cannot go to the Olympics. So it’s not my decision. And if we finish third, the thing is I need to do preseason."
"So it’s not only my decision. Not only 100 percent mine."
The Copa America Centenario is an event that requires clubs to release players to their international teams if called. However, the Olympics, being a youth tournament with a small number of over-age players taking part, does not.
As a result, players have to get special permission to play in the Olympics. A high-profile example has already happened in the form of Neymar, who was required by Barcelona to sit out the Copa America in order to be released for the Olympics.
Mexico is the reigning champion of the Olympics, winning the tournament in 2012. Hernandez did not take part in that tournament either because Manchester United did not release him.
The Copa America kicks off June 3 with the host United States facing Colombia. Mexico opens with a June 5 match against Uruguay.
Hernandez is having a breakthrough season in 2015-16 and is fourth in the Bundesliga in goals, with 16 in the league this season. He is back in training after sustaining an injury in last weekend’s Leverkusen win.Sir, – I was surprised to read (“Nearly 80 per cent to pay contentious water charges, poll shows”, September 28th) that “information released by Irish Water earlier this month which showed that at the end of the second billing cycle at least 775,000 homes had paid their bills, giving a compliance rate of exactly 51 per cent”.
The information released by Irish Water does not suggest a compliance rate of 51 per cent. That is what was originally and wrongly suggested in your newspaper. However, a subsequent Irish Water statement made it clear that was not the case.
What Irish Water is claiming is that 100,000 new customers paid a bill for the first time during the second billing cycle. The figure of 775,000 is simply derived by journalists adding that 100,000 to the 675,000 who paid the first bill during the first billing cycle.
However, what Irish Water failed to release was the key figure, which is how many people paid the first bill, but have passed their pay-by-date for the second bill and have not paid it. That figure could well be higher than 100,000 – thereby resulting in a reduction of payment levels instead of an increase.
That is the figure journalists should be demanding. – Yours, etc,
PAUL MURPHY, TD
Anti-Austerity Alliance,
Tallaght,
Dublin 24.LAST FEW HOURS: We're so close! Please help us make Fargoal 2 a reality! Also watch Jeff live right now at kickathon.net (click the WATCH button in the upper right)
Update #19: Announcing our first-ever, 24-hour “Kick-a-thon” which will kick off Friday, October 12, 2012 at 3:00 pm PST. Because you — our fans & supporters — have given us so much, we decided to give back in a big way with a live, 24-hour celebration of Kickstarter and its projects, games, creativity, and other geeky goodness!
[FRI 3:00 PM PST TO SAT 3:00 PM PST — *LIVE* — FIND "WATCH NOW"]
UPDATE #16: We are swimming in T-shirt designs! Check out this update to see these preliminary designs and comment on your favorites…
UPDATE #15: WooHoo! We just broke $33,000 — leaving $17,000 to go with T-30 hours for our final goal, thanks to you. Let’s try and reach our goal on Friday and go for stretch-goals on Saturday!! Also listen to over 20 guests on our Kick-a-thon for the last 24 hours!
UPDATE #14: Here’s a Sneak Peek at “Sword of Fargoal: The Board Game” — with box mock-up AND miniatures sketches by Charlie Canfield!
UPDATE #13: We’ve just added a new $1,000 “RETRO” LEVEL in which you will get all sorts of goodies, including one of only ten (10) original C64 systems & a copy of the original “Sword of Fargoal” on a new floppy disk!
UPDATE #12: Check out Installment #1 from our “the making of: Sword of Fargoal” hardbound book to learn more about the Fargoal 2 main interface.
Press Coverage:
Second only to our fans and supporters, the Games Press has been, and continues to be a *huge* help to our Sword of Fargoal 2 campaign! In fact, we are surprised and pleased to learn that many of the writers with whom we’ve spoken these past several days are indeed Sword of Fargoal fans!
JOSHUA VILLINES: “As inspired and addictive as [Jeff McCord’s] orginal creation…” (Former Gaming Editor, iPhone Life magazine)
BOINGBOING: “One of my favorite games for iPhone/iPad” (Mark Frauenfelder, founder of BoingBoing)
ROCK, PAPER, SHOTGUN: “I can see Fargoal sitting in a very desirable middle ground between the accessibility of Dungeons of Dredmor and the likes of ADOM and Stone Soup” (Adam Smith)
TUAW: “A really well-polished, well-traveled action RPG game” (Mike Schramm)
TOUCHARCADE: “This is a shining example of exactly how you should do a modern remake of a classic.” (Jared Nelson)
Full press coverage here! (29 to-date): http://far.gl/press-01 (a link great for tweeting — hint, hint)
We want to bring the next evolution of the 80s cult-hit retro dungeon crawler game Sword of Fargoal back — for Mac/PC/Linux/iOS — completely reimagined, reworked, and stuffed with awesome new features (which are detailed towards the end of this page, so keep reading!)
Hi, I’m Jeff McCord. Over 25 years ago I created the original Sword of Fargoal for the Commodore 64 (C64). It was an extremely popular “Roguelike” dungeon crawler game with random dungeon generation and tons of replayabily. Like a true retro game, Fargoal had a reputation of being extremely hard, and very few people were known to find the Sword and make it out of the dungeon alive! Computer Gaming World magazine even listed Sword of Fargoal as one of the “Top 150 Best Video Games of All Time.”
Original C64 version of "Sword of Fargoal"
A few years ago I teamed up with ace developer Paul Pridham (a developer with 30 years of experience who created Saucelifter and the upcoming Punch Quest), Emmy award-winning animator Charlie Canfield, and noted British composer Daniel Pemberton (LittleBIGPlanet, BBC) to bring the game back for iOS and Mac OS. The remade Sword of Fargoal has won numerous awards, including “Best Retro Game (iPad division)” for the “2010 Best App Ever Awards” (“Sword of Fargoal Legends,” published by Chillingo/EA). Fargoal has even been recognized by the Guinness World Records 2012, Gamer’s Edition as “Most critically acclaimed ‘Roguelike’ for iOS.”
All new level types and dungeon textures — like this watery world — found in Fargoal 2
Now, a vocal contingent of Fargoal fans have demanded MORE. A reimagining of the game — with more spells. More monsters. More traps. Better graphics. More music. Animation. New characters types. New quests. A new dungeon-generation system, and much more. Basically to keep the fun and excitement of the original, but reinvent the game for 2012 & 2013, with more depth and rich gameplay; more adventure, exploration, mystery; plus new character classes.
That’s why we’re embarking on this quest to make Sword of Fargoal 2 — all new from the ground up.
Concept image for our new main menu — beautiful three-layer parallax panning effect
While we have great relationships with major publishers, we really wanted to stay true to our indie roots and make the game the way the fans wanted. You guys have been giving us great suggestions over the years, and we want to be able to incorporate your suggestions. So, much like we did with the first version, we decided to keep our small team together and forge ahead. And so far, we’ve made great progress. 80% of the game is complete. We just need your help with the last 20%.
But I won’t sugarcoat it. That last 20% is very ambitious. It involves new animation, music, graphics, a new procedural map and item generation model, and new features like “Action Cards” — which allow you to mark your achievements and to save, export, and re-watch your adventure like a slide show, with an exciting Fargoal music track. Plus, there are hundreds of new weapons and items, with thousands of combinations. Once you’ve found a “bastard sword of troll staying,” we know you’ll be in love!!
Do you dare enter? Who knows what perils lie beyond this portcullis door!!
Every piece of armor, weapons, amulets, etc. appear on your character in the combinations you choose as you explore the dungeon. Character classes — both male and female ― are customizable. Play as a Fighter, Ranger, Thief, or Magic User, with even more classes to come.
Many new monster types and character classes and more to come…
This Kickstarter campaign is only running for 30 days because if you tell us “go,” the team will need every minute to deliver the awesomeness of Fargoal 2 as soon as possible.
We plan to release the game in May 2013, as well as delivering all but one of the rewards by that date. (Super secret Fargoal "Project X" will follow closely behind in July 2013).
New Fargoal 2 image from the Dungeon Depths — deeper than the Sword Level itself!
We’ve got some fantastic rewards (see right), including some amazing artwork by Charlie Canfield, music by Daniel Pemberton, backer-only forums (we want to hear your ideas!), beta access, plus (of course) iOS and Mac/PC/Linux versions of Sword of Fargoal 2 — and more, including a real-life Sword of Fargoal.*
*Evil wizard foe not included.
Concept drawing for real-life Sword of Fargoal — actual Sword will be even cooler!
What's a Wumpus? Multiple 'Wumpi' pictured here!
With your help, here’s what Sword of Fargoal 2 will be:
Mac/PC/Linux plus iOS versions: Sword of Fargoal 2 in all its glory on multiple platforms.
Sword of Fargoal 2 in all its glory on multiple platforms. Everything rebuilt from the ground up!
Over 100 procedural dungeon levels: Different challenges and rewards every time you play.
Different challenges and rewards every time you play. New character types: Fighter, Ranger, Thief, Magic User, plus male and female versions of both.
New combat and ranged weapons, armor, magic, and effects.
More goodies: Potions, wands, rods, spells, rings, amulets, traps, treasures, and poisons.
Potions, wands, rods, spells, rings, amulets, traps, treasures, and poisons. Everything new about monsters throughout the dungeon: All new intelligent monster behavior, new monster types, and graphics.
All new intelligent monster behavior, new monster types, and graphics. New quests and side-explorations: You can explore in brand new ways throughout all-new dungeon levels and types.
New puzzles and side-quests in addition to seeking the "Sword of |
was working out solo Tuesday night when she was attacked and dragged about 15 feet off a path in Spring Creek Park near her home in Howard Beach, police said.
Cops as yet do not have any suspects in the rape-murder.
“She was really beat up,” a source said of Vetrano, whose father, Philip, found her body during a search with NYPD cops about four hours after she went missing.
She had “scratches and marks all over her body, which was in bad shape,” the source said.
“While [the killer] was strangling her, he pressed his hands so hard into her neck that later on when they found the body, police could see the outline of his hand in her neck,” said another source.
No arrests have been made, but police are interviewing several known sex offenders who live in the area as well as vagrants who live in the park.
Police interviewed Vetrano’s ex-boyfriend Wednesday and ruled him out as a suspect, NYPD officials said.
“He thought their relationship was more than it was but she broke it off with him,” a source said.
Investigators believe the killer was a stranger to her, sources said.
Cops late Wednesday discovered a used condom and wrapper discarded not far from the quiet path where Vetrano’s body was found, but it was unclear if it was linked to the attack, sources said.
Police on Thursday were combing through the weeds also looking for Vetrano’s missing shoe, which apparently came off as she was being dragged.
“We are still in the process of collecting evidence right now,” Boyce said Thursday.
“We plan to chop down just about every weed at that location until we are satisfied that we got all the evidence.”
A tractor with an industrial mower was brought to the scene of the crime Thursday as well as dozens of police officers from various units.
Boyce added that “a lot” of forensic evidence has been acquired so far, but only three vague tips had come in via the Crimestoppers hot line.
“It was still daylight [when the attack took place], so we are hoping somebody saw something going into the park,” he said. “Thus far, we don’t have a lot of leads on this right now.”
Police did a DNA swab on Vetrano’s cellphone found off the dirt path and are awaiting the results, Boyce said. Swabs underneath the victim’s fingernails were also taken for testing.
On her cellphone, police found a missed call from her worried dad. Also, during her run Vetrano had exchanged text messages with a friend, Boyce added.
To beef up manpower in the investigation, the NYPD has set up a task force with two detectives from each of the eight squads in Queens South, sources said. The FBI is also involved in the investigation, but only to lend equipment that the NYPD does not have, officials said.
The NYPD on Thursday raised the reward to $10,000 for tips leading to the arrest and conviction of Vetrano’s killer.
Vetrano’s devastated dad returned to the scene Thursday morning.
The 60-year-old former firefighter pulled up in his white Mercedes SUV and was spotted speaking with officers.
Karina regularly ran along the path in the park with her dad, but he had stayed home Tuesday night to nurse a back injury.
He had told her not to go near the area, but she assured him she would be fine, sources said.
When his daughter did not return home by 7 p.m., about two hours after she had gone out, Philip called a police-chief neighbor, who contacted cops.
Investigators tracked her cellphone to a marshy area in the park, a federal property.
The tall weeds there have long been a security issue in the community.
“The weeds have been a problem for as long as anybody can remember here,” said City Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Queens).
The large swath of land is only patrolled from the perimeter by two park officers sporadically over 24-hour periods, a federal official said.
The two officers also patrol the Brooklyn and Queens portions of Gateway National Park, a vast network including Spring Creek Park.
“That’s a challenge for us. That’s something that we’ve discussed with the community in the past and it’s not a secret,” said US Park Police district manager Capt. Raymond Closs.
Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton, Shawn Cohen and Daniel PrendergastIf a Romney presidency didn't frighten the daylights out of me before, it certainly does now after reading Paul Krugman's column this morning. He starts out by saying that President Obama has been wrong about some things because but that "Republicans have been wrong about everything."
Why did the administration get it wrong? It wasn’t exaggerated faith in the power of its stimulus plan; the report predicted a fairly rapid recovery even without stimulus. Instead, President Obama’s people failed to appreciate something that is now common wisdom among economic analysts: severe financial crises inflict sustained economic damage, and it takes a long time to recover.
The latest devastating demonstration of that wrongness comes from the International Monetary Fund [PDF], which has just released its World Economic Outlook, a report combining short-term prediction with insightful economic analysis. This report is a grim and disturbing document, telling us that the world economy is doing significantly worse than expected, with rising risks of global recession. But the report isn’t just downbeat; it contains a careful analysis of the reasons things are going so badly. And what this analysis concludes is that a disproportionate share of the bad news is coming from countries pursuing the kind of austerity policies Republicans want to impose on America. O.K., it doesn’t say that in so many words. What the report actually says is: “Activity over the past few years has disappointed more in economies with more aggressive fiscal consolidation plans.” But that amounts to the same thing.
Unless you were being driven by ideology instead of by evidence. This is a practical country. We have ideals. We have philosophies. But the problem with any ideology is that it gives the answer before you look at the evidence. So you have to mold the evidence to get the answer that you've already decided you've got to have. It doesn't work that way. Building an economy; rebuilding an economy is hard, practical nuts and bolts work.
I thought Paul Ryan was unusually brazen in his defense of the Republican insistence on extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich. Biden made the reasonable point that you could easily vote separately on extending the cuts for the middle class and extending the cuts for the rich, but Republicans refuse to do that: "They’re holding hostage the middle class tax cut to the super wealthy." This was Ryan's response:
Look, if you taxed every person and successful business making over $250,000 at 100 percent, it would only run the government for 98 days. If everybody who paid income taxes last year, including successful small businesses, doubled their income taxes this year, we'd still have a $300 billion deficit. You see? There aren't enough rich people and small businesses to tax to pay for all their spending. And so the next time you hear them say, "Don't worry about it, we'll get a few wealthy people to pay their fair share," watch out, middle class, the tax bill's coming to you. That's kind of breathtaking, no? First, he says that ending tax cuts for the rich wouldn't solve the entire deficit problem all by itself, so therefore we shouldn't do it. Huh? Then he attempts some jiu jitsu by suggesting that if you're in favor of partly solving the deficit problem with tax hikes on the rich, then "watch out, middle class, the tax bill's coming to you." Double huh? I wonder if anyone fell for that? Joe Biden Smiles, Laughs, and Mostly Kicks Ass
Republicans think the solution our country's economic woes lies in sharp cuts to spending and reducing the debt. It would be amusing that they accuse President Obama for wanting to bring European style governing to the U.S. when it is the Republicans who are pushing the use of austerity measures like many European countries; if it weren't for the fact that if given a chance they really would do it. Krugman explains why "Republicans are dead wrong."And yet despite all the evidence to the contrary, Republicans believe that this is the path to take. They are married to their ideology, and as President Clinton explained when he was a guest on The Daily Show last month.And so last night at the debate Paul Ryan twisted and tied himself into a knot trying to explain how his plan would work, without giving actual numbers as to how he would do it because if he gave the numbers the American public would learn that they don't add up. I wasn't able to find a video clip where Ryan talked about the deficit, but I found this excellent review of the debate with a transcript of that section by Kevin Drum over at Mother Jones:I did find a video clip of Paul Ryan explaining the 20% income tax decrease that Mitt Romney and he are pushing.
Paul Ryan: You can cut tax rates by 20 percent and still preserve these important preferences for middle-class taxpayers. V.P. Biden: Not mathematically possible. Paul Ryan: It is mathematically possible. It’s been done before. It’s precisely what we’re proposing. V.P. Biden (laughing): It has never been done before. Paul Ryan: It’s been done a couple of times, actually. V.P. Biden: It has never been done before. Paul Ryan: Jack Kennedy lowered tax rates, increased growth. V.P. Biden: Oh, now you’re Jack Kennedy?
What the monetary fund shows is that the countries pursing the biggest spending cuts are also the countries that have experienced the deepest economic slumps. Indeed, the evidence suggests that in brushing aside the standard view that spending cuts hurt the economy in the short run, the G.O.P. got it exactly wrong. Recent spending cuts appear to have done even more harm than most analysts — including those at the I.M.F. itself — expected.
And here’s the thing: if Mitt Romney wins the election, the G.O.P. will surely consider its economic ideas vindicated. In other words, politically good things may be about to happen to very bad ideas. And if that’s how it plays out, the American people will pay the price. Triumph of the Wrong?
Now we have this international report about the world economy that explains what happens when the Republican ideas have been used in other countries.But don't expect Republican politicians to admit to that. They are too invested in their ideology to let actual data and facts get in the way, and amazingly enough they've convinced at least 45% of the country that they are correct. Here's Krugman's frightening conclusion.I live in Polk County, Florida, and last night I attended a training session at the OFA Lakeland Field Office. From now until Election Day, I'm donating every spare minute of my time to helping President Obama get reelected. I was surprised to learn from the Team Leaders that just about every time Romney/Ryan come to Florida they stay here in Lakeland because I was told "Polk County is really important for President Obama." I'm fired up and ready to go! What about you?MONTREAL – Being called “favorites” in MLS isn’t something the Montreal Impact are used to.
Last season, Montreal went into 26.5 percent of their games (9 out of 34) having tallied more points than their opponents. Yet the favorites tag didn't make much of a difference: The Impact picked up 11 out of a possible 27 points from those contests.
This time around, the Impact’s three wins in three games and their next opponents’ points tallies effectively guarantee that Marco Schällibaum’s side will be, statistically-speaking, favorites coming into the next two games, and tricky ones at that: at home against the New York Red Bulls this Saturday (4:30 pm ET, MLS Live) and away at Sporting Kansas City the following weekend.
READ: MLS announces schedule change for Montreal Impact match due to CCL
Understandably, the Montreal coaching staff prefers to curb expectations.
“I don’t think we’re at a point where we’re the favorites," assistant coach Mauro Biello said. "Playing against New York, they’re a good team on paper. They’re a team that should be vying for MLS Cup, for the playoffs. From our perspective, we have to be ready to face a team like New York."
“Yes, we do have nine points. Yes, things are going well for us. They’re going through tougher times. But every guy here, every coach, every staff member, we know that it's going to be a very difficult game against New York and that we need to be ready.”
READ: Arnaud finding success in central midfield
The players, for their part, are coping well with this novel situation, for they have already been setting high expectations for themselves since last season. The difference this year is that external expectations have gone up a notch.
“Maybe now, going into the next games, the other teams might perceive us as a tougher opponent and not take us too lightly,” Collen Warner told MLSsoccer.com. “I felt a few times, last year, it was almost easy for us to come out and get on top of other teams because they’d take us lightly.”
Added team captain Davy Arnaud: “I think we need to realize what makes us good. Regardless of ‘favorite,’ ‘won three in a row’ or ‘lost three in a row,’ our approach can’t change no matter what, with other people saying who the favorites are and all that other stuff.”NORTH East Link could become a reality with both the federal Liberal and Labor parties pledging $5 million towards studies if elected on July 2.
Liberal Jagajaga candidate David Mulholland promised the cash for a an options study into the major project if re-elected in an announcement made today.
Labor Jagajaga MP Jenny Macklin has pledged to put the money into a North East Link feasibility study.
Leader previously reported Banyule and neighbouring Nillumbik councils were at odds over the contested location with both municipalities not wanting to see the major project go through their area.
MISSING LINK HAS NEIGHBOURS AT ODDS
This announcement comes as Leader readers reacted angrily to a move by VicRoads to allow over-dimensional trucks down the already congested Rosanna Rd.
There are two main options previously discussed, which include a path through, or underneath Banyule, linking at the Bulleen entrance to the freeway, or a route through Nillumbik and Manningham which connects to the EastLink tunnel at Ringwood.
Mr Mulholland said up to 40,000 vehicles a day travel between the two freeways through roads in Banyule, Manningham and Nillumbik.
“It’s important we get on with planning work now so the early work is done and the right details is available to governments to make informed and responsible decisions around the delivery of the project,” he said.
media_camera Jagajaga Liberal candidate David Mulholland on the bridge that crosses the Ring Rd in Greensborough. Picture: Josie Hayden
Ms Macklin said Melbourne needed a long-term solution to traffic congestion in the north east and to get trucks off suburban streets, including Rosanna Rd.
“That’s why Labor is committing $5 million to examine building a North East Link,” Ms Macklin said.
She said traffic congestion on Rosanna Rd, Lower Plenty Rd, Fitzsimmons Lane and Greensborough Highway was a major problem and the suburban road network was inadequate, congested and dangerous.
This also comes as State Ivanhoe Labor MP Anthony Carbines announced $850,000 for safety upgrades along Rosanna Rd.
Resolve Rosanna Road president Natasha Reifschneider said the project was needed to complete the ring in the metropolitan ring road and provide a freeway designed to carry freight around the city.
“The project will allow local roads such as Rosanna Rd to function as arterial roads, not default freeways,” Ms Reifschneider said.
She said the link would remove the conflict and safety issues between freight, vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists all using Rosanna Rd, which was not designed for that purpose.
“The North East Link options study … will remove the issue of State members failing to act on the project in fear of losing their seat if the freeway alignment was to go through their electorate,” Ms Reifschneider said.
“Resolve Rosanna Road endorses the action of any political party to progress the options study for North East Link project.”Few that was an effortDexter is my top fave TV series to watch so I thought I'd let it all out with a new piece. I tried to get most of the main characters in, I am missing a few like Lila, Harry, Quinn, the kids and a few more but these are the characters I prefer. I'm a big fan of Vince Masuka haha! AND DOAKS, I still think he should have stayed for a least an extra seasonI've been working on this for weeks, just bits at a time. But I'm glad I finally completed it, feels goodThe idea behind it is the people on the lower left are all Miami Metro, the people on the lower right are (Spoiler) characters who have been killed off. All the characters behind are Dexter's biggest trophies from each season (in order)I know Lila maybe should have been up there but it just didn't feel the same.. And the blood spatter resembles Dexters lifestyleIt just seemed to fit nicely!I hope you all enjoy this, I had a great time making it. Please let me know what you think.For those of you who thought the relationship between the NCAA and student-athletes couldn't get any weirder, take a look at some of the gift packages players receive for playing in 2013-14 bowl games.
The NCAA allows each bowl to award up to $550 worth of gifts to participating players. Some bowls provide a combination of electronics, sunglasses, clothing and other items that every college-age football player desires, while some go an extra step and provide a "gift suite" -- a collection of items that players can choose to receive from the bowl prior to the game.
Not all bowl gifts are created equal - we have to imagine there are some players angry about missing out on the Military Bowl and the PS4 that comes with it.
Check out the full list of 2013 Bowl Game gifts below....
2013 Bowl Gifts
■ Gildan New Mexico Bowl
Sat., Dec. 21, 2 p.m. (ESPN); Albuquerque, N.M.
Gift suite, portable mobile device charger, 8 GB USB; Oakley Breadbox sunglasses; cap, Oakley Fine Knit beanie; Oakley Flak Pack XL backpack; Gildan stadium blanket
■ Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl
Sat., Dec. 21, 3:30 p.m. (ABC); Las Vegas
Samsung Galaxy Tab 3; beanie, cap; Oakley Flak Pack XL backpack; football, Zappos gift card
■ Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
Sat., Dec. 21, 5:30 p.m. (ESPN); Boise, Idaho
Gift suite; Port Authority winter coat, Tiger Woods Nike Golf beanie, Scott winter ski gloves; iPack backpack; Big Game football
■ R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl
Sat., Dec. 21, 9 p.m. (ESPN); New Orleans
Gift suite; Fossil watch
■ Beef ‘O’ Brady’s St. Petersburg Bowl
Mon., Dec. 23, 2 p.m. (ESPN); St. Petersburg, Fla.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 3; Oakley Breadbox sunglasses; Oakley Status backpack (at right); Schutt mini helmet
■ Sheraton Hawaii Bowl
Tues., Dec. 24, 8 p.m. (ESPN); Honolulu
Gift suite; Oakley sunglasses; Tori Richard aloha shirt, Pro Athletics shorts and performance T-shirt; Ogio backpack; beach towel
■ Little Caesars Pizza Bowl
Thurs., Dec. 26, 6 p.m. (ESPN); Detroit
Timely Watch Co. watch; leather luggage set; football
■ San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl
Thurs., Dec. 26, 9:30 p.m. (ESPN); San Diego
$205 Best Buy gift card; Reactor Heavy Water watch; Maui Jim sunglasses; cap
■ Military Bowl presented by Northrop Grumman
Fri., Dec. 27, 2:30 p.m. (ESPN); Annapolis, Md.
Sony PlayStation 4; winter hat; Ogio backpack
■ Texas Bowl
Fri., Dec. 27, 6 p.m. (ESPN); Houston
Samsung Galaxy Tab 3; Fossil watch; belt buckle, T-shirt; Ogio backpack; lapel pin
■ Fight Hunger Bowl
Fri., Dec. 27, 9:30 p.m. (ESPN); San Francisco
Soundmatters wireless portable speaker system; Fossil watch; Maxx HD Wayfarer sunglasses; messenger bag; Macy’s gift card
■ New Era Pinstripe Bowl
Sat., Dec. 28, 12 p.m. (ESPN); New York City
Variety of New Era products
■ Belk Bowl
Sat., Dec. 28, 3:20 p.m. (ESPN); Charlotte
Shopping trip to Belk department store; Fossil watch (at right)
■ Russell Athletic Bowl
Sat., Dec. 28, 6:45 p.m. (ESPN); Orlando
$450 Best Buy gift card and shopping trip*; Timely Watch Co. watch; Russell Athletic workout shirt
■ Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl
Sat., Dec. 28, 10:15 p.m. (ESPN); Tempe, Ariz.
Gift suite; Fossil watch; Ogio Cube backpack
■ Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl
Mon., Dec. 30, 11:45 a.m. (ESPN); Fort Worth, Texas
Gift suite, RadioShack gift card; ESPN cap; Ogio overnighter bag; Big Game football
■ Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl
Mon., Dec. 30, 3:15 p.m. (ESPN); Nashville
Gift suite; Fossil watch (at right)
■ Valero Alamo Bowl
Mon., Dec. 30, 6:45 p.m. (ESPN); San Antonio
iPad Mini with retina display, Apple gift card; Fossil watch; panoramic photo, Schutt mini helmet
■ National University Holiday Bowl
Mon., Dec. 30, 10:15 p.m. (ESPN); San Diego
$305 Best Buy gift card; Reactor Meltdown watch; Maui Jim sunglasses; cap
■ AdvoCare V100 Bowl
Tues., Dec. 31, 12:30 p.m. (ESPN); Shreveport, La.
Gift suite; Timely Watch Co. watch; New Era skull cap; football
■ Hyundai Sun Bowl
Tues., Dec. 31, 2 p.m. (CBS); El Paso, Texas
Gift suite; Timely Watch Co. watch; Top of the World cap, Majestic fleece pullover; Ogio backpack; coin, Helen of Troy hair dryer
Sure, why not?
■ AutoZone Liberty Bowl
Tues., Dec. 31, 4 p.m. (ESPN); Memphis
Sol Republic Tracks HD headphones; Bulova watch; Nike sunglasses; Nike athletic shoes and sport sandals; Nike Kevin Durant backpack; football
■ Chick-fil-A Bowl
Tues., Dec. 31, 8 p.m. (ESPN); Atlanta
Fossil watch; Russell Athletic cap; Russell Athletic bag; football, $300 Visa gift card, Chick-fil-A gift card
■ TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl
Wed., Jan. 1, 12 p.m. (ESPN2); Jacksonville
Fossil watch; Dome hat; Mercury Luggage Seward Trunk luggage set; football, Jostens ring
■ Heart of Dallas Bowl
Wed., Jan. 1, 12 p.m. (ESPNU); Dallas
Gift suite; Fitbit Flex watch; ESPN cap; football
■ Capital One Bowl
Wed., Jan. 1, 1 p.m. (ABC); Orlando
$450 Best Buy gift card and shopping trip*; Timely Watch Co. watch; Russell Athletic workout shirt
■ Outback Bowl
Wed., Jan. 1, 1 p.m. (ESPN); Tampa
$150 Best Buy gift card; Fossil watch; cap; Jostens ring, Outback Steakhouse gift card
■ Rose Bowl Game presented by Vizio
Wed., Jan. 1, 5 p.m. (ESPN); Pasadena, Calif.
Gift suite; Fossil watch; New Era 59Fifty cap; Ogio backpack
■ Tostitos Fiesta Bowl
Wed., Jan. 1, 8:30 p.m. (ESPN); Glendale, Ariz.
Gift suite; Fossil watch; Ogio Cube backpack
■ Allstate Sugar Bowl
Thurs., Jan. 2, 8:30 p.m. (ESPN); New Orleans
Gift suite; Fossil watch; New Era 39Thirty cap; Ogio backpack
■ AT&T Cotton Bowl
Fri., Jan. 3, 7:30 p.m. (Fox); Arlington, Texas
Information not available
■ Discover Orange Bowl
Fri., Jan. 3, 8:30 p.m. (ESPN); Miami Gardens, Fla.
Gift suite; Tourneau watch
■ BBVA Compass Bowl
Sat., Jan. 4, 1 p.m. (ESPN); Birmingham, Ala.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 3; Fossil watch; Oakley sunglasses; ESPN cap; Big Game football
■ GoDaddy.com Bowl
Sun., Jan. 5, 9 p.m. (ESPN); Mobile, Ala.
Sol Republic deck; Timely Watch Co. watch; Mercury Luggage Seward Trunk luggage bag; Wilson football
■ Vizio BCS National Championship Game
Mon., Jan. 6, 8:30 p.m. (ESPN); Pasadena, Calif.
Gift suite; Fossil watch; New Era 59Fifty Hat; Oakley Flak Pack XL backpack
"Wait, the guys in the Military Bowl got WHAT?"
* Shopping trips are done at official store locations, balances not used that day will be forfeited.
(h/t Sports Business Daily)
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Additional Reading:
The 11 Best Holiday Gifts For the Sports Fan in Your Life
The Complete Jameis Winston Police ReportImage copyright Getty Images
Free sanitary products are to be made available at Glasgow Airport for female passengers.
The move is in response to a campaign by Central Scotland Labour MSP Monica Lennon to end "period poverty" in Scotland.
She said the airport was sending out the "strong message" that no-one should go without access to sanitary products.
The trial will see free tampons and pads in toilets within the main check-in hall and in arrival halls.
Ms Lennon has proposed a bill at the Scottish Parliament to ensure free access to sanitary products, including in schools, colleges and universities.
'Strong message'
Glasgow Airport managing director Amanda McMillan said the firm was happy to support the initiative.
She said: "We met with Monica earlier this year and she highlighted the need to address what is a real issue for many women.
"Millions of passengers travel through our doors on an annual basis and this trial will ensure that our female customers have access to these essential products."
Ms Lennon said: "Providing free sanitary products at the airport sends out a strong message that periods are normal and I know this will be appreciated by passengers.
"No-one should have to go without access to vital sanitary products, so it's great that Glasgow Airport are leading by example on this issue."
In July, the Scottish government announced a six-month pilot project in Aberdeen to provide free sanitary products to women and girls from low-income homes.References:
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Furlong, Frederick T. and Robard Williams (2006) “Financial Market Signals and Banking Supervision—Are Current Practices Consistent with Research Findings?” Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Economic Review, pp 17–26. Galí, Jordi and Mark L. Gertler. (1999) “Inflation Dynamics: A Structural Econometric Analysis,” Journal of Monetary Economics, Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 195–222. Gertler, Mark L. (1988) “Financial Structure and Aggregate Economic Activity: An Overview,” Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 559–588. Gertler, Mark L. and A. Trigari. (2009) “Unemployment Fluctuations with Staggered Nash Wage Bargaining,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 117, No. 1, pp. 38–86. Hall, Robert E. (2005) “Employment Fluctuations with Equilibrium Wage Stickiness,” American Economic Review, Vol. 95, No. 1, pp. 50–65. Hall, Robert E. and Paul R. Milgrom. (2008) “The Limited Influence of Unemployment on the Wage Bargain,” American Economic Review, Vol. 98, No. 4, pp. 1653–1674. Harashima, Taiji. (2004a) “A More Realistic Endogenous Time Preference Model and the Slump in Japan,” EconWPA Working Papers, ewp-mac0402015. Harashima, Taiji. (2004b) “A Possibility of Protracted Output Gaps in an Economy without Any Rigidity,” EconWPA Working Papers, ewp-mic/ 0404007. Harashima, Taiji. (2004c) “The Ultimate Source of Inflation: A Microfoundation of the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level,” EconWPA Working Papers, ewp-mac/ 0409018. Harashima, Taiji. (2007) “Hyperinflation, disinflation, deflation, etc.: A unified and micro-founded explanation for inflation,” MPRA (The Munich Personal RePEc Archive) Paper, No. 3836. Harashima, Taiji. (2008) “A Microfounded Mechanism of Observed Substantial Inflation Persistence,” MPRA (The Munich Personal RePEc Archive) Paper, No. 10668. Hornstein, Andreas, Per Krusell, and Giovanni Luca Violante. (2005) “Unemployment and Vacancy Fluctuations in the Matching Model: Inspecting the Mechanism,” Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Quarterly, Vol. 91, No. 3, pp. 19–50. Kennan, John. (2006) “Private Information, Wage Bargaining and Employment Fluctuations,” NBER Working Papers, No. 11967. Keynes, John Maynard. (1936) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Macmillan Cambridge University Press, London. La Porta, Rafael, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes, Andrei Shleifer, and Robert W. Vishny. (1998) “Law and Finance,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 106, No. 6, pp. 1113–1155. Lawrance, Emily C. (1991) “Poverty and the Rate of Time Preference: Evidence from Panel Data,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 99, No. 1, pp. 54–77. Levine, Ross. (1997) “Financial Development and Economic Growth: Views and Agenda,” Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 688–726. Levine, Ross, Norman Loayza and Thorsten Beck. (2000) “Financial Intermediation and Growth: Causality and Causes,” Journal of Monetary Economics, Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 31–77. Lucas, Robert E., Jr. and Nancy L. Stokey. (1984) “Optimal Growth with Many Consumers,” Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 32, No.1, pp. 139–171. Mankiw, N. Gregory (2001) “The Inexorable and Mysterious Tradeoff between Inflation and Unemployment,” Economic Journal, Vol. 111, Issue 471, pp. C45–61 Mirman, Leonard Jay and Itzhak Zilcha. (1977) “Characterizing Optimal Policies in a One-sector Model of Economic Growth under Uncertainty,” Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 389–401. Mishkin, Frederic S. (1991) “Asymmetric Information and Financial Crises: A Historical Perspective,” in Hubbard, R. Glenn, ed., Financial Markets and Financial Crises, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA. Morris, Stephen and Hyun Song Shin. (2001) “Rethinking Multiple Equilibria in Macroeconomic Modeling,” NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000, Vol. 15, pp. 139–182. Mortensen, Dale T. and Pissarides, Christopher A. (1994) “Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Theory of Unemployment.” Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 61, No. 3, pp. 397–415. Obstfeld, Maurice. (1990) “Intertemporal Dependence, Impatience, and Dynamics,” Journal of Monetary Economics, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 45–75. Parkin, Michael. (1988) “A Method for Determining Whether Parameters in Aggregative Models Are Structural,” Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 215–252. Pissarides, Christopher A. (1985) “Short-Run Equilibrium Dynamics of Unemployment, Vacancies, and Real Wages.” American Economic Review, Vol. 75, No. 4, pp. 676–690. Romer, Christina D. (1990) “The Great Clash and the Onset of the Great Depression,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 105, No. 3, pp. 597–624. Samuelson, Paul. (1937) “A Note on Measurement of Utility,” Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 155–161. Schumpeter, Joseph Alois. (1912/1934) Theorie der Wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig; English translation published in 1934 as The Theory of Economic Development, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Shaw, Edward S. (1973) Financial Deepening in Economic Development, Oxford University Press, New York. Shimer, Robert. (2004) “The Consequences of Rigid Wages in Search Models,” Journal of the European Economic Association, Vol. 2, No. 2–3, pp. 469–479. Shimer, Robert. |
son to disinvite Trump from an event for Republican presidential candidates in Atlanta on Saturday.
But Jeb Bush attended that gathering, stood alongside Erickson, and made a curious proclamation. ThinkProgress reported over the weekend:
Jeb Bush appeared at the RedState Gathering on Saturday and pronounced that Erickson was “on the side of women.”In it’s current state, PyEthereum is not this library.
PyEthereum has roughly zero documentation. PyEthereum has no distinction between public and private APIs There is no formalized strategy for deprecation and backwards incompatible changes. PyEthereum can be configured and made modular in some ways but there is zero documentation on how to do this and it is limited.
So if PyEthereum falls short, how do we get ourselves the library we need?
Option 1: Fix PyEthereum
The most obvious option is to fix PyEthereum. Given the magnitude of changes needed, this is not something that could be done iteratively on any reasonable timeframe which means it would need to be a significant backwards incompatible change.
This approach would leverage the work and mindshare that already exists within the PyEthereum codebase and development community. This is normally the route that I would take as rewrites often appear simple on their surface while in reality they are difficult and involved.
The primary argument against such a rewrite is the significant number of backwards incompatible breaking changes which would be required. This type of change would be disruptive and costly for all of the teams and products which are currently built on top of PyEthereum.
In a similar vein, such a broad change would likely be disruptive to Vitalik’s research.
Option 2: Start Fresh (the one I chose)
A completely new implementation written in Python.
The major benefit of this approach new library which can take cues from the existing implementation but start with a clean slate. This library can be developed in parallel to PyEthereum without causing any disruption to existing users.
The drawbacks to this approach are somewhat nuanced. In the short term, it means a lot of work creating a new implementation, but this is lessened by the wonderful ethereum/tests suite of test cases.
Introducing Py-EVM
Py-EVM is a new implementation of the Ethereum Virtual Machine written in python. It is currently in active development but is quickly progressing through the test suite provided by ethereum/tests. I have Vitalik, and the existing PyEthereum code to thank for the quick progress I’ve made as many design decisions were inspired, or even directly ported from the PyEthereum codebase.
Py-EVM aims to eventually become the defacto python implementation of the EVM, enabling a wide array of use cases for both public and private chains. Development will focus on creating an EVM with a well defined API, friendly and easy to digest documentation which can be run as a fully functional mainnet node.
Step 1: Alpha Release
The plan is to begin with an MVP, alpha-level release that is suitable for testing purposes. We’ll be looking for early adopters to provide feedback on our architecture and API choices as well as general feedback and bug finding.
We expect to enter this phase within the next very few months, if not weeks.
Step 2: Beta Release
Once we are satisfied that the basic design decisions are correct we will then enter a cycle of beta releases. During this time we will plan to develop an adapter as well as documentation for people migrating from PyEthereum.
During this time we will also begin development of the networking components to allow Py-EVM to serve as a full ethereum node on the live network.
This phase is likely to last for multiple months. We hope to be at or near the end by the time that Metropolis is released but ultimately, we will be done when it’s ready.
Step 3: Initial Stable Release
Once Py-EVM is able to run both the mainnet and public test networks it will be ready for a stable 1.0 release.
Development
If you’d like to follow along with the ongoing development of Py-EVM you can do so on github.Sir Alex Ferguson does not readily admit mistakes. Poor signings are bundled discreetly out of the back door, the subject rarely up for discussion, and critics are routinely taken apart by a genuine master of rhetoric. So when he does admit to a mistake, it is reasonable to assume it is a biggie: the sale of Jaap Stam, the announcement of his plan to retire in 2002 – and his tactics against Real Madrid in 2000.
It was one of the most important games in modern Manchester United history. Not only did it irrevocably damage their hopes of a European dynasty; it led to the most significant philosophical change in the history of the club. Before that game Ferguson sent his teams out in Europe to score one more than the opposition; since then, for the most part, he has sent them out to concede one fewer. Now, ahead of another meeting with Madrid, he may have come full circle.
After 26 years one would think English football knows everything about Ferguson, yet despite regular reminders, such as the expert muzzling of Everton's Marouane Fellaini on Sunday, his position as one of the game's keenest tacticians remains strangely unrecognised. Ferguson is sometimes patronised as somebody armed with a hairdryer and a chequebook, his success largely down to his genius for man-management and motivation, yet he has always been something of a chalkboard addict.
He was one of the few British managers to employ a sweeper system before English football's Italia 90 epiphany, and in the days before squad rotation he was christened Tinkerbell by the fanzine Red Issue for his habit of making unexpected changes, such as the omission of Mark Hughes for crucial games against Nottingham Forest and West Ham in the unsuccessful title challenges of 1991-92 and 1994-95. In the credit column, his inspired decision to use Danny Wallace at centre-forward in the League Cup in 1990 led to a 6-2 win at Arsenal that was a significant rite of passage in the development of his first great United side.
Ferguson suffers from the weirdly simplistic British perception that the sharpest tactical minds are foreign – but maybe he shares an element of such thinking, because nothing gets his chalkboard dirtier than the magical mystery tour of European football. Once the competition peaks after Christmas, every game is a bespoke challenge that demands a bespoke solution, particularly away from home, and usually involving changes to the midfield and attack.
That was not the case in 1999-2000. United, empowered by the previous season's treble, seemed to have an omnipotence that rendered tactics almost irrelevant. Everyone knew the best front six: David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Roy Keane, Ryan Giggs, Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole. Then, in the quarter-finals, an unusually tame 0-0 draw at the Bernabéu – when the players, the manager or both were in awe of the name Real Madrid – was followed by a traumatic 3-2 defeat at home. Madrid had been in disarray before the tie, and although they won the Champions League that year they finished fifth in La Liga. The received wisdom is that Madrid had too much class and street wisdom for United in that second leg, best exemplified by Fernando Redondo's backheeled nutmeg on Henning Berg that led to the third goal, yet the tape shows that Redondo and the 18-year-old goalkeeper Iker Casillas had the games of their lives.
Madrid should also have had Aitor Karanka sent off for handball on the line when they were 1-0 up, while Keane – who had been on a one-man mission to win the European Cup after missing the previous season's final, and who was playing the best football of his career – scored an own goal and missed an open goal. In short, United were pretty unfortunate to lose an excellent game of football between two excellent teams.
Madrid might not quite have taught United a lesson, as many felt, but that does not mean United didn't learn anything. "This was the standard we had to aim for, world class," said Keane in his autobiography. "A number of features of Real's play struck me. The incredible first touch. The economy of movement, no daft running, every move purposeful. Raúl's cunning, waiting like a panther to pounce on any half-chance. And burying it when it came."
Ferguson decided United lost because he was too slow to react to Madrid's unprecedented 3-3-2-2 formation, with Redondo the only central midfielder. "If I had altered the team early to a 4-3-3 … I am sure we could have won handily," he said in his autobiography. "I know that, and could kick myself for delaying the change." The Real manager Vicente del Bosque, did it for him, referring witheringly to United's "tactical anarchy". Ferguson ensured nobody would make such accusations ever again.
Eighteen months earlier he had described a 3-3 draw with Barcelona as "the perfect football match – both teams trying to win with scant regard for the consequences. That's how football should be played." Now he saw the world through different eyes. "One of the forceful reminders delivered by that Madrid defeat was that consistent success in Europe would be more readily achieved if we improved our capacity to defend against the counterattack," he said. The most obvious way to do that is to ration your own attacks. With destruction intrinsically easier to control than creation, prioritising the former became irresistibly logical.
Yet logic was only part of the story. Ferguson said that Casillas's performance was "not normal at all" and that "just about everything that could possibly go wrong for us did so in spades, and we were left looking back on the match with the sense that Real were simply destined to progress". That he should change his entire approach based on such a freakish, inscrutable match is a fascinating insight into a man with an unshakeable courage of his convictions.
Since then United have been a different side in Europe and in big games domestically: whereas once they were swashbuckling and intrepid to the point of naivety, now they are worldly, cautious and always look under the sauce to see if it really is pasta. The change was intensified when Carlos Queiroz, a defensive influence for richer and poorer, joined as assistant manager in 2002.
The new approach took a long time to be successful: United could not even win multiple Champions League knockout ties, never mind multiple Champions Leagues, with only one victory between 2000 and 2006 inclusive. Ferguson also sacrificed a golden goose that was delivering a Premier League title every year. Some feel he had ultimate vindication with Champions League victory in 2008 and a run of three finals in four years; others say the potential of the treble team was not fulfilled because they played in a manner that was alien to them.
"Justifying the change of approach depends on how you view it," says John-Paul O'Neill, a contributor to Red Issue. "The aim of it all was of course to win the European Cup, which Ferguson has only managed once in 12 seasons since that Madrid tie. Would he have won it more without changing tack? The stats – one victory from four previous attempts (post-foreigner rule) – suggest he'd have been better off carrying on as he was. What's most disappointing about the change in the wake of the 3-2 defeat to Madrid, which was most pronounced from 2000-01 to 2005-06, is how a perceived overemphasis on attack (which to a large degree is what won us the trophy in 1999) can initiate a wholesale change of approach when it fails, whereas overemphasis on defence (Monaco 98, Madrid 2000, and plenty of times since) doesn't result in the system being scrapped when that fails to deliver time and time again."
The first significant change came with the signing of Juan Sebastián Verón in 2001. He was in the side the last time Ferguson named an unchanged team from one European match to the next – more than 11 years ago, against Deportivo La Coruña. The extent to which Ferguson tinkers, allied to the variables of form and injury, makes it hard to define his tactical approach by any given season. The Verón years, 2001-03, are often associated with the Argentina midfielder alongside Keane with Scholes playing behind Ruud van Nistelrooy, yet they only played that system in six out of 32 European games. Similarly, what was described as a 4-3-3-0, with Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez forming a fluid forward line, is indelibly associated with the Champions League victory in 2007-08. Yet Ferguson only started one out of 13 European games that season with such a formation.
Ferguson's approach is perhaps best summed up by the XI for the final against Chelsea in 2008. It was the only time that team ever started together, a bespoke solution for a Champions League final. Owen Hargreaves was on the right-hand side of midfield in a loose 4-4-2 so that, if Chelsea's midfield got on top, he could tuck into the centre with Wayne Rooney moving to right wing. That is precisely what happened. Rooney has probably been the most important counter on Ferguson's tactics board, such is his selfless flexibility. In semi-finals and finals of the Champions League alone he has played left-wing, right-wing, in the hole and up front.
To Ferguson, the squareness of a peg and the roundness of a hole are in the eye of the beholder. Players are frequently used away from their regular position. Ronaldo often played as a centre-forward, for example – particularly away from home, most notably in 2008-09 when he scored from more than 40 yards in both the quarter- and semi-finals. Ferguson takes pride in telling the media they have no chance of predicting his team – between 2008 and 2011 he went 166 games in all competitions without naming an unchanged side – and he has no compunction about going against expectation or upsetting people. Ronaldo and Rooney have both been omitted from matches in the last 16, while the £30.75m Dimitar Berbatov started only five of 18 knockout games and did not even make the bench for the 2011 final. Ferguson also left the PFA Player of the Year Teddy Sheringham out of both games against Bayern Munich in the 2001 quarter-finals, and thought he could make a European central midfielder of Alan Smith.
He quickly shelved the Smith experiment, proof that he has never been afraid to change his mind. Park Ji-sung started zero European games in his first two seasons at Old Trafford; over the next five years he became a vital player, trusted implicitly because of his energy, tactical discipline and intelligent movement. He was regularly used to sit on full-backs such as Dani Alves and Maicon – or even, when United played Milan in 2009-10, to get tight on Andrea Pirlo. Park became not just a European specialist but a European big-game specialist: 15 of his 23 Champions League starts for United were in the knockout stages. Attackers are often picked for their defensive capabilities: Sheringham was included away against Bayern Munich in 1998 partially because of his height at defensive set-pieces (he scored a last-minute own goal from a Bayern set-piece, proof that even the best-laid plans can go wrong) and Phil Jones may play as a nominal right-winger in Madrid so that he can double up on Ronaldo. Jones may become Ferguson's new Park, the man trusted to do a precise aggressive-passive job in the biggest games.
It was not Park but the parking of the bus that drew most attention after Ferguson's most controversial selection, against Barcelona in the 2008 semi-final. Barcelona were unravelling towards the end of Frank Rijkaard's reign, yet United's ostensibly attacking 4-2-3-1 in the first leg at Camp Nou soon morphed into 9-0-1. They had 28% possession in that game and only three shots on target in the entire tie but went through 1-0 on aggregate after a stunning goal from Scholes. The debate endures as to whether such an approach was acceptable. "For the obvious reasons like Scholes's redemption, the atmosphere in the second leg, reaching the final – yes," says O'Neill. "For the embarrassing tactical approach in the away leg – not at all. It was a betrayal of everything United are supposed to represent, especially in Europe, and Barcelona weren't even a particularly strong side at that time. But for most it's justified as we got to the final."
United were similarly cautious on their last two trips to Madrid, without the same success. Both times they travelled during startling winning runs in the league – 11 in 2000, 10 in 2003 – yet played on the subservient side of meek. The teenage Ferguson had been seduced by Real's legendary 7-3 win over Eintracht Frankfurt at Hampden Park in 1960, a match he said "epitomised all the dreams of European football", and it almost felt as if he had sent his team out to face Puskas, Di Stéfano and Gento. This time United are on a run of 38 points in 14 league games.
Ferguson has recently admitted another mistake, that United were too negative in the title-deciding Manchester derby last April. That miserable performance may have stung him into change just as the Madrid game did all those years ago. A greater emphasis on attacking meant the signing of Robin van Persie and a more positive approach in big games this season, albeit with controlled rather than reckless aggression, that was particularly successful in 3-2 victories at Stamford Bridge and Eastlands. He has also played around with a diamond midfield in some European games, a reminder that an old don can learn new tricks.
"It's hard to predict whether he will go for it in Madrid," says O'Neill. "On occasions this season – in the wake of last April's tactical surrender at Eastlands – it has seemed like Fergie's rediscovered his cojones when it comes to picking an offensive line-up in big games. We'll find out for sure in Madrid." One thing is already sure: Ferguson will have a plan. He always does.The Equalizer shot to the top of the box office with $35 million thanks to Denzel Washington's unadulterated star power, while The Boxtrolls debuted in second place for a surprisingly robust $17.25 million and The Maze Runner didn't slow down all that much with a strong $17.5 million second weekend.
The one constant through all the years has been Denzel Washington. The star system as we know it is in tatters, the concept of the studio programmer and mid-budget drama has given away to animated spectaculars and mega-budget fantasy franchises. But for the last twenty years there was one thing America could count on. Denzel Washington was always there, making the kind of old-school pulpy star vehicles that otherwise threatened to go the way of the dinosaur. And when Denzel Washington would arrive, full of righteous indignation and weirdly honorable violence, people would come. And this weekend, with Denzel Washington suiting up to deliver righteous anger and/or furious vengeance, people most definitely came. They came to The Equalizer, which starred Mr. Washington in a loose adaptation of the CBS television show. It's only an average $8.15 per person. They passed over the money without even thinking about it. For it was money they had, and entertainment they lacked. They found some reserved seats somewhere in the middle of the middle. And they watched the carnage and it was if they dipped themselves in magic Icees. This actor, his movies, they are a part of our past. He reminds us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh, people came. People most definitely came.
They came to the tune of $35 million this weekend, including $1.45m in Thursday previews and $12.6m on Friday, giving the film a solid 2.77x weekend multiplier. That's the third-biggest opening weekend in Denzel's long history, behind only the $43m of American Gangster (co-starring Russell Crowe) and the $40m opening weekend of Safe House (co-starring Ryan Reynolds). The debut is good for the Washington's biggest opening weekend for a film that isn't a two-hander and his third-biggest opening weekend ever. The point of that somewhat in-jest introduction above is that The Equalizer had little to sell beyond the notion of Denzel Washington as a righteously indignant avenger, and it still opened to pretty massive numbers. In an era where movie stars seem to mostly be added-value elements to mega-budget franchises based on preestablished properties, Denzel Washington is still the most important element of a Denzel Washington picture. Yes The Equalizer was a loose adaptation of a television show, but I'd argue that was almost beside-the-point this weekend. An original "Denzel Washington plays Home Depot employee who is secretly an ex-spy and eventually kills bad guys" movie would arguably have opened just as well.
The Equalizer played 52% male and 65% over 30 years old while earning $3.3 million in IMAX alone. It's an unapologetic star vehicle for one of the few old-school movie stars who still gets to make pure star vehicles. When Washington shows up to deliver justice, he's the most consistently reliable draw in the business. As long as the budgets are kept in checkt just $55m to produce (via Village Roadshow and LStar Capital), The Equalizer is already a pretty big hit. The interesting nugget this time around is that Sony (Sony Entertainment Corp.) was so high on the film that they were already planning on a sequel. Now Denzel Washington has never made a sequel and has never even joined an ongoing franchise. If we end up with The Equalizer Kills Again, which I can't imagine we won't at this point if the star is game, it will be Denzel Washington's first sequel. This is a big win, both in actuality and in perception, for Sony and their second hit programmer in three weekends after No Good Deed.
It is easily be the biggest R-rated debut in September history, as well as the biggest opening weekend for director Antoine Fuqua, surpassing the $30m debut of last year's Olympus Has Fallen. Fuqua, who is known to most as the director of Training Day, has also been able to survive and arguably thrive as a purveyor of hard-R action pictures (Shooter, Brooklyn's Finest, Tears of the Sun) in a PG-13 world. Oh, and while Chloe Moretz (whose If I Stay has now earned $49.1m domestic) has what amounts to an extended cameo in the film, the marketing sold her as a glorified co-star, so the fact that this is also her biggest debut weekend ever counts for something. I should also mention the Eminem's new movie-tie in single "No Guts No Fear," but at the end of the day this is Washington's triumph above all else. The adult-skewing market will be pretty busy in the next month, with Ben Affleck's Gone Girl, Robert Downey Jr.'s The Judge, and Brad Pitt's Fury opening over the next three weekends, but I'd wager that The Equalizer will hold up as a proverbial second choice or consensus pick for casual moviegoers right up into the holiday season. The film earned $15.7m overseas as well.
The other main opener was Focus Features' The Boxtrolls. The terrific little stop-motion animation film earned $17.25 million opening weekend, which is actually a bigger debut than Coraline ($16.8m) and ParaNorman ($14m) respectively. The third film from the frankly awesome Laika Entertainment stop-motion animation company pulled a strong 3.5x weekend multiplier off a $4.9m opening day. It was a more front-loaded than Coraline (3.8x) but played much less front-loaded than ParaNorman (3.11x). This is the first major animated feature to drop since Planes: Fire and Rescue back in mid-July, which was the first animated feature since How to Train Your Dragon 2 in mid-June, which was the first... you get the idea. The film played 57% female and Focus Features is awesome for continuing to distribute these gems.
It hasn't been a year awash in kid-friendly entertainments, and the genuinely good A Dolphin Tale 2 (which earned $4.84 million on its third weekend and now as $33.67m) is sadly pretty much played out. October is weirdly busy with kid-friendly films, with Walt Disney's Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (That's going to take up all of my headline space!) on October 10th and 20th Century Fox's animated Book of Life on October 17th. Hopefully The Boxtrolls can tough it out past this weekend, as it's a real treat. By the way, if you're a parent pondering about taking your kids to The Boxtrolls, a word of warning: The film is a little too gross for you. Your kids will handle it with a cackle and applause, but you might have to hide your eyes on occasion. If the film plays leggy like Coraline (4.4x weekend to final multiplier = $75.2m), it gets to $77m. If it plays less leggy like ParaNorman (4x = $56m), it gets to a still robust $69m. Either way, we're getting more delicious fun from Laika in a couple years.
In holdover news, Fox's The Maze Runner held up surprisingly well, especially considering it lost many of its IMAX and PLF screens to The Equalizer. The surprisingly good sci-fi horror thriller earned $17.5 million on its second weekend, for a drop of under 45%. The $32m production should end the weekend with $58m domestic after ten days. Fox slated a sequel for next September hours after its opening weekend numbers dropped last weekend, and it would appear that the franchise still has legs. This is Where I Leave You earned another $7m on its second weekend, as the Jason Bateman/Tina Fey/Jane Fonda/Adam Driver/etc. comedic drama dropped an okay 38% on its second frame. The $19m Warner Bros. release will end the weekend with a decent domestic total of $22.56m and counting.
Liam Neeson's A Walk Among the Tombstones earned another $4.2m on its second weekend,which is a big 67% drop as everyone in its demographic went to see The Equalizer instead. Once again, why didn't Universal open this one on September 6th?! It would seem that Universal did not learn the lessons of Hellboy II, which dropped 71% in its second weekend in July 2008 against the debut frame of The Dark Knight. Anyway, the hard-boiled caper closed out its second frame with $20.9m. Sadly this is probably the last we've seen of Liam Neeson as Matt Scudder. Congratulations Matt, now you're Easy Rawlins. Fortunately Liam Neeson has um... Tak3n on tap for next year. It's like Fox read my tongue-in-cheek title suggestions last weekend and tried to do worse.
Sony's No Good Deed earned another $4.6 million on its third weekend (-53%), giving the $24m thriller a $46.623m domestic cume. Kevin Smith's Tusk dropped a whopping 67% in its second weekend, earning just $267k and bringing its ten-day domestic cume to $1.4m. At this point, even surpassing the $2m gross of Mallrats isn't a guarantee let alone the $3m total of Clerks. At least it has surpassed the $1.1m total of Red State. I wasn't a huge fan of the film, but it didn't deserve this. Lucy earned $0.368m and crossed the $125m mark domestically while earning a stunning $394.6m worldwide, making it Luc Besson's biggest anything ever. Finally Walt Disney's Guardians of the Galaxy made another $3.7m this weekend, bringing its domestic cume to $319.1m by the end of today and thus passing the $318m domestic total of Iron Man by the end of... this sentence. It has now wracked up $644.2m worldwide, officially passing the $644.7m total of Thor: The Dark World by the time you re-read this on Monday.
That's a wrap for today. Join me next weekend for the much-anticipated debuts of the Ben Affleck-starring David Fincher-directed adaptation of Gone Girl, Warner Bros.' Conjuring spin-off Annabelle, and Nicolas Cage headlining a reboot/remake of Left Behind. In the meantime, feast your eyes on the glorious top-ten list below, courtesy of Rentrak:Modi sweep: Muslim majority town elects all BJP candidates
India
oi-Prahlad
Ahmedabad, Feb 12: It was a straight fight and the BJP created history by winning all 27 seats of town municipality in Salaya, a Muslim-majority town in Dwarka district. Salaya is know for its mega power project and now it will be known for giving Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi another triumph in the development agenda.
Among BJP's 27 candidates, 24 were Muslims while remaining three were Hindus including one Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidate.
The BJP's sweep in a township comprising 90 percent Muslims will take wind of many psedo-secular elements. Of the 27 seats spread over nine wards, BJP candidates won unopposed on four seats in state municipal elections. Voting for remaining 23 seats took place on Sunday (10th February) with Congress in straight fight with BJP. The Congress party candidates even lost deposit on three seats.
Salaya has been enjoying fruits of development with Essar Energy's integrated energyc company establishing a power unit to generate 1200 mw. Salaya I is Essar Energy's first coal fired power project and has been built at a total investment cost of US$1.1 billion. Most of the power produced will be sold to the Gujarat state electricity utility, GUVNL, under a long term contract. When all the units are commissioned, the project is expected to generate nearly 2000 mw power.
Salaya will also be getting a world-class marine infrastructure project with a state-of-the-art material handling facility. The bulk handling port will be capable of handling 20 MMTPA of cargo. The jetty is located in the Salaya Harbour, which is naturally protected by two islands - Kalubhar Tapu and Dhani Be.
Essar has been conducting various projects under its social development initiative in Salaya. To empower the local women, Essar Foundation runs a stitching centre in Salaya. The Foundation is supporting the stitching center by providing skills and creating new business opportunities. This will also provide the associated families with an alternative source of income, by establishing market linkages.
The stitching center at Salaya initially started as a small community program by the local Wagher Muslim Community Jamat, with the idea to provide skill development to the women without them having to leave their houses.
The center is also imparting the women several life skills such as basic literacy, personality development, accounts and business entrepreneurship.
OneIndia NewsCaesars Palace hotel-casino in Las Vegas on July 19, 2007. (Jae C. Hong/AP)
It wasn’t surprising that two of Southern Nevada’s gaming titans — MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment Corp. — jumped on President Donald Trump’s decision last week to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program, which has provided temporary resident status for immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children.
In separate statements Tuesday, MGM and Caesars called for immigration reform, putting a bull’s eye on Congress to act within six months to come up with a plan to solve an issue that might have an enormous impact on Nevada’s casino industry.
The two companies wouldn’t say how many of their own employees would be affected by ending DACA, but those who know say it affects around 13,000 people in Nevada and 800,000 nationwide.
What’s important is that regulators will be compelled to help enforce whatever federal action emerges. That means that if Congress fails to act or supports Trump’s plan and DACA ends, the state Gaming Control Board would monitor licensees’ compliance with federal law and penalize them if they fail to uphold it, regardless of what MGM, Caesars or anybody else thinks.
It’s similar to regulators’ stance on the legalization of marijuana consumption and how they’re looking to treat licensees consorting with the pot industry.
Ask Nevada Gaming Commission Chairman Tony Alamo about what would happen if DACA dissolves, and he says the answer is clearly defined by NGC Regulation 5.011 on “grounds for disciplinary action.” To Alamo, there is no gray area.
“I don’t have to make a case,” Alamo told me. “Congress has to make the case. It’s the licensees’ problem, not our problem. We follow our rules and regs, and we enforce them. So our job is easy. It’s up to the licensees to do what they need to do (on advocating a position).”
Alamo said because the decision is in lawmakers’ hands, he and other regulators don’t need to weigh in on what they think.
I asked him if he wanted to. “I don’t need to,” he replied.
The application of Regulation 5.011 is what guides regulators on the marijuana debate. Some of the key points:
“The board and the commission deem any activity on the part of any licensee, his agents or employees, that is inimical to the public health, safety, morals, good order and general welfare of the people of the state of Nevada, or that would reflect or tend to reflect discredit upon the state of Nevada or the gaming industry, to be an unsuitable method of operation and shall be grounds for disciplinary action by the board and the commission …
“The Nevada Gaming Commission in the exercise of its sound discretion can make its own determination of whether or not the licensee has failed to comply with the aforementioned.”
As it applies to marijuana use, Alamo said, “The ballot initiative (was) passed for private smoking in private homes. The people of Nevada did not pass it for tourists and the Amsterdamnization of Las Vegas. They didn’t pass getting it to tourists and letting them enjoy it.”
Alamo said it’s detractors who are confusing the issue.
That might also turn out to be the case for immigration reform if Trump’s DACA wind-down stands.
Contact Richard N. Velotta at [email protected] or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on TwitterSAN DIEGO -- The Chargers have appointed Fred Maas as a special advisor to team chairman Dean Spanos to work on the stadium initiative project, the team announced Monday.
A former chairman of San Diego’s Centre City Development Corporation, Maas will advise Spanos on the citizens’ initiative process, including the exploration of possible stadium financing plans that would be acceptable to the city, the drafting of an initiative document and the creation of a campaign infrastructure that eventually will pitch the project to voters later this year.
Spanos said last month that the Chargers will stay in San Diego for the 2016 season but has an agreement with the Rams to move to Los Angeles if a long-term stadium solution to remain in San Diego isn't worked out.
Mass will work closely with an established team of legal, financial and land-use advisors hired by the Chargers. However, Spanos said that Mark Fabiani, who has served as the point person on the Chargers’ stadium effort for the last 14 years, remains involved in the effort.
Maas currently serves as the president and managing director of MRV Systems LLC, a manufacturer of marine robotics vehicles for oceanographic, intelligence and defense industries.
Mass provides familiarity with the process because of his work as stadium point man for former San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders.
“He’s going to be helping in the site location and developing a financing plan that will hopefully be publicly supported some time down the line -- all aspects of the entire project going forward from now on,” Spanos said in this video on the team’s web site.
San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer initially tried to hire Maas as his stadium point person at the end of 2014, but Maas turned down the job and Faulconer ultimately appointed a task force to study the issue in January 2015.
Maas, Spanos and Faulconer met to discuss the stadium issue on Monday afternoon.
“He’s very familiar with all the political aspects of what goes on in this city and how that all works,” Spanos said. “And I think his knowledge of San Diego as a whole will give us the best chance to get this initiative passed.”
Spanos said that even though Maas has a wealth of experience on land-use issues in downtown San Diego, the Chargers remain open-minded when it comes to having a new stadium either downtown or at Mission Valley, the current site of Qualcomm Stadium.
“Fred and I have talked about it, and that’s why I brought Fred on because I want somebody who’s objective and is going to look at both sites -- potentially Qualcomm and downtown,” Spanos said. “We have to look at it from a financial perspective, and what are the chances the public’s going to support these projects, and give us a chance to get a stadium.”Hardware
Industrial design
Internals
Display
Other hardware
Software
Operating system / User interface
Pop-overs (modals): Windows which pop up and hover above the content you're interacting with, used to excellent effect within the iPod app for displaying track listings when you touch an album, or getting information on books or music to purchase in the iBookstore and iTunes. These modals have their own navigation and points of interaction separate from the main content you're working with.
Windows which pop up and hover above the content you're interacting with, used to excellent effect within the iPod app for displaying track listings when you touch an album, or getting information on books or music to purchase in the iBookstore and iTunes. These modals have their own navigation and points of interaction separate from the main content you're working with. Split screens: Exactly what it sounds like. Apple is using all that big real estate to break up what would have been multiple pages on an iPhone, dividing up the content into segments of the same screen. In the mail app, that means you can look at the list of your emails while keeping a message in view, or keep your multi-page work in Keynote available to you even when editing (think how Preview handles a folder of images).
Exactly what it sounds like. Apple is using all that |
I’ll let someone else start.___as of:Teenage boys don't know anywhere near as much about sex as they think they do. (Shocking, we know.) It's not entirely their fault: American high schoolers are taught way too little about condoms and safe sex, which is probably why they have inordinately high rates of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
Despite a general lack of high-quality sex education in the U.S., most of the conversation surrounding contraceptive access focuses on teenage girls. To a degree, this makes sense: After all, more often than not, the burden for preventing pregnancy falls solely on women. Adolescent boys, on the contrary, are pretty much left to get the bulk of their sex ed in their bedrooms or, perhaps more likely, on Pornhub.
Ultimately, that seems to be turning teen boys into young men who don't know crap about how to avoid getting someone pregnant or how to avoid getting herpes — and it's getting worse every year.
According to a recent survey by Cosmopolitan and the National Campaign to End Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, which polled more than 1,200 men between the ages of 20 and 39, more than a quarter of young men believed wearing two condoms was more effective than wearing one. (Obviously, this is the opposite of true.) Furthermore, almost one in four men claimed they had heard of the "contraceptive cone," a pregnancy prevention method that the survey creators made up.
A new report from the Guttmacher Institute released earlier this week explains why so many grown men harbor such laughable beliefs: no one ever bothered to teach them about safe sex to begin with. The study found that the proportion of young men between the ages of 15 and 19 who received formal education about birth control has declined significantly since 2006. Just over half of teen boys learned about contraception at school or some other formal setting by 2013, down from 61% seven years earlier. Additionally, between 2011 and 2013, 57% of adolescent males didn't receive any information about birth control before they first had sex.
The decline for teen boys corresponds with a similar drop in the number of young women who learned about contraception at school, which went from 70% to 60% over the same period. And despite conservative arguments that we'd all be better off if sex ed were taught at home, the study found that one in five teen girls and one in three young boys did not learn about different birth control methods from their parents. Apparently, teens don't want to talk to their parents about sex! Who knew?
Tempting as it might be to laugh at dudes who claim to know all about pregnancy-preventing cones, the findings are troubling in more ways than one. Research has shown that STI prevention is far more effective when men are more involved in contraceptive use, which essentially means infection rates could go down significant if men knew more about birth control. And apparently, they're interested in learning: 49% of men in the Cosmo poll said they'd like to know more about birth control.
At the very least, young men seem to be aware that there are gaps in their knowledge when it comes to sex education. The best way to fill in these gaps? The solution is clear: Teach men what they need to know while they're still boys.After assigning centre Markus Granlund to the Adirondack Flames of the American Hockey League, the Flames active roster now sits at 23. Defenceman Corey Potter and centre Sam Bennett will start the season on the injured non-roster list.
2014-15 Calgary Flames Roster
GOALTENDERS
#1 - Jonas Hiller
#31 - Karri Ramo
FORWARDS
#8 - Joe Colborne
#11 - Mikael Backlund
#13 - Johnny Gaudreau
#16 - Brian McGrattan
#17 - Lance Bouma
#18 - Matt Stajan
#19 - David Jones
#20 - Curtis Glencross
#21 - Mason Raymond
#22 - Devin Setoguchi
#23 - Sean Monahan
#24 - Jiri Hudler
#25 - Brandon Bollig
#32 - Paul Byron
DEFENCE
#4 - Kris Russell
#5 - Mark Giordano
#6 - Dennis Wideman
#7 - TJ Brodie
#15 - Ladislav Smid
#29 - Deryk Engelland
#33 - Raphael Diaz
The Calgary Flames start the 2014-15 NHL season at the Scotiabank Saddledome on Wednesday, October 8th when they host the Vancouver Canucks. Limited game day tickets and game packs are still available at calgaryflames.com or by visiting ticketmaster.ca.Overview
Accessories
Conclusions
Great attention to detail, painting included even for small parts such as bolts and in hard-to-see places
Torso flexibility allows great freedom of rotation and tilt despite bulky build
Minimal need for swapping parts
Leg and arm parts fold in and stick out when bent far enough, allowing high degrees of movement
Joint parts of the original design integrate themselves well with actual articulation points
Decent price
Paint looks a little sloppy especially for the legs when seen up-close (based on package obtained)
Neck can be lifted/extended to unnatural distances from head
Shoulder-torso joints has very poor range of movement without good reason, preventing arms-out poses common with action figures
Purchase Links
Gallery
As mentioned above regarding how toy-like the DASH designs have been to begin with, Rock Volnutt being converted to an action figure of this quality feels like a seamless transition; from a fully segmented body design and its exaggerated foot and body proportions, at first glance this is an incredibly faithful take on the original design by 4-inch-nel, with nothing really out of place at first glance.Straight out of the box, Rock comes with a swappable head with his helmet on, the Rockbuster arm part, and both left and right open hands.On the other hand, at least this one face seems to fit nicely in multiple situations.Like with all 4-Inch-Nels up to now, the figure is painted with a consistent matte finish, with the color scheme and design based on Rock's original DASH 1 (Legends 1) appearance. The armor colors uses a mix of blue with two different shade of light blue, with gray used for joints and minor touches of the armor. The transparent glass-like parts stay consistent and are painted with a bright red on the inner ears of the helmet, the bottom of the feet, and the small hole on the Rockbuster (along with a bright yellow for the power gauge).While the crafting of the figure has been well-executed in general, some uneven surfaces caused by some mix of (relatively) poor painting (with some blobs here and there) and seam-filling between certain parts like the legs. Again keep in mind however that these are extremely minor flaws, but I found it worth mentioning as the cyclinder-oriented design for this particular action figure made these flaws stand out more than the others.Another minor nitpick would be the color accuracy of the lighter light blue color, which according to official art had very slight hues of green making it slightly aqua-ish and not a clear light blue. All things considered this is (again) a really minor nitpick and does little to take away from the quality of the figure itself. After some digging around, one possible reason for this is that the color scheme and less obvious details was partially based on concept art found in the guidebook.What I found surprising about how they handled the head parts was that unlike the previous 4-Inch-Nel parts (where only the face plate was changed), they actually treated them as two heads with no parts swapping between them whatsoever. Both normal and helmet heads include their own moveable neck piece, resulting in two "smug yet heroic confident" face plates (though shaped slightly different to fit into each head part and neck pieces.Though not mentioned anywhere (apparently), the head pieces could be taken apart as shown, possibly to allow additional face plates to be fitted in as part of an expansion pack of sorts. Considering how Rock's modular motif allows for all sorts of add-ons, this is most likely to be the case. Perhaps one nitpick is that the front padding of the helmet does not extend outward as much as it does in official art, though this could possibly be due to poor figure balance (given Rock's head is pretty big for this one). Otherwise it is a very minor issue.Due to how the neck piece slides into the torso at an angle, this causes the head to tilt forward when turning left or right. Though the big hair on the default head occasionally gets in the way of head turning, the helmet version can turn with no problems whatsoever, and does so smoothly.What I did find amusing is how the neck can possibly extend to unnatural lengths if pulled up high enough to just barely stay in place (I believe this is just part of the joint system that allows much flexibility). While it doesn't look too awkward op-close, this odd height of As shown below though, even with that in mind this doesn't really make it any less off-putting.Each arm consists of the shoulder & upper-arm, a rotating/two-way joint, lower arm, ball-and-socket joint, and the hand. Once again, having a single limb consist of this many parts allows for a good amount of flexibility despite how bulky it is... until you try to bring Rock's arms straight out.What's shown in the picture above is quite literally as far as the shoulder can be pushed upward. As shown above, the shoulder cannot provide even a 90-degree upward rotation for the arm. My guess is that the shoulder piece design had its potential movement flexibility sacrificed in favor of visual accuracy, preventing this Rock from ever having his arms out wide.That disappointing bit aside, I was surprised that the shoulder and upper-arm was molded into a single part, though this made sense for durability reasons as the rotation is handled by the joints between the upper and lower arm instead, thus eliminating the need for unnecessary friction between two matte plastic parts.Once again, the metallic pin joints are visible mostly on the arm parts, though understandably so as that's where the lower arm flaps are located, which get pushed in by the upper arm when bent towards it enough.Another point that I found interesting to bring up as well is how this is possibly the first time we ever saw Rock's open-palm.Up to now, all of the official art of Rock's DASH 1 design shows him with his hand closed, with the only detail we could make of it being engraved holes at the bottom. What I noticed right away is how the holes were not aligned parallel to the base of the arm, and consist of 3 holes arranged as such. I was a bit puzzled at first, but I had a look at the official artbook and found out that there was a single concept sketch piece which portrayed Rock's open hand being exactly as such. Knowing Capcom's lack of consistency in the design and artwork for the DASH games, I didn't mind it too much even if it was interesting to look at how the final design for the action figure came to be.Much like the arms, the legs consist of a similar parts structure including both an inward flap and extending knee armor piece which move when the leg is bent far enough. The active mechanism is very smooth, and can be played with naturally without any extra force or need to change any parts. The legs connected to the power body is done in such a way it allows plenty of freedom in how the leg can be positioned, allowing for all sorts of poses. Unlike the arms though, the metallic pin for the rear leg flap is not visible. For the sake of consistency, I believe the pin is there* but was able to be covered up thanks to the thickness of the lower leg.Due to the the giant feet of the original design however, there is very little flexibility in terms of how far the feet could bend forward or backward. Even though it's sufficent for helping balance when using both legs or one, it contrasted quite a bit compared to other feet of the 4-Inch-Nel lineup (though inevitably so).Once again accessories are minimal, consisting of the helmet head swap, a pair of open hands (closed being the default), the Rockbuster, and the standard transparent posing stand and support arm.The Rockbuster functions pretty much like the default lower arm, with a flap that folds in allowing the upper arm to push against it for more flexibility in movemenet. The Rockbuster itself is nicely detailed, with the power gauge and glass-like part inside painted. Considering the amount of detail that went into the Rockbuster though, I found it to be a bit of a shame that there is no natural way to rotate its detailed side such that it always faces the camera.Given how DASH-related merchandise (let alone action figures and model kits) are so few and far between, it is a little bittersweet to finally get an action figure of this version of Rock. And what a nice release it was! Minor nitpicks in the finishing aside, the 4-Inch-Nel Rock is a gimmick-free and faithful recreation of Rock Volnutt in action figure form. I am however mostly disappointed with how restricted the movement of the shoulder parts were, which felt out of place given how much more flexible the rest of the 4-Inch-Nel releases have been, and that it did not look unfeasible given Sentinel's approach to their previous releases of generally favoring poseability over plain visual asthetics (that would be the purpose of scale figures).But despite what I didn't like about this figure, it does not change how well-made it is overall, and thanks to its small size and non-flashy appearance it would look great in any collection. Also considering how the head parts can be disassembled with individual face plates (per head type), I would not be surprised if they announce add-on parts for Rock Volnutt in the future.Image copyright Reuters Image caption Michael Taylor made no final statement, but mouthed silent words to his parents
A Missouri man who abducted, raped and murdered a 15-year-old schoolgirl has been executed after the US Supreme Court dismissed a last-minute appeal.
Michael Taylor, 47, who admitted killing Ann Harrison in the Kansas City area in 1989, died by lethal injection.
His lawyers argued that the drugs used for the injection might subject him to a slow and tortuous death.
The execution comes amid controversy over the chemicals being used to give US death row inmates lethal injections.
Ann Harrison was waiting for the school bus near her home when she was abducted by Taylor and his accomplice, Roderick Nunley.
'Heartfelt remorse'
The men put her in a car, took her to a home, raped her and stabbed her to death as she begged for her life.
Pentobarbital: Cruel or just? Recent pentobarbital executions in the US: October 2012 : In South Dakota, Eric Robert turns purplish-blue; takes 20 minutes before state can declare him dead
: In South Dakota, Eric Robert turns purplish-blue; takes 20 minutes before state can declare him dead January 2014: Oklahoma death-row inmate Michael Lee Wilson cries out he feels his "whole body burning" within 20 seconds of injection
Oklahoma death-row inmate Michael Lee Wilson cries out he feels his "whole body burning" within 20 seconds of injection January 2014: In Missouri, Herbert Smulls's execution takes nine minutes; he shows no outward signs of distress Source: BBC reporting
Nunley is also on death row.
Ann's father and two of her uncles witnessed Wednesday's execution.
Just hours beforehand, Taylor said in a phone conversation with the Kansas City Star that he had written a letter for Ann's parents expressing "my sincerest apology and heartfelt remorse".
He made no final statement, though he reportedly mouthed silent words to his parents.
Taylor was pronounced dead at 12:10 (06:10 GMT) in the state prison at Bonne Terre.
An Associated Press reporter who was present said there were no obvious signs of distress.
It was Missouri's fourth execution by lethal injection in as many months.
The state obtained the powerful sedative used in the execution, pentobarbital, from a compounding pharmacy, which prepares specific drugs to order. It chose to remain anonymous.
Such outlets are not regulated by the federal government, which means their safety and efficacy are unverified.
Another compounding pharmacy, in Oklahoma, last week agreed not to provide the execution drug after Taylor's lawyers sued.
Since European manufacturers stopped providing pentobarbital for executions, several US states are running low on execution chemicals and turning to new suppliers or products that have not been widely approved.
In addition to challenging the drug used, Taylor's lawyers objected to the state executing inmates before appeals were complete.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon had rejected a clemency request for Taylor.Comedian says unnamed band member had wanted the second half of the planned film to show how ‘the band carries on from strength to strength’
Sacha Baron Cohen's Queen fallout and The Ones Below reviewed – the Dailies podcast Read more
Sacha Baron Cohen has revealed he walked away from a high-profile role as Freddie Mercury because the surviving members of Queen wanted a substantial part of the film to focus on them.
Speaking to the US radio host Howard Stern, Baron Cohen said he hoped to present a “warts ‘n’ all” view of the legendary singer’s hedonistic lifestyle, but Mercury’s former bandmates were more concerned with protecting their legacy.
The comedian and actor said: “A member of the band – I won’t say who – said: ‘You know, this is such a great movie because it’s got such an amazing thing that happens in the middle.’”
Sacha Baron Cohen quits Freddie Mercury film Read more
“And I go: ‘What happens in the middle of the movie?’ He goes: ‘You know, Freddie dies.’... I go: ‘What happens in the second half of the movie?’ He goes: ‘We see how the band carries on from strength to strength.’
“I said: ‘Listen, not one person is going to see a movie where the lead character dies from Aids and then you see how the band carries on.’
“There are amazing stories about Freddie Mercury. The guy was wild. There are stories of little people walking around parties with plates of cocaine on their heads!”
But according to Baron Cohen, who is in the US to promote his new film, Grimsby, Queen’s surviving members did not want those stories told: “They wanted to protect their legacy as a band.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Grimsby – video review
Baron Cohen said the band’s guitarist, Brian May, was an “amazing musician” but “not a great movie producer”. He also revealed he introduced high-profile film-makers Tom Hooper and David Fincher as possible directors during his six years working on the project, but neither option worked out.
Baron Cohen left the project in July 2013 amid reports of creative differences with Queen. The band’s drummer, Roger Taylor, later said the Borat star was let go because Queen’s surviving members did not want the film to be “a joke”, while May said Baron Cohen was simply too recognisable to play Mercury.
Deadline reported in November that the biopic was being reconfigured with a new script from The Theory of Everything’s Anthony McCarten. Producers reportedly hope Ben Whishaw will take the role of Mercury.First on a personal note:
I always thought these were tanning blankets :) Till I started prepping. :)
I realized that some may not know all the uses for this amazing survival tools. So I figured I would at least share a few. A few posts back I shared some deals I found on Amazon. Click Here One of them was a 12 pack of Emergency Mylar Blanket I realized that some may not know all the uses for this amazing survival tools. So I figured I would at least share a few.
Mylar is not meant to keep you warm like a blanket
These are not military "casualty blanket" which look similar but have another layer to them.
What it can do is be a wind breaker or rain protector and it can be an insulator within the clothing you have on.
BUT.........with that said
In first aid
Hypothermia - prevent/or help reverse
The airtight foil reduces heat loss. Heat loss which can be caused by evaporation of perspiration, moisture and or the blood can be minimized by the same thing.
To a limited extent the reflective surface inhibits losses caused by thermal radiation.
People who are in shock
They are also used with people who are in shock. This helps them beause it conserve their body heat.
Frostbite
You can wrap your hands in them and put gloves or extra socks over them to keep you from getting frost bite.
Keep feet dry
Cut the blanket up to line your shoes are boots it will help keep the warm and dry.
Other Uses
Hide
Mylar blanket can be used by to hide your heat signature from heat detection devices.
Which may be what people mean when they say it can be used as light insulation for indoor gardening???? Heat detection??? Wonder what they are growing??? All kidding aside I am sure it help boost the grow light to start your garden seeds....ya that the ticket.
Use as a signal for help
They are shinny and reflect the sun great. To wave it like a flag or to even mount it in a place where people will see it can save your life. Or try to reflect sunlight off a folded one.
Trail Marker
Take strips and tie them on trees to help mark the trail you are on.
Water
It can be used it several ways to gather water.
You can dig a hole and you can get place a container in the middle of the hole cover it with the blanket and place a small stone in the middle over the container…to collect water condensation from the ground
If you have rain you can dig a hole and place in in it to catch rain water
Next you can make a sapling into a circle and use some cordage to tie the Mylar to it, making it like a fishing net type bag to carry water from a water source to where you are. Then tie it so it hangs from a tree branch like a hanging sink or bucket of water at your site.
If you have a fire going and a little creativity you can fuse the sides together with a hot stick and make a bag. But not sure if the seam would be strong enough to hold water.
Cordage
Cut it into strips and twist it and you have Cordage. This can be used for so many things. From tying up a shelter or carrying things, fishing line. Even replace a missing show lace. If you braid the strips tight you will have a bit of stronger cord if needed.
Shelter
You can make a lean tune shelter with some sticks in the ground and a few stone alone the bottom
Groundsheet
Mylar is a great drop cover because it is waterproof and the bonus it is does not allow the ground under it to get colder, it keeps the heat in.
Sun Reflector on a hot day
Because they reflect the sun these are great to set up to get shade on a hot day these can actually make it significantly cooler. You can use this outdoors or inside a house you may be stuck in.
.
Which is why….
It can make an ok solar over
With some sticks and maylar cordage you could fashion a semi ok solar oven to reheat things. Warm water, melt snow. Not so sure about water purification. Although some say it works...but it has to come to a boil. Has anyone had luck with that and Mylar?? And maybe if you make meat really really thin it could cook it if you have it in the mid day sunlight.
Make the most of your fire
I like the fire reflector in this set up so I had to share it with you. Smart use of the mylar.
Set the blanket up behind your camp fire so that it reflect the heat from the fire to you. (don’t set it up to close ya don’t want it to melt.)
Get the most out of your candle
Same deal as the fire but on a smaller level. Place a small piece behind a candle and it will double the light in the are you are in.
Animal deterrent
Now this can be a good or bad thing….if camping or lost this hanging it around you camp will keep wild critters away because of the crinkle noise and reflective aspect of it. But if you are in a SHTF situation….you just may not want that crackling noise going on.
Many farms now use strips of it as their modern scarecrows.
Fishing lure
Same reason why you keep a small piece of foil in you altoid fish kit. Because a small piece tied to a line look like bait to a fish.
Fire starter?
I am not sure of this others say it does. I tried it but had no luck. (it is cold and windy here but the sun was strong. It does is reflective, is it enough to start fire? I am not sure...I looked to see if there were any videos of anyone being successful with this and have not found this...Have you ever tried it??? Let me know.
Song for this post is dedicated to Mylar Man... REM Shiny Happy PeopleNot even Phil Spector, the obsessive architect of pop's Wall of Sound and a mono recording fanatic, ever went to such extremes as the Electric Recording Co. Under the single–minded helmsmanship of managing director Pete Hutchison, the company has embarked on a campaign to resurrect some of history's most sought after classical recordings, using authentic cutting equipment from 50 years ago and pressing the results on finest–quality vinyl. The first two releases area set of Bach solo violin sonatas from 1954 by the Hungarian violinist Johanna Martzy, and the rare box set Mozart à Paris, originally issued by Pathé Marconi in 1956. Both in mono, naturally.
It's hardly a project maximised for commercial gain. "If you wanted to make money you wouldn't do this," explains Hutchison, as we sit in his studio in the shadow of London's Westway. "This isn't a Dragons' Den project."
Rather, it is a personal mission, with an impetus more philosophical than commercial. It's a heartfelt salute to an era of painstaking analogue recording when music was cherished for its artistic and spiritual qualities, and wasn't just digital background noise to listen to on your iPod or laptop.
It may be a while before Hutchison can judge whether he has succeeded or not, since only 300 copies of each release will be pressed, and these will only leak out at the rate of five per month. He has licensed a further 80 recordings from EMI and Columbia. "I've no idea if we'll sell them all," he says of his first releases. "The Bach set has been out for a few weeks and most of the ones we've sold have gone to China."
Ironically, it's pop music which has given Hutchison the means to launch the Electric Recording Co. Though his beard and long hair make him look a bit like a survivor from a prog rock band from 1973, his 20 years running Peacefrog Records have seen him release a string of techno discs from the likes of Luke Slater and Suburban Knight. He has also enjoyed success with offbeat acts such as José González, Nouvelle Vague and Little Dragon. His secret passion for the most esoteric tributaries of the classical tradition began about 12 years ago when his father died and left him his classical record collection.
"I gradually started delving into them, became enthusiastic about them, and then started collecting classical records," he says. "I grew up in a house where if we went into the sitting room and my mum and dad were playing a record, we couldn't talk over the music. It was a meditative thing, and you sat down and listened like you do at a concert."
The rush to ever–cheaper, easy–to–access music designed for convenient consumption has horrified Hutchison. "With CD, things started going downhill because everything sounded harsher," he growls. "Now the MP3 is a sort of compressed version of that, so it's the worst possible thing you could be listening to."
He declared his own personal Year Zero, and set about recreating the conditions in which what he regards as history's finest recordings were made. He had started collecting the prized first pressings by English classical labels such as EMI and Decca from the Fifties and Sixties, and "I found myself getting into quite deep water in terms of my expenditure".
Some of these discs cost many thousands of pounds, so it occurred to Hutchison that he could cut out the middlemen and go back to the source. He would find the original master tapes and the original cutting machinery, and remake the discs in a fresh and pristine form.
Original Fifties mastering equipment is even harder to come by than many of the records it was once used to create, and Hutchison had to go to Romania to find what he needed. He gestures at a machine behind him, a robust metal cabinet covered with old–fashioned meters and knobs, with a hefty brass turntable on top.
"This is the only complete stereo valve cutting machine in working condition that exists," Hutchison reports, proudly. "It was made by Lyrec of Copenhagen, and in its day it would have cost roughly the price of an average house. It weighs about a ton."
Another massive piece of machinery is an EMI recorder originally installed at Abbey Road studios in the Fifties, so large that you wonder if they had to take the roof off to get it in the building. Both of these machines are powered by chunky glass valves rather than miniature transistors, which accounts for their bulk.
To restore the machines to full working specification, Hutchison called in sound engineer Sean Davies, who'd worked at Decca in the Sixties.
"He's as old as the machines, he's in his late seventies," says Hutchison. "He has a big place in the country where he keeps all these vintage parts, and if we needed an electrolytic capacitor Sean would say, 'Oh, I might have one of those back in my barn'."
Remarkably, the master tapes of the Bach and Mozart material had been preserved in excellent condition, though that didn't mean the remastering went without a hitch. Editing used to mean physically cutting the tape and splicing it back together, but over the years the splicing tape had lost its stickiness, so the 50–year–old edits would often fall apart. Each time that happened, the cutting process had to be restarted, wasting a £50 vinyl lacquer (from which subsequent copies would be made) on each occasion. Hutchison then tried four different pressing plants before finding one he was satisfied with, after destroying two full pressing runs which he considered substandard. He is adamant that the recreated LPs should sound exactly as they were originally intended to, and not modified to reflect current tastes.
"There was a temptation to say 'We'd better add a bit of bass and smooth that out a bit', but I said no, I don't want any of that. For instance the Mozart records sound quite 'toppy' because that's how they were recorded, but I didn't want to alter them with modern equalisation because that ruins it. It might sound good today, but in 20 years it may sound worse."
The records would not have been complete without matching artwork, and this too has been created with a fanatic's attention to detail. Hutchison recruited boutique printing firm Hand & Eye in east London, who used a press from the Sixties to replicate the creamy card sleeves and detailed text and illustrations of the originals.
For future releases, Hutchison has earmarked such connoisseur's favourites as Ukrainian fiddlers David Oistrakh and Leonid Kogan, and Hungarian cellist János Starker, and may even venture into stereo with some vintage Bruckner.
But it's the journey that matters to him, as much as the outcome. "This was just something I needed to do, and I feel good that I've done it," he says.
"We all need to do less emailing, less texting, and find space to think of ideas and be creative. We need to listen to music from a record and read a book printed on paper. This is me saying 'This is when music was at its best'."
Johanna Martzy Bach discs are available at £300 each and the Mozart à Paris box at £2,495 from theelectricrecordingco.comEmail Share +1 77 Shares
CONWAY, N.H.—The head of the U.K.’s largest gay advocacy group told the Washington Blade last month his organization has begun to devote more resources to the global LGBT rights movement now that marriage rights for same-sex couples have been secured in England and Wales.
Stonewall U.K. Chief Executive Ben Summerskill said during an extensive interview in New Hampshire’s Mount Washington Valley on Dec. 20 where he was spending the holidays that his organization hopes to hire additional staff to continue its work on LGBT-specific issues in Uganda, Russia, Eastern Europe and other areas.
Four of Stonewall’s 70 staffers currently work directly on these issues. The organization also works with the British Foreign Office and the U.K. Department of International Development to raise them at the United Nations.
“I was very anxious historically about us getting engaged in that sort of territory while we didn’t have complete legal equality in Britain,” said Summerskill. “It just opened you up to the people who turn up in Uganda to say what are you doing? Why have you come to lecture us?”
Summerskill spoke with the Blade hours after the Ugandan Parliament approved a bill that would impose a life sentence upon anyone found guilty of repeated same-sex sexual acts. The Indian Supreme Court’s Dec. 11 ruling that recriminalized homosexuality sparked global outrage.
Summerskill said he feels it is more effective to work through the U.K. commonwealth — as opposed to “standing outside [the Ugandan embassy in London] in the rain with placards” — to address anti-LGBT laws in former British colonies. He also applauded British Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to begin channeling foreign aid directly to non-governmental organizations in Uganda and other countries as opposed to giving it directly to governments whose records on LGBT rights and other issues have sparked criticism.
“I don’t think any LGBT campaigner, however strongly they feel about Uganda, would think that it was a good thing that people should starve just so we feel we’re making some progress around human rights for gay people,” said Summerskill.
Another Stonewall strategy is to work with U.K.-based businesses to urge countries in which they do business to improve their LGBT rights records.
Summerskill told the Blade many of the corporations that are part of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions program that promotes gay and lesbian equality in the workplace are “becoming increasingly uneasy in investing in countries of that sort.” Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, which is not a member of Stonewall’s workplace advisory group, on Dec. 23 announced he would not do business in Uganda because of the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
“That is another way in which we can put pressure on Uganda and other governments,” said Summerskill. “And we’ll continue to do so.”
Organization opposes Olympic boycott
Stonewall remains opposed to a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics that will take place next month in Sochi, Russia, over the Kremlin’s LGBT rights record.
Summerskill said this position “has been informed from day one” by Russian LGBT rights advocates with whom his organization works.
“They were crystal clear again from day one that that’s not what they thought was the best way of moving the needle in terms of the reality of everyday life for gay people in Russia,” he said.
Summerskill said Elton John was “right” to perform in Russia last month — the gay British singer specifically criticized a law that bans gay propaganda to minors during a Dec. 6 concert in Moscow. Summerskill added he feels the BBC’s decision to send lesbian reporter Clare Balding to Sochi to host its coverage of the games sends a strong message to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“She will be there making a very powerful point,” said Summerskill. “The coverage will be anchored by someone who billions of people by then will know is a lesbian.”
The Independent on Dec. 20 reported Cameron would not attend the Sochi games. The newspaper cited sources within the U.K. government who said the decision is not a boycott the Olympics over Russia’s LGBT rights record.
“[Cameron] has been crystal clear about what he thinks,” said Summerskill, noting British prime ministers have never attended the Winter Olympics. “He’s raised the issue face-to-face with Mr. Putin, which again would have been unthinkable when Mrs. Thatcher was prime minister, and he’s been prepared to do that very publicly. And that actually is something we should all have been quite encouraging about.”
A group of gay and lesbian advocates that campaigned against a bill that would have banned the “promotion” of homosexuality in public schools in the U.K. founded Stonewall in 1989. Stonewall Scotland and Stonewall Cymru (Wales) operate within their respective regions of the country.
Stonewall’s annual income in 2014 will be £4.5 million ($7.37 million.)
Gays and lesbians in England and Wales can begin to legally marry on March 29. A final vote on a measure that would extend marriage rights to same-sex couples in Scotland is expected to take place in the coming weeks.
The government of Northern Ireland in November announced it had lifted the ban on gay couples adopting children.
IBM, Barclays and Goldman Sachs are among the nearly 650 companies that are members of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions program. They pay the organization an annual fee of £2,500 ($4,090) to receive advice and other materials on how to become a welcoming workplace for gays and lesbians.
“We’re very conscious that we just don’t have a situation where they do what we call signing the poster, which is all a bit too easy,” said Summerskill. “They actually pay us.”
Stonewall has also worked with the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) to develop a campaign to tackle anti-gay bullying in U.K. schools.
The U.K.’s anti-discrimination law protects trans people in employment and public accommodation, but Summerskill said some of the statutes need “tidying up.” Trans people in the U.K. have been able to legally change their gender on birth certificates and other documents without sex-reassignment surgery since 2004, but the country’s hate crimes law does not include gender identity and expression.
Stonewall Scotland advocates for transgender rights, and Stonewall does so on the international level.
Stonewall and Stonewall Cymru do not specifically advocate for trans rights because Summerskill said English and Welsh trans advocates have specifically asked them not to do so. This stance has sparked division among some British LGBT rights advocates.
“While that’s a lively debate, we’ve kind of finessed that by trying to be as supportive as we possibly can of trans people but not claiming |
The Three-Branched Cicada
The Monster of Minden
The Pig-Footed Bandicoot
Hayden's Rattlesnake DemonQueen's Brian May Rocks Out To Physics, Photography
Enlarge this image toggle caption courtesy of Queen courtesy of Queen
Brian May, the lead guitarist in the British glam-rock band Queen, is a modern-day renaissance man.
Eighteen of his albums with Queen have topped the charts, selling more than 300 million copies worldwide. May, who played the guitar solo in "We Are the Champions," also sang the bass parts in Queen's rock opera "Bohemian Rhapsody" and penned the classic anthem "We Will Rock You." He's on Rolling Stone's list of the Top 100 guitarists ever.
But May's interests aren't limited to the rock world. Before Queen made it big, May was studying astrophysics at Imperial College in London. He gave it up to hit the road with Queen, but his background in physics helped the band in the recording studio: In "We Will Rock You," for example, he designed the sound of the famous "stomp stomp clap" section -- in order to make it sound like thousands of people were stomping and clapping -- based on his knowledge of sound waves and distances. (A more detailed explanation exists in interview highlights below, but he constructed the stomps based on a series of distances based on prime numbers.)
He tells Fresh Air host Terry Gross that ironically, that famous "stomp-clap thing" in "We Will Rock You" wasn't even included in the original song. May explains that he got the idea after a particularly animated Queen show at Bingley Hall near Birmingham, England.
"The audience was responding hugely, and they were singing along with everything we did," he says. "I remember talking to [lead singer] Freddie Mercury about it. And I said, 'Obviously, we can no longer fight this. This has to be something which is part of our show and we have to embrace it, the fact that people want to participate -- and, in fact, everything becomes a two-way process now. And we sort of looked at each other and went, 'Hmm. How interesting.' "
Web Extra: The Story Of 'Killer Queen' Brian May explains the guitar solo on the Queen song 'Killer Queen' More On 'Killer Queen' Listen
May went home that night and says he woke up the next morning with the "stomp stomp clap" line in his head.
"I was thinking, 'What can you give an audience that they could do while they're standing there? They can stamp and they can clap and they can sing some kind of chant,' " he says. "To me, it was a united thing. It was an expression of strength."
In 2007, May earned a doctorate from Imperial after completing his dissertation on interplanetary dust. His book on the subject, Bang! The Complete History of the Universe, was released in 2006.
May tells Terry Gross that, while traveling the world with Queen, he would often stop in antique stores on the road to look for stereoscopic photographs. His interest in the early 3-D photographs led to the publication of a second book, A Village Lost and Found, which depicts life in a small English village at the beginning of the 1850s.
May, now the chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University, recently oversaw the remastering of several Queen albums.
Interview Highlights
On Writing 'We Will Rock You'
"I was thinking of it more as a rock anthem and a means of uniting an audience... enjoying the fact that an audience is united. I didn't realize that it would translate to sports games. This is an amazing thing. It's wonderful for me to see what "We Will Rock You" has done. 'We Will Rock You' and 'We Are the Champions' have kind of transcended the normal framework of where music is listened to and appreciated -- they've become part of public life, which I feel wonderful about. It's fantastic to me, if I go to a football game or a soccer game or basketball or whatever -- or any place all around the world -- and there it is. And I think, 'My God. Most people don't even realize that I wrote it.' Most people don't realize that it was written. It's sort of become one of those things that people think was always there. So in a way, that's the best compliment you could have for the song."
On The 'Stomp-Stomp-Clap' Section Of 'We Will Rock You'
"I had this idea that, if we did it enough times and we didn't use any reverb or anything, that I could build a sound that would work. We were very lucky -- we were working in an old, disused church in North London, and it already had a nice sound. And there were some old boards lying around, but they just seemed ideal to stamp on. So we piled them up and started stamping. And they sounded great anyway. But being a physicist, I said, 'Suppose there were 1,000 people doing this; what would be happening?' And I thought, 'Well, you would be hearing them stamping. You would also be hearing a little bit of an effect, which is due to the distance that they are from you.' So I put lots of individual repeats on them. Not an echo but a single repeat at various distances. And the distances were all prime numbers. Now, much later on, people designed a machine to do this. But that's what we did. When we recorded each track, we put a delay of a certain length on it. And none of the delays were harmonically related. So there's no echo on it whatsoever, but the clapped sound -- they spread around the stereo, but they also kind of spread from a distance from you -- so you just feel like you're in the middle of a large number of people stamping and clapping."
Hear the Music The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody
On 'Bohemian Rhapsody'
"This is Freddie's great baby and, yes, we all contributed to the way it developed in the studio, but really, it was so much constructed in his head before he ever stopped in there. It's an amazing thing.... An amazing creation and quite unique."
On Freddie Mercury's Sexuality
"I think it was an undiscussed thing for a long time. The truth of the matter is nobody should care. Why should anyone care what sexual persuasion people have? It's about the music, and Freddie would have been the first to say that. He never hid the fact that he was turned on by men instead of by women, but strange enough, I don't think it was always the case. Because in the early days, we used to share rooms. So in the early days, I know who Freddie slept with, and they weren't men, but I think it gradually changed. And I have no idea how these things work, but it wasn't really anybody's business but his, and we never talked about it as if it were important. Why should it be important? We just made music together."
On His Physics Dissertation
"It's a study of dust. As simple as that. Dust, in this case, in the solar system. We're actually surrounded by it. The earth moves through a cloud of dust constantly and a lot of it comes down to Earth. My experiment was trying to figure out the motion of that dust. Where it's going, what it's doing, where it came from and what it means in terms of the creation of the solar system."Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
Working in demolition is tough. The pay sucks. You’re constantly hauling garbage around. Every job is dangerous. And sometimes—sometimes—you accidentally tear down the wrong building.
That’s what happened to a crew of city contractors in Baltimore on Sunday. The Baltimore City Department of Housing had hired them to carry out an emergency demolition of an old row house that had a big hulking crack in the wall. It was going great at first. Neighbors had even come out to watch destruction. And then, with one doomed move from the excavator, a pile of bricks toppled over onto the building next door.
It took a few seconds for the dust to clear, but when it did, the neighboring building—which was not supposed to get torn down—was utterly destroyed. Fast-forward to the 50-second mark for the money shot.
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Brutally, the owner of the wrongly demolished building watched it all happen from the sidewalk, but he seems pretty chill about the whole thing. “We’ll rebuild it,” Joseph Rene, a developer who owns the former home of the Laundry Mutt—which is now a pile of bricks—told The Baltimore Sun. “We have no other option.”
The city contractors did not offer the local paper any comment. Now that video of the demolition oops is racking up tens of thousands of views on YouTube, the company is surely worried about the future. That’s just another fact of life in the demolition business. Doing too much demolishing is far, far worse than not doing enough.
[Digg]Is the Senate health-care reform bill still worth passing?
"Insurance companies win," Markos Moulitsas tweeted last night. "Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate."
This was, for progressives, a frustrating vote. But the flip side of it being morally unconscionable for Joe Lieberman to put the bill at risk over something as small as Medicare buy-in for 3-or-so million people is that the absence of Medicare buy-in -- and of the weak public plan -- is not reason enough to oppose the bill, either.
The core of this legislation is as it always was: $900 billion, give or take, so people who can't afford health-care insurance suddenly can. Insurance regulations paired with the individual mandate, so insurers can't discriminate against the sick and the healthy can't make insurance unaffordable by hanging back until the moment they need medical care. The construction of health insurance exchanges so the people currently left out of the employer-based market are better served, and the many who will join them as the employer system continues to erode will have somewhere to go.
That's all policy. And as I spent yesterday arguing, it has a tendency to overshadow the lives in the balance. You can choose your estimate. The Institute of Medicine's methodology says 22,000 people died in 2006 because they didn't have health-care coverage. A recent Harvard study found the number nearer to 45,000. Since we talk about the costs of health-care reform over a 10-year period, may as well talk about the lives saved that way, too. And we're looking, easily, at more than a hundred thousand lives, to say nothing of the people who will be spared bankruptcy, chronic pain, unnecessary impairment, unnecessary caretaking, bereavement, loss of wages, painful surgeries, and so on.
A lot of progressives woke up this morning feeling like they lost. They didn't. The public option and its compromised iterations were a battle that came to seem like a war. But they weren't the war. The bill itself was. When liberals talked about the dream of universal health-care insurance 10, 20 and 30 years ago, they talked about the plight of the uninsured, not the necessity of a limited public option in competition with private insurers.
"This is a good bill," Sen. Sherrod Brown said on Countdown last night. "Not a great bill, but a good bill." That's about right. But the other piece to remember is that more than it's a good bill, it's a good start. With $900 billion in subsidies already in place, it's easier to add another hundred billion later, if we need it, than it would be to pass $1 trillion in subsidies in 2011. With the exchanges built and private insurers unable to hold down costs, it's easier to argue for adding a strong public option to the market than it was before we'd tried regulation and a new competitive structure. With 95 percent of the country covered, it's easier to go the final 5 percent. And with a health-care reform bill actually passed, it's easier to convince legislators that passing such bills is possible.
On its own terms, the bill is the most important social policy achievement since the Great Society. It will save a lot of lives and prevent a lot of suffering. But moving forward, it also makes future improvements and expansions easier. A lot of the hard work of health-care reform -- in particular, the money for subsidies -- will finish this year. If reformers want to come back for the public option or more subsidies in a future year, they won't be doing it atop a $900 billion price tag that's being battered by tea parties and industry and everyone else. This bill doesn't have all the good stuff it should have, but reformers can stand atop what good stuff it does have and focus their energies on what good stuff is left to achieve.
Photo credit: AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari.Across the country, the number of veteran suicides are down, according to recent data.Data released from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention shows the number of veterans who commit suicide a day has gone from 22 to 20.However, officials with the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center tell KOCO 5 the number of veterans coming to them for help is on the rise.Juanita Celie, the suicide prevention coordinator at the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center, said 750 veterans from Oklahoma City called the national Veterans Crisis Line within the last year for help.She said the suicide prevention program is currently assisting about 150 veterans who are at risk of committing suicide.Through this program, she said they can ensure that the veterans get the psychotherapy they need within the same day.“We assign them a case manager, we engage with them, we follow up, if they miss their appointments, we will call them,” Celie said.As more veterans come to them for help, she said the VA is working to provide more suicide prevention training to case managers.On Aug. 2, the VA will partner with community agencies to provide more training to case managers at the VA.Celie said they will work with community agencies that specialize in mental health and substance abuse.“One suicide is too much for us,” Celie said. “Suicide prevention isn’t about doing it for several months and then a year, and then stopping it. It’s something we need to continue to work on.”If you are a veteran or family member of a veteran needing help, you can call the Veteran Crisis Line at 1-800-273-8255.For more information on the suicide prevention program at the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center, call the facility’s main number at 405-456-1000.
Across the country, the number of veteran suicides are down, according to recent data.
Data released from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention shows the number of veterans who commit suicide a day has gone from 22 to 20.
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However, officials with the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center tell KOCO 5 the number of veterans coming to them for help is on the rise.
Juanita Celie, the suicide prevention coordinator at the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center, said 750 veterans from Oklahoma City called the national Veterans Crisis Line within the last year for help.
She said the suicide prevention program is currently assisting about 150 veterans who are at risk of committing suicide.
Through this program, she said they can ensure that the veterans get the psychotherapy they need within the same day.
“We assign them a case manager, we engage with them, we follow up, if they miss their appointments, we will call them,” Celie said.
As more veterans come to them for help, she said the VA is working to provide more suicide prevention training to case managers.
On Aug. 2, the VA will partner with community agencies to provide more training to case managers at the VA.
Celie said they will work with community agencies that specialize in mental health and substance abuse.
“One suicide is too much for us,” Celie said. “Suicide prevention isn’t about doing it for several months and then a year, and then stopping it. It’s something we need to continue to work on.”
If you are a veteran or family member of a veteran needing help, you can call the Veteran Crisis Line at 1-800-273-8255.
For more information on the suicide prevention program at the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center, call the facility’s main number at 405-456-1000.
AlertMeFilppula's leg cut by skate blade by Bill Roose / Detroit Red Wings
DENVER, Colo. – The Red Wings may have lost more than a game Sunday at Pepsi Center.
, who is off to the best start of his NHL career with 21 points and a plus-9 rating, was cut on the leg above the skate boot. The seriousness of the injury was not immediately known though coach Mike Babcock indicated that the Wings’ forward had been taken to a Denver hospital.
“Fil got a cut on his leg above his skate,” Babcock said. “We sent him to have it looked at. We don't know if it's serious or not serious.”
Filppula was injured late in the first period when he got tangled along the boards with Avalanche forward David Jones. Without Filppula in the game, the Wings lost the momentum that they turned into a 1-0 lead. Colorado went on to out-shoot the Wings, 28-18, in the final two periods.
“Fil's been playing real well for us, eating a lot of minutes, PK and power play,” said center
The Avs ended the Wings’ seven-game winning streak with a 4-2 decision.
“Fil's played probably as well as anybody has played,” forward
Prior to Sunday, Filppula had been on a five-game point streak, collecting five goals and two assists.
Follow Bill Roose on Twitter | @RooseBill
Valtteri Filppula, who is off to the best start of his NHL career with 21 points and a plus-9 rating, was cut on the leg above the skate boot. The seriousness of the injury was not immediately known though coach Mike Babcock indicated that the Wings’ forward had been taken to a Denver hospital.“Fil got a cut on his leg above his skate,” Babcock said. “We sent him to have it looked at. We don't know if it's serious or not serious.”Filppula was injured late in the first period when he got tangled along the boards with Avalanche forward David Jones. Without Filppula in the game, the Wings lost the momentum that they turned into a 1-0 lead. Colorado went on to out-shoot the Wings, 28-18, in the final two periods.“Fil's been playing real well for us, eating a lot of minutes, PK and power play,” said center Henrik Zetterberg, Filppula’s linemate.The Avs ended the Wings’ seven-game winning streak with a 4-2 decision.“Fil's played probably as well as anybody has played,” forward Danny Cleary said. “He's been fantastic for us. He got cut there. I think it was more precaution than anything. It was a big loss, the whole line combinations were all jumbled.”Prior to Sunday, Filppula had been on a five-game point streak, collecting five goals and two assists.
View LessBubbling earth. Picture: Alexander Sokolov
This extraordinary sight - in a video filmed of the tundra on remote Belyy Island in the Kara Sea off the Yamal Peninsula coastline - was witnessed by a scientific research expedition. Researchers Alexander Sokolov and Dorothee Ehrich spotted 15 patches of trembling or bubbling grass-covered ground.
When punctured they emitted methane and carbon dioxide, according to measurements, although so far no details have been given. The reason is as yet unclear, but one possible explanation of the phenomenon is abnormal heat that caused permafrost to thaw, releasing gases.
Alexander Sokolov said that this summer is unusually hot on the Arctic island, a sign of which is polar bears moving from the frozen sea to the island.
Trembling methane bubbles
Scientists have warned at the potential catastrophic impact of global warming leading to the release into the atmosphere of harmful gases hitherto frozen in the ground or under the sea. A possibility is that the trembling tundra on Bely Island is this process in action.
Further south, on the Yamal and Taimyr peninsulas, scientists are actively observing a number of craters that have suddenly formed in the permafrost.
When the craters first appeared on the Yamal Peninsula - known to locals as "the end of the world" - they sparked bizarre theories as to their formation.
They ranged from meteorites to stray missiles fired by Vladimir Putin's military machine and from manmade pranks to the work of visiting aliens. Most experts now believe they were created by explosions of methane gas unlocked by warming temperatures in the far north of Russia.
Scientists discovered 15 'bubbles' filled with methane and CO2. Pictures: Alexander Sokolov/Vesti
On Yamal, the main theory is that the craters were formed by pingos - dome-shaped mounds over a core of ice - erupting under pressure of methane gas released by the thawing of permafrost caused by climate change.
The Yamal craters, some tiny but others large, were created by natural gas filling vacant space in ice humps, eventually triggering eruptions, according to leading authority Professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky, of Moscow's Oil and Gas Research Institute.
Recently there were accounts of a 'big bang' leading to the formation of a crater on the Taimyr Peninsula.
The noise could be heard up to 100 kilometres away and one resident. They saw a 'glow in the sky' after the explosion.
The Taimyr crater - after it was discovered and a year and a half after it was found. Pictures: The Siberian Times
The crater was first seen by reindeer herders who almost fell into it soon after the 2013 eruption.
Since the crater was formed in a 2013 blowout, its size rapidly increased at least 15 times during the next year and a half.
It is expected to be even wider now but no recent scientific surveys have been made to the remote site.
Our pictures show the so-called Deryabinsky crevice in snow soon after it was formed, when the hole was some four metres in width, and the latest known pictures which illustrate how it is now a lake, some 70 metres in diameter.
Alexander Sokolov is head of ecological R&D station of the Institute of Ecology of Plants and Animals of the Ural Department of the RAS in Labytnangi, Tyumen region.
Ehrich is a researcher at the University of Tromso, The Arctic University of Norway.DUBLIN (Reuters) - The payout offer of the Roman Catholic group at the center of an inquiry into child abuse in Ireland drew harsh criticism on Wednesday from a survivors group.
The Roman Catholic order of Christian Brothers, once the largest provider of residential care for boys in Ireland, said it offered a package of 161 million euros ($240 million) in compensation.
But the Irish Survivors of Child Abuse group (SOCA) said only 34 million euros of the offer was “new money.”
Disclosures in May of floggings, slave labor and gang rape in much of Ireland’s now defunct system of industrial and reform schools have shamed Irish people and put pressure on religious orders who ran the institutions to pay more for past abuses.
A string of scandals involving priests molesting young boys have eroded the Catholic Church’s moral authority in Ireland, once one of the most devout countries in the world.
The Christian Brothers said it would pay 30 million euros into a government trust, 4 million for counseling and transfer school playing fields worth 127 million to a government trust.
“The range of incremental measures outlined above follow the Christian Brothers’ acceptance, shame and sorrow at the findings of the Ryan Report,” the order said in a statement, referring to the inquiry covering the period between the 1930s and 1970s chaired by High Court Justice Sean Ryan.
The order said the offer would bring its total contributions since 1996 to 191 million euros.
But SOCA said: “This morning’s statement from the Christian Brothers is an exercise in the art of sophistry by its supreme practitioners in Ireland.”
It added: “The references to playing fields to be held in joint trust with the State has nothing whatever to do with redressing the victims of Christian Brother abuse in Irish institutions.”
Two other groups — the Sisters of Charity and Daughters of Charity — later said they had pledged to contribute 5 million euros and 10 million euros respectively for the benefit of former residents of religious-run institutions.
The moves came as Ireland awaits the publication of a separate report on the handling of allegations of child sex abuse in the archdiocese of Dublin from 1975 to 2004, which Prime Minister Brian Cowen said would be published on Thursday.
“In these days we will be reading of sordid events that took place within the Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of Dublin,” Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said at a ceremony last week.Help support Mike: Bookseller on Patreon! Any and all support truly helps me keep making these comics! Thank you all so much!
Racists. They still exist in this day and age. It’s incredibly sad, but it is also true. I work in California, and to take this phone call the other day absolutely surprised me. California is one of the more diverse states in the country and we still have some bigots lurking about.
What the person over the phone said in panel three is as close to what they actually said as my memory can serve. Disgusting.
I try not to get political in the comic, but I can take a strong stance here in saying that anything a human being does to impose their will, or suggest that one human is greater than another is complete evil. Supporting regimes that cause this type of thinking is evil.$12.4 billion deficit in the second-quarter of 2017
Saudi Arabia could boost domestic petrol prices by 80 percent, as Riyadh tries to reduce its burgeoning budget deficit.Riyadh will begin to raise prices of octane-91 grade petrol, before other forms of gasoline are increased next year, Bloomberg reported.The rise will see domestic petrol prices roughly in-line with the international market, the source who wished to remain anonymous told the website.Saudis have enjoyed some of the world's lowest petrol prices with motorists paying just 24 cents per litre at the pump, compared to around 77 cents in the US and $1.62 in the UK.Subsidies on petrol have eaten into the Saudi coffers, as low oil prices continue to hit the economy hard with Riyadh running aSaudi Arabia has tried to limit oil production to increase prices, but signs suggest that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's diversification drive is not going to plan as some of the government's ambitious economic targets are dropped.Tina Olivero, a PC party candidate in St. John's, is facing some backlash after publishing tweets about health care, including claims that self-awareness can trump medicine in curing disease.
Olivero, who is running for the Tories in St. John's East-Quidi Vidi, has been tweeting her thoughts on mental health and cancer treatment this week.
"Mental Health - More medication and sedation is not the answer. (some yes)," wrote Olivero, an entrepreneur and speaker who runs a company called Transform with Tina, and who also publishes a magazine for the oil and gas industry.
"Most need an entirely new solution starting with self awareness."
Mental Health - More medication and sedation is not the answer. (some yes) Most need an entirely new solution starting with self awareness. —@olivero_tina
The tweet created a buzz on social media Tuesday, and fuelled a further discussion on mental health and alternative medicine.
Olivero responded to the offence that some people — including comedian Mark Critch — took to her tweet by clarifying that she felt self-awareness was effective in treating cancer.
<a href="https://twitter.com/markcritch">@markcritch</a> I was referring to cancer - epilepsy I can't say with certainty - haven't seen it work in that case. —@olivero_tina
This only created a further reaction, and a greater backlash on social media.
<a href="https://twitter.com/olivero_tina">@olivero_tina</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/markcritch">@markcritch</a> So I was widowed at age 30 because my husband wasn't self-aware enough about his cancer? Well now I feel better. —@Miss_Close
<a href="https://twitter.com/olivero_tina">@olivero_tina</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/markcritch">@markcritch</a> Thank god you told me. I'll tell my 7yr old who's been fighting Leukemia for 2 yrs he just needs to be self aware —@Megnolias
Olivero was then asked in a Twitter exchange to cite a study supporting her claim that medication or radiation is not necessary for cancer treatment.
She shared a blog post that made claims of curing cancer with distilled water due to the placebo effect.
Dr. Brian Goldman, host of CBC Radio's White Coat, Black Art, later responded to the content of the article, calling it "distilled drivel" that could not be relied upon as a treatment.
Reliably? Consistently? So that you can establish a probability that might inform one's consent? 100% no. <a href="https://t.co/kLkdq7kwQ8">https://t.co/kLkdq7kwQ8</a> —@NightShiftMD
Paul Davis responds
PC Leader Paul Davis talks about health comments made by Tory candidate Tina Olivero 1:57
PC Party Leader Paul Davis was asked about Olivero's comments at a campaign stop Wednesday.
Davis, himself a cancer survivor, said that he had not seen all the comments Olivero had made.
"There are varying views on health care and treatments and how those things happen, and I think we live in a society where we should invite those conversations and allow people to exchange their viewpoints and she has done that," Davis said.
"I believe that chemotherapy saved my life, but I invite people to share their views."
Olivero, who engaged rapidly with critics late Tuesday and Wednesday morning, has not replied to multiple requests from CBC News for comment.Retail&Agrobusiness
Rezultatul salariilor mici şi al preţurilor europene: fiecare român lasă lunar în hipermarketuri şi supermarketuri peste 20% din tot ce câştigă
Autor: Cristina Rosca 30281
Fiecare român lasă lunar la casele hipermarketurilor şi supermarketurilor din România circa 83 de euro pe alimente, produse de îngrijire personală şi îngrijirea locuinţei, respectiv 21,6% din salariu.
Aceasta este cea mai mică sumă cheltuită de un locuitor al ţărilor Uniunii Europene în comerţul modern, de aproape două ori mai mică decât cea lăsată de un polonez şi de trei ori sub cea cheltuită de un austriac sau un francez. Totuşi, ponderea sumei în totalul salariului este printre cele mai mari.
Aceste date indică faptul că puterea de cumpărare este printre cele mai mici de pe bătrânul continent şi că pe piaţa locală lanţurile internaţionale mai au spaţiu de dezvoltare, având momentan o cotă de circa 55% faţă de peste 80% în Occident.
La polul opus se află ţările nordice şi cele din Occident, astfel în Norvegia un locuitor cheltuie lunar în comerţul modern circa 442 de euro. Aceasta este cea mai mare sumă cheltuită în Europa, potrivit datelor oferite de compania de cercetare de piaţă Planet Retail. Pe poziţiile următoare în topul cheltuielilor din comerţul modern se află ţări din Occident, cu economii dezvoltate, precum Austria, Germania sau Franţa. În aceste ţări, spre deosebire de România, comerţul modern are o pondere de peste 80% în totalul comerţului.
Mai mult, România este una dintre cele mai sărace ţări din Uniunea Europeană, cu un salariu mediu net lunar de 385 de euro, de două ori mai mic decât al ţărilor din regiune şi de până la opt ori mai mic decât în Occident. Preţurile însă sunt doar cu 40% mai mici decât în Occident, motiv pentru care cea mai mare parte a salariului merge către mâncare, produse de îngrijire personală, respectiv cheltuieli de bază. Astfel, lunar, unui român îi mai rămân puţini bani pentru vacanţe, spectacole sau educaţie. La polul opus, în Occident cheltuielile cu mâncarea reprezintă mai puţin de 15% din salariul lunar.
În acest context, magazinele de bloc, chioşcurile şi alimentarele sunt un concept rămas în picioare doar în Europa Centrală şi de Est, unde reţelele străine au pătruns în urmă cu circa 20 de ani, după căderea comunismului.
Istoria comerţului modern a început să se scrie în România în 1996, când pe piaţă a intrat Metro Cash&Carry adus în parteneriat de grupul german şi de omul de afaceri român Ion Ţiriac. În anii ce au urmat au venit şi ceilalţi jucători, care în anii de boom au deschis în principal magazine pe suprafaţă mare pentru românii care mergeau în weekend la cumpărături şi îşi umpleau coşurile. În perioada 2009-2015 a venit criza şi au avut loc şi schimbări în comportamentul de consum. Românii au început să pună accent pe preţ pe de-o parte şi pe apropierea de casă a magazinelor pe de alta. În acest context, s-au dezvoltat puternic magazinele pe suprafaţă mică, deschise în inima cartierelor dormitor. După o expansiune accelerată în ultimii ani comerţul modern a ajuns la peste 1.500 de magazine, din care peste 90% în zona urbană, şi la afaceri de 8-9 mld. euro anual.
Pawel Musial, executivul polonez care a condus Profi până acum câteva luni şi care acum este membru al Consiliului de Supraveghere şi preşedinte al Comitetului de Strategie spunea recent că expansiunea comerţului modern va continua, reţelele vor trece de la marile oraşe către localităţile mici de provincie. Focusul expansiunii va fi pe supermarketurile cu elemente de proximitate. Mulţi retaileri vor paria pe francizaţi şi pe preluarea de retaileri locali. În cazul unor astfel de preluări, foştii proprietari vor fi păstraţi în adminstraţie. El adaugă faptul că 2-3 reţele vor paria pe micile localităţi, astfel că în cinci ani comerţul modern va ajunge de la 1.500 la 3.500 de magazine.
„În ţări precum Germania sau Austria există doar o serie de brutării sau măcelării controlate de antreprneori locali, însă acestea sunt puţine şi sunt de fapt magazine specializate“, spune un executiv de top din comerţul modern. El adaugă faptul că în România ponderea comerţului modern este mică chiar şi prin comparaţie cu Cehia spre exemplu, o altă ţară a cărei istorie în capitalism a început să se scrie acum circa 25 de ani. În Cehia însă ponderea comerţului modern depăşeşte însă 70%, un avantaj fiind faptul că ponderea populaţiei urbane este mult mai mare decât în România, la peste 70% din total. „România este un caz singular în Europa dacă ne uităm la ponderea populaţiei din rural în totalul populaţiei. De altfel, acesta este şi motivul pentru care ponderea comerţului modern este de doar 55%, pentru că zona rurală nu este rentabilă pentru reţelele internaţionale“, spune acelaşi executiv. El adaugă faptul că acoperirea acestei zone se va face însă prin francizarea jucătorilor deja existenţi, proces deja început de Metro Cash&Carry prin proiectul LaDoiPaşi, de Carrefour cu Express şi mai nou de Mega Image. În zona rurală veniturile sunt chiar mai mici decât în urban, iar puterea de cumpărare este pe măsură.
*MedLife susține informarea și educarea ca sursă principală de dezvoltare a unui business sănătos. De aceea, recomandăm informarea continuă cu ajutorul articolelor din secțiunea Companii!The times are certainly changing in Washington State, where it recently became legal to buy and use recreational marijuana. Joining bake sales and other fundraisers as ways to give back to the community, a small |
home match to help them with their chances. Deportivo host Real Sociedad, who are fifth and have a chance to make the Champions League if they win while Valencia mess up; Celta face Espanyol, who have nothing to play for; Zaragoza play Atletico Madrid, who are third but are also without any real motivation; and Mallorca, in the most problematic of situations, playing Valladolid, who are also without any goal standing before them.
The La Liga uses the head-to-head system to decide its tie breakers, which is very likely to come to use as only two points separate the four clubs. If two teams are tied, it’s decided like their matches where a two-legged knockout stage, with the away goals rule applying. If three teams have the same amount of points, a mini-table is created with the head-to-head results in their six matches being used. Only Deportivo, Zaragoza and Celta can create such a situation which has any significance, with Deportivo finishing on top thanks to goal difference.
17 Deportivo La Coruna 37 6 5 7 23 25 2 6 11 24 44 -22 35 18 Celta de Vigo 37 6 6 6 22 21 3 1 15 14 31 -16 34 19 Real Zaragoza 37 5 4 9 22 24 4 3 12 14 35 -23 34 20 Mallorca 37 6 5 7 22 28 2 4 13 17 42 -31 33
All teams get the same result – no change. Deportivo remain in the Spanish La Liga, the rest are relegated. Regardless of the other results, if Deportivo win their match against Real Sociedad, they will be the surviving team.
If Deportivo draw, things get a little bit more complicated. If they draw and the three other teams don’t win, Deportivo still stays in the top flight. A draw, accompanied by a Mallorca win while Zaragoza and Celta don’t win their matches, still means Deportivo remain in the top flight thanks to their head-to-head record with Mallorca. In fact, the only team they lose to in their head to head is with Zaragoza, which means that a Zaragoza draw, Deportivo loss, Celta loss and Mallorca not winning keeps Zaragoza in the top flight.
Both Zaragoza and Celta can remain in the La Liga, at the expense of the other, if they win their matches and Deportivo loses or draws, with Mallorca’s result becoming insignificant at that time. Celta have the head-t0-head edge with Zaragoza, beating them twice this season. A draw is enough only for Zaragoza, and only in the case Deportivo loses and Celta & Mallorca don’t win thei matches, as we mentioned above.
For Mallorca, it’s pretty simple. They have to win their match against Real Valladolid, a team with nothing to play for, while hoping that Deportivo loses and the other two teams don’t win. Any other combination means relegation for Los Bermellones after 16 consecutive seasons in the top flight.Support us! GearJunkie may earn a small commission from affiliate links in this article. Learn more
They look like teched-out “rain slickers,” water beading and rolling off a shiny face. But for 2016 Columbia Sportswear offers a breathable fabric instead of a clammy shell on a rainy day.
The line, called OutDry Extreme, comes to market in February of 2016. GearJunkie got a first look this past week, including a test in rainy conditions in South America in the mountains of Colombia (see video below).
OutDry Extreme flips waterproof/breathable fabric around, moving the jacket membrane to the outside. A single ply of wicking material is next to the skin.
The result is a new kind of jacket that is more durable than most breathable hardshell jackets, and it’s possibly more waterproof, too.
Membrane Challenge
Jacket membranes are thin, porous, waterproof and breathable materials traditionally sandwiched in between layers of fabric. Gore-Tex, the most recognizable membrane type, is made of a compound called polytetrafluoroethylene (abbreviated to ptfe or e-ptfe).
The type of Gore-Tex used in jackets is too fragile to be exterior facing. The company sells its membrane sandwiched under an exterior fabric coated with a water-repellent chemical.
The surface chemical, simplified and called a DWR (durable water repellent), can rub off. The exterior fabric then soaks with rain, causing an effect called “wetting out.”
I watched a Columbia Sportswear designer scratch off the DWR from a jacket; it took only a few scrapes with his fingernails, simulating interaction with tree branches on a hike. He then poured water on, which soaked to the membrane, eliminating the water-beading effect.
At the same demonstration table, the designer aggressively scratched an OutDry Extreme jacket. It did not budge.
No outer surface compound was removed, and water continued to bead. I was impressed. This simple test piqued my interest and proved the company had something new to show.
Video: OutDry Extreme – Test In Chingaza National Park, Colombia
In Colombia, I would soon be able to test the new jacket, including in harsh high-altitude conditions and driving rain. (See the video above.)
OutDry Breakdown
OutDry Extreme is not ptfe-based like Gore-Tex but uses instead a polyurethane-based membrane. It’s a cousin to the OutDry (no “Extreme”) waterproof treatment that’s been around for years in shoes, packs, and gloves.
The secret to OutDry Extreme is a new kind of chemistry, as yet undisclosed, which strengthens the polyurethane. In addition, a thin diamond-pattern layer, also made of polyurethane, sits atop the membrane, serving as an armor.
Columbia says the new polyurethane formula is the highest-density jacket membrane that it knows of in the industry. The patent-pending material, which has microscopic perforations for breathability, was concepted in 2013.
In the membrane’s bonding to a wicking fabric, the process uses no adhesive. The fibers are mechanically bonded via heat and pressure as opposed to a glue, which Columbia cites increases breathability.
Storm Test
I tested OutDry Extreme on a foggy, rainy day in Colombia last week. The alien forests of Chingaza, a national park east of Bogota, are home to succulents, grasses, and strange tree-plants called frailejones.
Wetness came from above and all sides as we hiked and bushwhacked for hours in the park. Wind almost blew me sideways.
At the end, despite constant rain and contact with drenched vegetation, I was dry. The jacket and rain pants served as a rubbery shell, shedding all water but letting my body breathe.
It was a day-long test with a new jacket, so it was far from conclusive. But OutDry Extreme is something new, and it deserves attention from gear geeks as well as anyone obsessed with staying dry in any weather outside.
In the hand the jackets feel different, closer to the “rain slicker” material on a coat you may have worn as a kid. Seam tape is on the outside. The zippers on the high-end models are watertight and thin.
Rain Jacket Redux
As a category, rain jackets need a kick in the pants. This design by Columbia is a definite jab: It’s an affront to the sandwiched-membrane format used by dozens of premium brands.
Compared to ponchos and non-breathable options the Columbia line isn’t clammy. Though more expensive, the OutDry Extreme line is a new alternative and a higher-quality rain jacket that could last for many years.
They crinkle and fit like a thick winter-oriented hardshell. Breathability on my first test, a 50-degree, humid and rainy day, was impressive.
I expect the Columbia jackets to attract people by their shiny, waterproof looks alone. The breathability comes as a bonus and major upgrade to anyone used to sweating in a slicker.
Columbia Sportswear won’t ship the OutDry Extreme line until next year (February 2016). We’ll be testing it throughout the coming months in rain, sleet, and snow.
Look for jackets and rain pants for men, women, and kids, including 19 styles in all. The company will sell three levels of the line, from $120 to $400 per piece.
I am a fan of the new concept. In the windy, wet, saturated conditions at Chingaza the OutDry Extreme system kept me dry and I never felt clammy, despite the hood up and rain tapping on my head all day long.
––See page 2 for more photos from the 2016 Columbia OutDry Extreme line.Politics here is crying out for a more civilised, fairer approach, co-operation, and consensus, writes Henry McLeish
For the majority of people, voting is their only link with the complex structure, of democracy, politics and governance that helps shape our society and makes sense of the tough process of arriving at collective decisions out of a bewildering array of multiple and competing, interests, opinions, ideas, and life styles.
The two Greek words, “demos” and “kratos”, the rule or power of the people, have become symbolic of an inspiring and powerful but remarkably difficult idea to deliver. It was Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg address who said, “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth”.
How do these lofty ideals reflect what is happening at Westminster, post-election? How can a Conservative Party with 29 per cent of the eligible votes cast on 8 June, form a government? Why do 60 per cent of those who did vote, but voted for other parties, end up having little influence on how Britain is run in the next five years? Can it be right that the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) with 279,000 votes and ten seats, be influential in shaping the future of Britain future?
More to the point, we are seeing government of the party, by the party, for the party, where narrow partisan party politics eclipse any notion of the national interest, further diminish the credibility of our democracy, and allow an “elected dictatorship” to function when 71 per cent of all voters did not support the Conservatives or the DUP! The injustices and inconsistencies of our electoral system run deep.
The struggle for universal suffrage, or the right to vote, was a great victory for working people and remains the most important means at their disposal to influence their own lives, the fortunes of their families and indeed the course of history.
Despite the efforts of the Whigs and Tories, privileged elites, the power of “nobles, burgesses, and shire commissioners” before them, and ideas such as the “40 shilling free holders”, the struggle for universal voting rights became unstoppable, but was only completely achieved in 1969. For the founding fathers in the US and the privileged classes in Britain, extending the franchise was fraught with problems. More fear of the people, than power of the people, where the idea of “mobocracy” and the “behaviour of the masses” was a threat to elites.
In the modern era, the “first past the post” system for Westminster elections is archaic, politically repressive, unfair and unrepresentative.
The lack of a written constitution means that absolute power remains with Westminster, not the people.
The younger generation is crying out to be listened to, but Westminster will not extend the franchise or give a voice to 16- year-olds.
The ideas of consensus, co-operation, and coalition, unlike Europe, are not part of the Westminster discourse.
Proportional representation would help fix our broken politics, strengthen a weak democracy, and tackle the remoteness of governance.
Reforming the voting system for Westminster is however not on the agenda. The status quo has preserved the dominance of Labour and the Conservatives, reinforced partisanship, and, despite the emergence of a multi-party system, made millions of votes worthless in terms of political impact and fairness. This is a rigged system.
Continental Europe is showing the way forward. Post-war forms of proportional voting have overcome much of the tribalism that is the hallmark of Westminster and has resulted in a better match between votes cast, political party representation, the composition of government and successful coalitions.
The defeat of the modest “Alternative Vote” system in a referendum in 2011 is only of significance to the point that this was a sham, a concession to the Lib Dems in the Tory coalition, with little support from the two major parties.
Voting is a powerful and undervalued democratic right in Britain. Often the media, right wing politicians and those obsessed with the “market” ignore the importance of our democracy, our politics, and our governance and remain content with first past the post, which dominates and distorts the consequences of voting and ensures millions of votes don’t matter.
Mark Twain quipped, “if voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it”. In Britain millions of people may have taken this to heart. From 1997, 30 to 40 per cent of the electorate haven’t bothered to vote in Westminster elections. In 2015, the SNP won 50 per cent of the vote but picked up 95 per cent of the seats in Scotland.
In similar vein, Ukip received nearly four million votes and only one MP. This doesn’t make any sense. The Tory victory in the 2015 general election meant they formed the government with just over a third of the votes cast and only slightly over a quarter of those eligible to vote in the UK. This was repeated a few weeks ago. There is now an undeniable case for change: the worth of a vote and the value of voting are at stake.
In today’s volatile political climate, the political, social, economic and cultural challenges demand a more inclusive, fairer and representative system of voting. Our politics are crying out for a civilised approach, cooperation, progressive coalitions, and consensus. It beggars belief that in 2017 we hold on to the ideas that each manifesto is unique and precious, that each party has a monopoly of wisdom to solve every problem, and that supporting or working with another party is a sign of weakness. People don’t think like this. This is not the European way. First past the post only reinforces this state of delusion.
But change is difficult. The status quo serves the self-interest of the two big parties. Their case against change is plausible but flawed. Simplicity, speed, MP-voters link, decisive results, and strong and stable government, are seen as advantages. First past the post has substantial weaknesses. MPs and governments elected without majority votes, parties that win large numbers of votes but obtain few seats, and smaller parties under represented or not represented in the House of Commons. Key institutions of our democracy –parties, parliaments, and elections – do not command enough trust or respect.
Our politics and our electoral system are not coping. Proportional representation voting, votes for 16-year-olds to give them a greater say in the intergenerational debate, and transferring power to the people in a written constitution are long overdue.
Voters are serious people, and as citizens not consumers, recognise the fact that politics, democracy, and governance have profound consequences for their lives. Abandoning first past the post for Westminster elections is the next step in the struggle for voting rights. Let’s learn from Europe.
The worth of a vote should never be underestimated or abused.“Growing up,” Juac says, “I was pretty much happy. There’s nothing that I didn’t like.”
He recalls being 7 when they returned home one day and saw smoke. The war had spread and now reached his village; mercenaries were seizing livestock and most anything else of value, torching everything else. Resisting villagers were killed or held captive, and by the time Juac reached the outskirts, his group was intercepted by rebel soldiers, instructing them to walk in the opposite direction.
Eighty boys were in that first group, Juac estimates. Two of his cousins were separated from the pack, never to be seen again, and one of his brothers would go missing for about a month before he and the family were reunited. They kept walking, and the group swelled. One hundred boys and, after a week, Juac says, there were about 300 children traveling together. About 20,000 children would be displaced throughout southern Sudan; many were orphaned, and some would die of starvation or exhaustion along the way.
How far did you go before stopping? Two days’ walk. Where were you going? We did not know.
When his group rested for the first time since leaving the village, the rebel soldiers instructed the barefoot children to sleep where they stood, whether it was soft soil or a bed of jagged pebbles. Many of the boys were injured or dehydrated. Juac watched as the older boys buried one sick child who collapsed, and when it was finished, the survivors kept moving.
They lost sense of time and distance, crossing into Ethiopia and measuring their journey by watching the moon expand and become full; four full moons came and went, Juac says, before they stopped after walking hundreds of miles. Then, when Ethiopia’s government was overthrown in 1991, they were forced, under the threat of being shot, to turn and walk back toward Sudan.
One day Juac’s group approached the Gilo River, which is near the border of the two nations. Ethiopian militia soldiers were shooting stragglers or lonely wanderers, hurrying the boys toward the waterway. Can you swim? a boy asked Juac as they stood on the bank, and Juac knew enough to say no. Few Sudanese children had been exposed to the water, and the rare swimmer was seen as a potential savior; panicked boys would hold on to the swimmer, eventually pulling him under, too. But no matter their ability, the boys had no choice but to try.
“Either die of a gun,” Juac says, “or you die of the water.”
They went in. Juac used the lessons he learned alongside his cousins back in Paliau and paddled his way across. When the group reached the other side, Juac found that half of the group was gone. Those who made it kept walking.
Although Juac says he has no idea how far he actually walked, most of the Lost Boys are estimated to have traveled upward of 1,000 miles. Juac says he saw so much death that, after a while, he was no longer shocked when a boy fell ill or died along the path.
After five years of wandering into and out of war zones, his group settled into the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, weeks turning to months and then years. “Then,” he says, “it becomes home.” The United Nations delivered food rations, about a gallon of corn, every two weeks; in Juac’s group, that amounted to about a cup per person. “The way to survive is to eat once a day,” he says.
On rare occasions the aid workers brought unusual items: wheat flour the group used to make bread or a deck of playing cards. He says he was about 19 when the board games arrived, checkers and dominos and chess. He liked the way the dominos looked, but he was enamored of the chess pieces, each with a personality and a set of limitations, working in concert to protect the king.
During the day Sudanese soldiers played the game, and Juac stood silently and watched, learning the pieces and their movements. At night when the men went dancing, Juac and a friend sneaked into the game room and set up the board; they shook hands before and after each match and said nothing in between. “Talking,” he says, “distracts you from thinking.”
And thinking, he found, distracted him from remembering.Every week I come across lots of Linux games development information. These updates are sometimes just small changes or smaller bits of news but are quite a interesting read. So once in a week or when there is enough info, I will try to cover these updates in a blog post which will be prefixed 'Gamedev'.
The basic interface for Hostile Takeover has been completely done. Hostile Takeover is inspired by classic games like Fallout and Syndicate where you play role of an assassin. In this article I will cover some development news from last 10 days.Thefor Hostile Takeover has been completely done.is inspired by classic games like Fallout and Syndicate where you play role of an assassin.
I redid the stats bars in the upper right display to better fit with the overall style. And I’ve redone the combat mode border to fit the new interface elements. Finally, I made the blood splatters that will appear on the equipped item boxes when your arms are damaged (1-5 blood splatters on each to indicate amount of damage), as well as the splatters on the walk and run buttons when those selections are unavailable due to leg damage. The blood splatters shown here don’t actually match the damage to the player in the screenshot — it’s just to show what they look like.
OpenDungeons has been released and the game is looking really polished. OpenDungeons is an open source, real time strategy game sharing game elements with the Dungeon Keeper series and Evil Genius. A new development trailer forhas been released and the game is looking really polished. OpenDungeons is an open source, real time strategy game sharing game elements with the Dungeon Keeper series and Evil Genius.US regulators on Friday moved one step closer to allowing a British company to introduce genetically modified mosquitoes in Florida — in what would be the first such release in the country — to test whether the approach could reduce the spread of dengue and chikungunya virus.
If the field test, in the Florida Keys, is successful, it would offer a proof-of-principle that genetic techniques might also slow the spread of the Zika virus as well as insect-borne diseases, such as malaria, that can sometimes be lethal.
The US Food and Drug Administration issued a “preliminary finding” that the genetically modified insects, produced by Oxitec at its labs in Oxford, England, and shipped as eggs to Florida, would have essentially “no significant impact” on human health, animal health, or the ecosystem. The public can submit comments on that conclusion for the next 30 days.
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Entomologist Phil Lounibos of the University of Florida, who has followed Oxitec’s proposal for years, said he was “not too surprised” by the agency’s conclusion. “FDA had dawdled for too long on this decision but Zika’s arrival helped to expedite Oxitec’s case.”
Oxitec’s Aedes aegypti mosquitoes have been genetically engineered to carry two foreign genes. One makes them die if they are not exposed to the antibiotic tetracycline (as would be the case anywhere outside a lab). The other makes them glow red. All of the released mosquitoes would be male, and when they mate with native females their offspring would also die without tetracycline while they are still larvae or pupae.
The field test Oxitec wants to run — in Key Haven, Fla. — would assess whether that actually happens and estimate how much the overall aegypti population is suppressed at the trial site compared with a control area. At the end of the trial, the genetically modified mosquitoes would die when they reach their natural lifespan (about two days), and natural aegypti “levels are expected to recover to pre-trial numbers,” the FDA concluded.
The proposed release has nevertheless stirred significant opposition among residents of the Florida Keys. Many have argued that they have not given their consent to be at the epicenter of such an experiment, and a petition to “Say No” has acquired 161,000 signatures.
A former nurse who organized the petition said the Oxitec field test amounts to a “clinical trial,” and that neither the company nor the FDA has received consent from the community that would be affected. “I don’t want my family or my community to be guinea pigs,” said Mila De Mier, who lives in nearby Key West. “I don’t know one single resident of Key Haven who is in favor of this. She vowed to continue the fight in the courts.
In a statement, Oxitec chief executive officer Hadyn Parry said the company is “pleased” that the FDA-led team has concluded the field test would pose no significant harm. “The Aedes aegypti mosquito represents a significant threat to human health, and in many countries has been spreading Zika, dengue and chikungunya viruses.” Current control methods reduce aegypti populations by only half, he said, “which is simply not enough. We look forward to this proposed trial and the potential to protect people from Aedes aegypti and the diseases it spreads.”
Oxitec has conducted similar trials in Brazil, Panama, and the Cayman Islands, reducing the populations of Aedes aegypti more than 90 percent, the company previously reported.
The FDA’s finding that the mosquitoes pose essentially no harm to people or human health in Florida rests on several details of Oxitec’s plan.
Almost all of the released mosquitoes would be male, and males do not bite. If there are any biting females, they are not expected to transmit the glowing-red protein or the tetracycline protein: “concentrations of these proteins in the saliva of [Oxitec] females are below the limit of detection.” The company’s studies, the FDA said, showed that even if any of the engineered proteins were transmitted to people “there was no convincing evidence” it would be toxic or trigger an allergic reaction.
As for the ecosystem, the FDA concluded that the chance of any adverse effects “is largely negligible.” That’s because aegypti mosquitoes are not the sole food source of any animal, nor are they a pollinator for any plants. And when the proposed test is done, the population of aegypti is expected to rebound to its previous level — at least until and unless the test is deemed so successful, safe, and necessary that Oxitec is permitted to move from experiment to full-scale release.Is this the end of Amazon’s ebook reign? Google is launching its new open ebook store today, simply called Google eBooks, with over 3 million titles, in a bid to take on the ebook world dominated by Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Apple.
As we reported previously, Google’s ebook venture will be more open than its competition. Consumers will be able to browse and search Google’s enormous ebook library, and they can read ebooks on any web enabled device. Your ebook library will be tied to your Google account and will be accessible through any web browser. You’ll be able to buy ebooks directly from Google, or from independent bookseller partners like Powell’s, Alibris and participating members of the American Bookseller’s Association.
Google wisely isn’t relying on the web entirely, as the company is releasing free Google eBooks apps for the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. The apps will let users continue reading where they left off when they switch devices, just like ebook reading apps from Amazon and Apple. You’ll also be able to browse and purchase ebooks from within the apps. Google is also providing an app for Barnes and Noble’s Nook and Sony’s ebook readers. There’s no word on Kindle compatibility yet, but I wouldn’t hold your breath for that.
The ebook store will also tie into Google Books, the company’s digitization project for the world’s books. Google says that is has scanned more than 15 million books since the project began in 2004 from more than 35,000 publishers. You’ll be able to search through Google’s scanned offerings in the research section of its ebook store.
I don’t suspect that Google will initially be very successful with this ebook venture. Competitors like Amazon and Barnes and Noble are already entrenched in the market, and consumers interested in ebooks are already loyal to at least one of Google’s competitors. But Google does boast a bigger library than the rest with 3 million titles (including some 2 million free public domain titles), compared to Barnes and Noble’s 2 million (with public domain titles) and Amazon’s 750,000 (not including public domain). It’s unclear how Google’s paid ebook library compares to Amazon’s, a company that has had years to form relationships with publishers.
The open nature of Google’s ebook store may eventually help the company grab a bigger slice of the market. You’ll eventually be able to purchase Google ebooks from multiple sources, as well as see them marketed on blogs and other sites on the web. That’s a big difference from Amazon’s Kindle books, which you can only purchase from within Amazon’s store. Google also has the advantage of not being burdened by a device — instead it’s built a system that can work with practically any device.Image caption History professor Candan Badem was sacked in September
More than four months after the defeat of the military coup attempt in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to continue the purges that have already seen more than 125,000 state employees sacked or suspended.
But critics at home and abroad say his aim is not just to find those behind the putsch, but to crush all opposition to his rule.
"This is like condemning to a civil death." That's how Prof Candan Badem sums up the effect of losing his job in the massive wave of dismissals that have followed the failed coup in Turkey on 15 July.
Until 1 September, he had a job he loved as an associate history professor at Tunceli University, in the east of the country. But on that day he found his name listed in an online government decree that sacked about 50,000 state employees for alleged links to terror organisations.
He was among more than 2,300 academics on the list. Also dismissed were people from a huge range of other professions - police officers, civil servants, teachers - even midwives and cooks.
Image copyright AP Image caption The Turkish government says Fethullah Gulen was behind the attempted coup
The total number sacked or suspended since the coup attempt is now at least 125,000 - including a further 15,000 this week.
Most are suspected of being followers of Fethullah Gulen, the 75-year-old Islamic preacher living in self-imposed exile in the United States whom the state accuses of masterminding the coup attempt.
Gulen's movement, which says it promotes moderate Islam and interfaith dialogue, ran a large network of schools in Turkey and abroad, as well as media outlets and other businesses.
Gülen condemned the coup and denies any involvement in it. But President Erdogan - a former political ally - says he wants to "cleanse" Turkey of his "virus".
Prof Badem, the history lecturer, was dismissed - and detained by the police - after a book by the preacher was found during a search of his office.
But he says the only reason he had the book was to find quotations he could use in a campaign against Gulen. "I have been a sharp critic of political Islam and religious sects all my life… How could I be a Gulenist?" he says.
Image copyright EPA Image caption More than 125,000 state employees have been sacked or suspended since the failed military coup
"I am an academic: I can read any books. They are making Turkey appear ridiculous in the eyes of whole world."
He laughs about what he sees as the absurdity of the charge against him, but the effect has been to blow his life apart. Those dismissed in the purges cannot apply for any other state job.
As a suspected terror supporter, Prof Badem has no chance of being employed in a private university, either. And his passport has been taken away, so he cannot travel abroad.
The government has set up special crisis centres where those who feel they have been unjustly accused can appeal - and thousands have. But the onus there is on applicants to prove their innocence, rather than the state proving their guilt.
More than 37,000 have been arrested as well as sacked and they will be tried in due course - but many fear that under the current state of emergency the process may not be fair. The work of defence lawyers has been restricted - and more than 3,800 members of the judiciary have also lost their jobs.
Decrees this week have closed 375 non-governmental organisations including lawyers' associations and minority rights groups. And since July, more than 130 newspapers, TV and radio stations have also been shut down, many of them in the Kurdish-dominated south-east of Turkey.
Prof Badem says: "Democracy is suffering. They are trying to eradicate all opposition, trying to remove all oppositional people from the state, from universities, from the media."
Image copyright AFP/getty Image caption Turkish President Erdogan says that the purges will continue
Meanwhile, the consequences of the purge are spreading ever wider. Hundreds of businesses with alleged links to Gulen have been taken over by the state, causing uncertainty among a huge number of workers and suppliers.
But President Erdogan said this week that the Gulenists "have not been completely cleansed". And the government insists its only aim is to safeguard democracy after the coup attempt.
Yusuf Tekin, the top civil servant at the Ministry of Education, where tens of thousands have lost their jobs, says: "This is not a campaign against opposition, NGOs, or any structures acting within the democratic framework. But it's our duty to fight against structures which suppress our children."
The government claims the Gulen movement "brainwashed" young people - and formed a subversive "parallel state".
Mr Tekin adds: "There is no reason for people who have no links with this organisation to be afraid. On the contrary people support this process. They're not afraid. They're happy. Because this structure became dominant in every field. So people are freer now."
Our World: Cleansing Turkey is on the BBC News Channel at 21:30 on Saturday and Sunday 26/27 November and on BBC World News. It will be available to watch later via BBC iPlayer.Tokyo, Japan (CNN) -- Japan's economy, sputtering since the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, has fallen into recession, according to government figures released Thursday.
The country's gross domestic product fell by an annualized rate of 3.7% in the first quarter of the calendar year, according to the government, a much steeper fall than Japanese economists had predicted.
Comparing the first quarter to the previous year, according to Japan's cabinet office, the GDP fell 0.9%. In the fourth quarter of 2010, the GDP fell 0.8% as compared to the same quarter of the previous year. Thursday's GDP figures show a second consecutive quarterly drop, which fits the economic definition of a recession.
Industrial output in March was down 15.3%, the worst monthly drop in the country's history.
Businesses in the region affected by the tsunami were hit hard, with 10,000 of 24,000 businesses affected and 600 expected to close.
The figures, which did not include data from tourism or trade, underscore the fact that the natural disaster of March has become an economic disaster.For the second week in a row, Toronto FC won’t have star scorer Jermain Defoe in the lineup for another challenging game. The club’s depth, like every other MLS team, was questioned at the start of the season and will be called on to fill the void yet again.
Toronto FC's Jermain Defoe applauds supporters after his team's 1-0 win over D.C.United in MLS action in Toronto on Saturday March 22, 2014. ( Chris Young / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO )
The difference this weekend, though, is TFC may also be without Michael Bradley, the team’s best player, which could increase the list of injured regulars to five. “With Jermain, we have to get it right,” Nelsen said in reference to Defoe, whose original diagnosis was a “mild” hamstring pull. He missed last week’s game in Columbus. “If we have to sacrifice next week (road game April 19 in Dallas)... it’s a long season and he’s probably got something more in the summer (World Cup with England). So we have to take care of him.”
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Nelsen ran down the injury list at training Friday and it went like this: for Saturday’s game against a high-powered Colorado club, Defoe, Ashtone Morgan and Doniel Henry will not play. Jonathan Orsorio is doubtful while Bradley and Alvaro Rey are questionable. Toronto takes its impressive 3-1 record into a home game Saturday against a solid Colorado club which features Jose Mari, who scored two of the nicest goals of the season so far in a win over Vancouver last weekend, and the speedy Deshorn Brown. “They’re a tough club, they have no weaknesses, they are good front to back,” Nelsen said. The club trained outside on grass during the warmer weather Friday. “All the responsibility goes on me. We look at the loads of training we give them, what they did in the pre-season, the travel. If you pull them out of training (ease up on the load) you run the risk of losing something off your game. At the same time, if you don’t push them, then you don’t have (two of three wins on the road). It’s all hindsight now.”
Nelsen will make a final determination on Bradley at game time Saturday. The brilliant midfielder is nursing aches and pains. TFC captain Steven Caldwell praised Hagglund, the club’s first choice in the SuperDraft, for his performance last weekend in Columbus, which included the added nervousness of having over a dozen family and friends on hand to witness his very first career MLS start.
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“It was a good debut, but I have to keep pushing forward,” Hagglund said. “I haven’t watched the game video yet but I will before the Colorado game. But I have to keep that (success) in the past and keep coming up with good games all the time.” According to the players and their coach, the release this week of the MLS salary figures won’t have an adverse affects on the TFC dressing room. “It doesn’t mean much to me,” said Orr, reflecting on a $50,000 salary for teammate Bloom and the marked contrast to the $6.5 million Bradley is earning. “I have to just come out, work hard, and prove myself day in and day out. You don’t want to worry about those things and get your head bent out of shape.” When asked if he saw the salary figures, Orr said “I did see them … you can see the difference … it’s a pretty wide gap but there’s a difference |
grandchildren, do too.'
To claim his record, Mr Baxter has to depose New Zealand's Lee Weir who has the'most tattoos of the same cartoon character tattooed on the body'.
Mr Weir has 41 tattoos of Homer Simpson on his left arm.
Despite Mr Baxter's tattoo including lots of different characters, he understands that because all the characters are from the same show, he is eligible to make a claim for the record.
'Guinness have accepted my application, but I have a lot of paperwork to fill out,' he said.
Supporting characters - such as Sideshow Bob, the Comic Book Guy, Ned Flanders, Principal Skinners - are littered among the faces that span across Mr Baxter's back
Mr Baxter's tattoo artist, Jade Baxter Smith, has been 'overwhelmed' by the attention she has received over her artwork
Mr Baxter's tattoo has pushed him onto the international stage, with pictures of his tattoos being spread all over the world via the internet.
A campaign has even launched in the U.S. to persuade The Simpsons producers Matt Groening and James L. Brooks to invite him to appear in animated form on the show.
'I'm recognised everywhere. My friends love it, especially the attention it's now getting. They all think the tattoo's awesome, especially when they see it in the flesh,' Mr Baxter said.
'My wife Sharyn, 50, and daughters Michelle, 31 and Rebecka, 29, love it. My seven-year-old grandson Kohen and my five-year-old granddaughter Milah, think it's fantastic.'
Mr Baxter has volunteered to travel with Ms Smith to tattoo expos since the artwork was completed in 2013
Even Mr Baxter's tattoo artist, Jade Baxter Smith, has been 'overwhelmed' by the attention she has received over her artwork.
'I'm known now as the girl who did "that Simpsons tattoo",' she said.
When Mr Baxter first approached Ms Smith with the idea, she did not take him seriously.
'Michael came to me and said he wanted all The Simpsons characters on his back. I laughed and thought he was joking,' the tattoo artist, who has been working since she was 18, said.
Mr Baxter has volunteered to travel with Ms Smith to tattoo expos since the artwork was completed in 2013.WHAT does it take to be a good soldier? Courage? Loyalty? Respect for the Geneva Conventions? Yes, yes, but for the Indonesian army, if a new recruit is a woman, she must also be a virgin. Those who have sex before marriage are immoral, top brass insist, and so cannot be trusted to defend the country. Also, male officers might wish to marry their female comrades-in-arms, so it is essential that they be pure. Hence the “virginity tests” to which new recruits are subjected: doctors check to see if their hymens are intact.
Until recently, virginity tests were also compulsory for female police officers in Indonesia. Senior officers say they were ended last year, after complaints from groups such as Human Rights Watch. But there are worries that, at least in some parts of the country, they have been rebranded as “reproductive-health tests” (see article). Fear of undergoing such a test is one reason why so few Indonesian women have joined the police; only 3% of the force is female. And that means the police are less good at protecting women, many of whom are reluctant to report rape or domestic violence to a male officer.
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Unscientific, unethical, underreported
Virginity tests are unscientific—women’s physiologies vary a great deal, whether or not they have ever had sex. More to the point, the tests are degrading and unnecessary. Whether or not a woman is sexually active has no bearing on her ability to aim a rifle or to perform any other job. Yet in many parts of the world virginity testing continues. Sometimes it is demanded by prospective husbands, which is bad enough. Sometimes it is sponsored by governments, which is worse. They do so for three reasons, all bad.
In some cases, the aim is to intimidate. In Iran, for example, Atena Farghadani, a dissident cartoonist, was accused of “illegitimate sexual relations” because she shook hands with her male lawyer. She was then subjected to a “virginity and pregnancy test”. Egypt’s security forces have carried out virginity tests on women arrested for taking part in anti-government protests. In 2011 a little-known general called Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi said such tests were necessary to ensure that female detainees could not subsequently accuse their jailers of raping them. Mr Sisi is now president of Egypt.
In other cases virginity tests are administered in the false belief that they provide useful evidence in criminal cases. A study in Afghanistan found that 90% of a sample of female detainees had undergone such tests, some as often as four times. Most had been accused of “moral” crimes such as non-marital sex, but some of non-sexual crimes such as theft. The Indian Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that virginity tests could not be used as evidence in rape cases, but some Indian courts still allow it, on the assumption that a woman who is used to sex is more likely to have consented to the sex act in question.
A third rationale is to encourage virtue and discourage vice, as defined by (usually male) traditionalists. Even when national governments ban or discourage virginity tests, local bigwigs sometimes carry on regardless. In the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh in 2013, district officials made hundreds of women undergo virginity tests before taking part in a mass wedding, although Indian law forbids this. Each year in South Africa, hundreds of young women have virginity tests before dancing for the Zulu king. And to curb the spread of HIV, a Zulu mayor has offered scholarships for female university students who present certificates of virginity.
Enough, already. Sex between consenting adults is none of the state’s business. Virginity tests are pointless and traumatic. The time to end this outdated practice is now.CULVER CITY, Calif. (AP) — The state Board of Equalization voted Tuesday to reduce a gasoline tax by 3.5 cents per gallon — but that doesn’t mean consumers will see a dip at the pump.
The board approved lowering the excise tax rate on non-diesel fuel from 39.5 cents to 36 cents for the fiscal year that begins on July 1, just as the summer driving season kicks in.
Gasoline suppliers pay the tax and aren’t required to pass on the reduction to consumers.
Consumer warning: Climate change warning stickers on gasoline pumps?
“Historical data indicates that this legislation requiring the adjustment does not have an impact on overall gas prices,” board Chairman Jerome E. Horton said in a statement. “However, it would be nice if this decrease in excise tax would result in a corresponding decrease in gas prices.”
Even with the reduction, Californians will be paying the second-highest gas tax rate in the nation — more than 67 cents per gallon — after New York, according to petroleum industry figures.
The excise tax funds highway and mass transit projects. The board adjusts it annually and raised the tax by 3.5 cents per gallon last year.
The excise tax is the largest of the state taxes on gasoline. It was increased in 2010 at the same time that the sales tax on gas was reduced. Changes must be “revenue-neutral” over three years, as judged against how much money would have been brought in under the old system.
Raising revenue: Why rising gasoline taxes worry the fuel sector
For that reason, the board adjustments reflect estimates of gasoline prices — which would increase sales tax revenues — and motorist demand for the coming fiscal year.
Gasoline consumption in California generally has fallen since 2005, and while gasoline prices have edged up in recent weeks, they remain down from a year ago.
The average statewide price of regular on Tuesday was $3.80 per gallon, according to figures from AAA. That was up about 2 cents from a week ago but down 43 cents from a year ago.
Also on FuelFix:
Pain at the pump? Smile. At least you don’t live in Norway.1. I watched every Browns game on film last season and not once did I feel that this team was a joke. It was simply a rebuilding club that lacked talent in too many areas. Under Hue Jackson, the Browns had an identity and their game plans had cohesion and purpose. They played hard and made opponents earn their wins. Unfortunately, those opponents happened to earn a lot of wins. But this team was better than 1-15 suggests. It was certainly respectable.
2. This year’s Browns team is better than last year’s, but we may not see much improvement in the passing game. In today’s NFL, a deficient aerial attack will keep you in the gutter. A lot comes down to whether second-round rookie QB DeShone Kizer can emerge as the starter. If he can’t, the Browns must rely on Cody Kessler or Brock Osweiler, who have flaws (with Kessler, it’s arm strength; with Osweiler, pocket movement and decision-making). The problem is there are no proven weapons to throw to. Coming out of Baylor, where wide receivers don’t develop in an unconventional spread offense, Corey Coleman had to basically learn the position from the ground up. That doesn’t happen over the course of one year. Starting opposite Coleman will be Kenny Britt, whose consistency is compromised by route running glitches and drops. At tight end, the Browns will lean heavily on first-round rookie David Njoku. Besides adjusting to the faster NFL, Njoku must learn a variety of complex rules, as Jackson’s system is demanding of tight ends.
3. In some respects, Cleveland’s best passing game weapon is backup running back Duke Johnson. He had some highlight-reel blitz pickups last season, and as a pass catcher he’s dangerous out of the backfield or on short-area routes from the slot or out wide. That’s why he’s the only running back in the NFL to have more than 500 yards receiving in each of the last two seasons. The Browns are experimenting with him as their fulltime slot receiver.
4. Something Hue Jackson will do to help his quarterbacks and his young skill players is use “closed formations.” In other words, he’ll put all the wide receivers to one side of the field and a line-of-scrimmage-tight end alone on the other side. This forces the defense to unbalance, which limits its ability to disguise its intentions.
5. After the free-agent signings of former Bengals guard Kevin Zeitler and athletic ex-Packers center JC Tretter, the belief is the Browns now have one of the AFC’s best offensive lines. And they do —at least on the inside, especially with the sturdy, mobile Joel Bitonio also back healthy at left guard. But could offensive tackle be a problem? Cam Erving is moving from center to right tackle after an unsteady first two seasons. If he flounders, last year’s third-round pick, Shon Coleman, will get the nod. On the left side, Joe Thomas is a future Hall of Famer, but he has started to leak just a bit in pass protection.
6. Even if 32 years of age is catching up to Thomas, he has the fundamentals to keep going. What’s always made him great is his footwork, particularly in pass blocking. When an offensive tackle drop-kicks against pass rushers, it’s important he keep his feet low to the ground. When your feet leave the ground, you’re vulnerable to bull rushes and redirection moves. You want your foot to skim the grass, like a lawn mower. Thomas has been great here.
7. Drafting defensive end Myles Garrett was a no-brainer. Cleveland’s biggest problem last season was its lack of pass rush. Every other passing down D-lineman on the roster is more equipped to rush the quarterback from inside, rather than off the edge. If Garrett can’t produce right away, this defense is in trouble.
8. Cleveland’s second biggest problem on D was missed tackles and poor run fits from the safeties. The issue was especially bad out of split safety looks (such as Cover 2), where the safeties were back deep. And so it was no surprise that with the 25th overall pick in the draft, the Browns took Michigan hybrid thumper Jabrill Peppers. And a few months later, they traded declining linebacker Demario Davis for Jets former first-round safety Calvin Pryor. The more that new defensive coordinator Gregg Williams trusts his safeties, the more aggressive and creative his play-calling becomes.
9. What also contributes to a defensive coordinator’s aggression is how much he likes his cornerbacks. If guys can cover one-on-one, you gain freedom with your linebackers and safeties. A lot this year will come down to Joe Haden. He looked like his old superstar self in the first few weeks of last season, but then injuries set in and his play deteriorated. Haden is only 28; if he’s healthy, he can shadow No. 1 receivers. The corners around Haden could be hit or miss—in a good way. It took former Dolphins second-round pick Jamar Taylor three years plus the first half of last season to get all the mistakes out of his system. Once he did, he emerged as a solid slot corner. Solid enough, in fact, that the Browns signed him to a three-year, $15 million extension in December. Joining Taylor in nickel will either be ex-Titan Jason McCourty or second-year man Briean Boddy-Calhoun. On the surface, it probably seems like this is McCourty’s job to lose. He was a starter in Tennessee, from 2011 to ’16. But don’t sleep on Boddy-Calhoun. He became pretty adept against vertical routes along the boundary last season.
10. If Gregg Williams feels his corners can match up, expect the Browns to blitz aggressively and often. With dynamic athletes such as Peppers and ex-Patriot Jamie Collins in the middle of the field, plus a dearth of pure pass rushers outside of Garrett, it just makes too much sense. Williams’s instinct has always been to bring pressure, especially early in games.
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Buying gold and silver bullion online is safe, convenient, and can be done 24/7. Buying online allows you to browse our entire selection of products, compare prices and premiums, and order when you want. GoldSilver has been one of the internet’s most trusted bullion dealers since 2005 and has shipped to nearly every country on Earth.
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Our catalog of silver bullion represents the most investor-friendly selection of silver coins, silver bars, and silver rounds on the market. We offer classic silver coins like American Silver Eagles and Canadian Silver Maple Leafs. Plus, a wide selection of private mint rounds at low prices. We also produce an exclusive collection of silver rounds, the Modern Ancients. These customer favorites are an excellent way to diversify your portfolio and invest in 99.9% pure silver bullion at premiums well below most popular government-minted coins.
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Many investors choose to purchase physical gold and silver as protection against inflation (the loss of value of a currency, or why a candy bar is no longer a penny, a nickel, or a quarter). Others, for insurance against a future stock market crisis, or just to diversify their portfolio. All valid reasons to invest in gold and silver, but not the only ones.
Gold and silver are not just safe havens. They also have immense potential to increase in value as speculative assets. In today’s global financial reality of high personal, business and national debts, we believe especially so.
Backed by nothing but debt, all “fiat” currencies in history not still in circulation have eventually ended with no value. Often in rapid and spectacular declines that have sent precious metals prices spiraling up in response. Since 1971, all the world’s currencies are now fiat—not one is backed by precious metals any longer, ending millennia of tradition. Not only that, but we’ve also observed that throughout history the world forms a new monetary system every 30-40 years, meaning we’re overdue for a change. All of these factors combined lead us to sleep better owning gold and silver.
For a more detailed review, see Mike Maloney’s top 10 reasons to own gold and silver hit video.
Buying Gold & Silver for your IRA
Many U.S. investors choose to purchase precious metals in Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA), because of their tax-free or tax-deferred status. Using a simple “self-directed” IRA, you can invest in true physical gold and silver and still enjoy these tax benefits.
When shopping for your IRA, simply look for products labeled as “IRA Approved” on our product detail pages. These products are certified to meet the IRS’s simple but important criteria for precious metals investments allowed in an IRA.
Before you purchase, make sure you’ve notified your custodian to authorize GoldSilver.com as a trading partner. Once that’s done, you just place your order and specify your IRA as your source of funds at checkout. We’ll take care of the rest, including working with your custodian to transfer funds and title to the metals.
Don’t already have a metals-ready IRA? See our list of preferred custodians or learn more about investing in physical gold and silver using your IRA.
Precious Metals Mints and Refineries
Unlike many other online bullion dealers who market and sell thousands of items, GoldSilver carefully curates a catalog of bullion products that we believe represent the best opportunities for discerning investors.
We offer products from the following government (sovereign) mints:
Royal Canadian Mint
Perth Mint
United States Mint
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UK Royal Mint
New Zealand Mint
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As well as the following private mints:
Sunshine Mint
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Valcambi Suisse
PAMP Suisse
Johnson Matthey
Heraeus
Credit Suisse
Asahi
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There is no safer way to store your precious metals than professional vault storage. Home storage risks your safety as well as your investments. Find peace of mind with 24/7 security, at the world’s most secure, private, non-bank vaults. We’ve partnered with Brinks to offer secure storage vaults nearby and around the world, including:
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Buying Precious Metals with Cryptocurrency
If you’re buying precious metals online, you may want to consider using your cryptocurrency to execute the transaction. These increasingly popular services, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and LiteCoin, offer a convenient way to exchange digital payments, among many other advantages over traditional currencies and payment systems.
We offer our investors the option of using these assets to purchase physical gold and silver, via Bitcoin. If you have another coin, many exchanges and other services, such as Coinbase or ShapeShift can first allow you transfer into Bitcoin prior to making your purchase.
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Guaranteed Lowest Price
The price of gold and silver fluctuate constantly in the markets. This can make pricing somewhat challenging for many dealers. But we’ve created a strategy that updates the prices of our products in real time in accordance with the relevant spot price at the time of purchase. We also have a price match guarantee to match the advertised price of any of our products on the sites of our top competitors.
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The GoldSilver Difference
At GoldSilver, we pride ourselves on offering investors a world-class education, an investor-friendly product catalog, and a uniquely secure and flexible storage program.
Our educational videos have generated tens of millions of views on YouTube. Our founder, Mike Maloney, is the best-selling author of Guide to Investing in Gold & Silver, the most popular book ever on precious metals investing.
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But, don’t take our word for it. See what our investors are saying about us: read our testimonials.WASHINGTON ― 2016 was a watershed year for reproductive rights: The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a landmark victory to abortion rights supporters in June that warned states not to pass laws that impose a burden on women’s access to abortion without any medical justification.
Still, Republican state legislatures enacted more than 60 abortion restrictions this year and introduced more than 500, according to an analysis by the Center for Reproductive Rights. Ten anti-abortion laws were ruled unconstitutional and blocked by the courts, but lawmakers are outpacing the lawsuits and finding new ways to chip away at reproductive rights.
“Undoubtedly, this new barrage of attacks shows that the anti-abortion movement has abandoned its pretense of protecting women’s health and safety, instead making it crystal-clear that the end goal is attacking family planning providers and banning abortion care altogether,” the report states.
Louisiana’s state legislature launched the strongest attack on abortion rights this year, passing seven new laws that restrict access to the procedure. Among other things, the restrictions triple the state’s mandatory waiting period before an abortion from 24 to 72 hours; they ban the dilation and evacuation procedure, the safest and most common abortion method used in the second trimester; they ban abortions after 20 weeks in cases of genetic abnormalities; and they require women to have their fetal tissue buried or cremated after an abortion. The Center for Reproductive Rights challenged all seven of Louisiana’s new restrictions before they went into effect, and the state agreed not to enforce them while litigation proceeds.
Indiana, under the leadership of Vice President-elect Mike Pence (R), enacted an anti-abortion omnibus bill with a slew of new restrictions. The law requires women to receive state-mandated counseling and an ultrasound at least 18 hours before the procedure, forcing women to make two separate trips to the clinic. It also prohibits women from choosing abortion if the fetus is diagnosed with a genetic anomaly, and mandates that fetal tissue be cremated or buried. A federal district court blocked the law in June, ruling that the restrictions are unconstitutional and unrelated to any legitimate state interest.
Other state laws have gone into effect. Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) signed a bill into law that bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy ― two to four weeks earlier than the viability standard set by the Supreme Court. Oklahoma enacted an unprecedented law called the “Humanity of the Unborn Child Act,” which, among other things, would have required public restrooms in restaurants, hospitals, schools and hotels to post signs that urge pregnant women to carry to term. (Following protests, the Oklahoma senator leading the charge updated the law to only affect restrooms of abortion providers.) Eight states passed laws intended to defund Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest family planning provider, and eight states banned or restricted the donation of fetal tissue for medical research after an abortion.
The slew of new laws continues a six-year trend toward eliminating access to abortion. States have enacted more than 300 restrictions since 2011. The Supreme Court’s decision this year in Whole Women’s Health vs. Hellerstedt only struck down two of these laws ― a pair of restrictions in Texas that required abortions to take place in ambulatory surgical centers, or mini-hospitals, and required abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. But it set a legal standard on which courts can rely as they consider laws that restrict access to abortion without any benefit to women’s health.
Republicans may be emboldened to pass even more anti-abortion laws in 2017, since President-Elect Donald Trump and his administration are friendly to the cause. Reproductive rights advocates are counting on the courts to block these efforts.
“As we embark on 2017, we must hold our leaders accountable to the Constitutional protections guaranteed in Whole Woman’s Health,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “A woman’s ability to access basic reproductive health care services like contraception or a safe, legal abortion are essential to her health and well-being.”Sir Richard Branson went to the White House this week to attend a state dinner. It's reported that when he got a chance to speak to President Obama he asked him if he could have a spliff (joint).
He was only joking but it was a gentle way of reminding Obama that the issue of marijuana -- which the president has avoided -- is an important one.
Branson told this story at the offices of The Atlantic magazine, where he recently joined Drug Policy Alliance Executive Director Ethan Nadelmann and spoke about the need for greater momentum and political debate to end the failed drug war on Thursday at a forum organized by The Atlantic.
In the past year, Branson has stepped out as a prominent supporter of drug policy reform. His involvement with the Global Commission on Drug Policy electrified the international media and brought a new level of attention to the growing movement to end the 40-year-old war on drugs. The Global Commission is comprised of Branson, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Paul Volcker, the former heads of state of Brazil, Colombia, Greece, Mexico and Switzerland, and several other distinguished world leaders.
The event came at an especially timely moment, as the current presidents of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Colombia are now calling for a serious dialogue about decriminalization, legalization and alternatives to the U.S.-backed war on drugs. When Vice President Biden visited the region last week, he made clear that the Obama administration firmly opposes legalization -- but also acknowledged, as President Obama had in early 2011, that the topic was a legitimate subject for discussion. Nadelmann recently returned from the region, where he met with business and governmental leaders at the highest levels.
The event also came on the heels of the launch of the new Google+ debate program -- the first such event was called "It's time to end the war on drugs" and was viewed by millions of people on Tuesday. The event featured a statement by Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil and chair of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, and a panel featuring Richard Branson, Russell Brand, Elliot Spitzer, Julian Assange, and several other eyebrow-raising participants.
Last week evangelical leader Pat Robertson also made news when he reiterated his support for legalizing marijuana and publicly endorsed Washington and Colorado's ballot initiatives to legalize marijuana. Nadelmann and the Drug Policy Alliance are also deeply involved in a broad variety of efforts to legally regulate marijuana, including the ballot initiatives in Washington and Colorado.By Rick Green,
There are many online quizzes and ‘tests’ for Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. We have screener tests here at TotallyADD.com. (There are links at the end of this for you.)
But no quiz can be definitive. Diagnosing ADHD is a tricky process. That said, a good quiz will give you guidance and a sense of what ADHD actually is.
Like most people, I was afraid to find out if I have ADHD. Everything I KNEW about ADHD turned out to be nonsense, myths that are still being perpetuated.
For me, the diagnosis was a huge relief
I could finally see what was sabotaging my best efforts. It’s a shock to discover you have spent your life wrestling an invisible opponent. Worse, you had no idea you were even in a wrestling match.
Knowing what’s going on is huge. I am able to manage the downside, but not lose who I am. Quite the opposite, actually! (Hard to be who you truly are when you’re constantly agitated, restless, distracted, forgetting things…)
Like most adults, I was really, really hoping I did NOT have ADHD.
So, to address this universal hope, I have created a quiz.
I call it…
23 Signs You Do NOT Have ADHD
This quiz is as scientific as I could make it. Which is to say, I put on the lab coat I used to wear when I was a teacher at a Science Centre many years ago.
It’s also based on what I’ve learned from interviewing the more than 70 experts who appear in our videos and documentaries, and then I ran it by two well-known specialists who suggested a few changes. Then my wife fixed all the typos. So here we go!
You may NOT have ADHD if…
YOU ARE A MESS IN A CRISIS
Many folks with ADHD are brilliant when the adrenaline flows. That’s why so many of us succeed in the military, police, fire & rescue, emergency rooms, stock market, high tech, show biz, and sales. A few months back a Paramedic told me that his colleagues who have ADHD are brilliant at their job, “Those who aren’t end up at desk jobs, training, or in administration. They can’t handle it.” YOU FEEL LIKE YOU ARE LIVING UP TO YOUR POTENTIAL
So many adults with undiagnosed ADHD feel ‘I’m underachieving’ regardless of how much they have achieved. Despite co-writing, co-starring, and producing hundreds of episodes of TV and radio, I always felt like I was not living up to my potential. One reason we feel this way? Because it’s often true. It’s hard to achieve your best when you have the equivalent of 5 radio stations blaring in your head 24/7. YOU FINISH PROJECTS ON TIME
Wow, what’s that like?! SOMEONE TELLS YOU, “YOU SEEM LIKE YOU HAVE ADHD LATELY”
ADHD is driven by genes. It’s usually present in childhood. So, “I’ve been really scattered, confused, and overwhelmed… ever since my house exploded,” is probably a normal reaction to your house exploding. Or to a divorce. Or losing a job. Losing a loved one. Basically any life crisis. WHEN SOMEONE ASKS, “WHAT DID YOU SAY A MINUTE AGO?” YOU ARE ABLE TO TELL THEM Me: “Uh… I dunno… Cherry pie? Winston Churchill? Socks?” WITHOUT TAKING YOUR EYES OFF THIS SCREEN, YOU CAN TELL ME WHERE YOU LEFT YOUR CAR KEYS
Thus the title of our book, ADD Stole My Car Keys YOU’VE BEEN WITH THE SAME COMPANY MORE THAN 6 MONTHS
Okay, an exaggeration. But we can be restless, and thus have double or triple the risk of being fired. ( Then we may go off and start a new company. Adrenaline. Novelty! Our brain wakes up!)When we find the perfect career for our ADHD NO ONE IN YOUR FAMILY – PARENTS, GRANDPARENTS, OR SIBLINGS HAS ADHD
ADHD runs in families. It’s almost as heritable as height. Though a head injury and other risk factors can create these symptoms, for most of us, it’s genetic. Like many adults I was diagnosed after one of my kids was. Then I saw that my dad was like this, so was his father. When we made our first documentary, ADD & Loving It?! YOU HAVE YOUR TAXES DONE AND FILES AHEAD OF TIME
OMG! I cannot imagine. One ADHD strategy I finally embraced was to hire someone. Cause I am NEVER gonna develop an interest in doing my taxes. People with ADHD can focus when we’re interested. Paying someone else who loves paperwork, and is great with details has saved me a ton of time, frustration, and even money. THE TERM ‘HYPER-FOCUS’ DOESN’T RESONATE WITH YOU
Despite it’s name, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder is NOT just a ‘Deficit’ of Attention. It’s uneven, unmanaged, unpredictable attention. Sometimes we can hyper-focus. When I’m interested, I can be laser focused, intense, and relentless. YOU HAVE NO TROUBLE READING THIS
40% of kids with ADHD have a Learning Disorder such as Dyslexia, and the majority of kids with ADHD become adults with ADHD. In fact, 70% of adults with ADHD have a second diagnosis too (Depression and Anxiety being the most common ones) YOU LISTEN MORE THAN YOU TALK
Almost every time I’m interviewed on talk radio, the host will admit that one or two of their kids have been diagnosed, “And I think I have it too.” They’re probably right. Luckily they’ve found the perfect job. The gift of the gab is great when I’m doing a live presentation about ADHD, but not so great when I’m with friends and family. YOU SAW A LIST OF ADHD TRAITS AND WERE NOT ALARMED
More than a few specialists have told me that people most vehemently opposed to the idea that they might have this mindset sure do show a LOT of the symptoms. Their upset is understandable. They read a list of symptoms which describe their daily struggles and snort, “This is normal life.” Yes, it is normal… for them. YOU HAVE A GREAT SENSE OF TIME, AND YOU RARELY GET LOST
‘Poor Time Management’ is a common challenge. We’re scattered. Then hyper-focused. But sometimes on the wrong things. Or at the wrong time. I’ve actually developed a good sense of time. But it’s meant building habits with ADHD-Friendly strategies YOUR TO-DO LIST HAS FEWER THAN 493 ITEMS ON IT
We can be enthusiastic about new things. Like creating To-Do lists. Which then become epic documents of everything we can think of. I created a video about it. YOUR DESKTOP OR WORK SURFACE IS VISIBLE
‘Working memory’ can be a problem. As in, “My phone? Keys? Purse? Lunch?.. Got em!” It’s easier to remember stuff if we can see it. So we often have piles and heaps everywhere. (And we often know what is in each pile.) YOU WALK INTO A ROOM TO GRAB SOMETHING, PICK IT UP AND LEAVE
Not me. “What did I come here for?” At the mall, “What did my wife ask me to pick up?” But I can recall the lyrics to every Alice Coope r song. Working memory. Sometimes I forget what I came for, go back to where I started, get reminded, go to fetch it again and forget AGAIN… “Darn, what was it I came in here to get?!” (Until I found out I had ADHD, I kept thinking I had Dementia.) YOU TEND TO NOT OVERREACT TO SMALL THINGS
ADHD affects ‘Executive Functions’ – organizing, planning, prioritizing, following through, finishing what you start, etc.. But’s also monitoring your emotions; as in ‘reacting appropriately.’ Which is why we can end up struggling with Depression or Anxiety. Or have sudden outbursts of Anger YOU ENJOY SCARY MOVIES, BIG EVENTS, LOUD PARTIES
We can be oversensitive ADHD strategies. YOU’VE EVER SAID “NO MORE COFFEE FOR ME. IT’S AFTER 4:00PM!”
Caffeine is a stimulant. Half the planet uses it. Many ADHD medications Getting Good Sleep YOU CAN TELL WHO MADE YOUR SHIRT BY THE TAG ON IT
When we ordered T-Shirts overwhelmed by too much input. YOUR CLOSET IS TIDY AND NEAT
Your home is NOT jammed full of old scuba gear, musical instruments, exercise equipment, and the leftovers of a dozen hobbies?The clutter in our house is not ‘Hoarding.’ We can be curious and enthusiastic, novelty wakes up our brain. We say yes to everything. But we soon grow bored and move on to the next new passion. (Did I mention we suffer double or triple the rate of divorce?)A lot of standard organizing systems don’t work for us. The best ADHD-friendly organizing strategies YOU READ THROUGH THIS LIST IN ORDER, TAKING A MINUTE TO CONSIDER EACH POINT, NOT SKIMMING OR SKIPPING TO THE END
Again, I have to say, “Wow! Good for you!” I can never do that! I used to get mad at myself for reading books in chunks, skimming, reading things out of order. Now I realize that this is how I operate. Two keys to mastering ADHD1 With an NHL-best.741 points percentage and five-plus goals in nine consecutive home games, the Capitals are on target for another Presidents’ Trophy, the only hardware they really care about. 1
2 U.S. regional TV viewership has skyrocketed in Minnesota and dipped in Anaheim because Bruce Boudreau has the same effect on Nielsen as Trump’s “Apprentice.” (Randy Carlyle is, of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger in this analogy.) 2
3 Marc-Andre Fleury, one start since Jan. 14 and totally cool being an NHL backup. 6
4 Alain Vigneault — celebrating career win 600 Tuesday night — did not deserve the raise that makes him the NHL’s third-highest-paid head coach. 8
5 Joe Thornton’s beard registered a secondary assist on 24 per cent of Patrick Marleau’s 500 goals. 4
6 Ever since John Tortorella took over, the cannon fires actual cannon balls. 3
7 Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman will sit tight at the trade deadline and avoid temptation to rent a winger that could help win him four rings in eight years. 5
8 Milan Lucic is fast enough, at age 28, to keep up with Connor McDavid for the next six and |
stated that Foreign Contact 1 told him that the Russians “have dirt on her,” meaning Clinton, and that “they have thousands of emails.” b. PAPADOPOULOS, however, claimed to have received this information prior to joining the Campaign. He told Agents: “This isn’t like [Foreign Contact 1 was] messaging me while I’m in April with Trump.” c. PAPADOPOULOS stated that he did not tell anyone on the Campaign about the “dirt” on Clinton because he “didn’t even know [if] that was real or fake or he was just guessing because I don’t know, because the guy [Foreign Contact 1] seems like he’s … he’s a nothing.”
Laid out this way, the description of the false statements makes the import of them far more clear (import that the Special Counsel seems to want to obscure for now). Papadopoulos lied about the circumstances of his conversations with Mifsud — the FBI appears to have believed when they arrested him in July — as part of a story to explain why, after having heard about dirt in the form of thousands of emails from Hillary, he didn’t tell anyone else on the campaign about them. Laid out like this, it’s clear Papadopoulos was trying to hide both when he learned about the emails (just three days before the DNC did, as it turns out, not much earlier as he seems to have suggested in January), but also how important he took those emails to be (which in his false story, he tied to to a false story about how credible he found Mifsud to be).
FBI found those lies to be significant enough to arrest him over because they obscured whether he had told anyone on the campaign that the Russians had dirt in the form of Hillary emails.
To be sure, nothing in any of the documents released so far answer the questions that Papadopoulos surely spent two months explaining to the FBI: whether he told the campaign (almost certainly yes, or he wouldn’t have lied in the first place) and when (with the big import being on whether that information trickled up to Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner before they attended a meeting on June 9, 2016 in hopes of obtaining such dirt).
I’m sure that’s intentional. You gotta keep everyone else guessing about what Mueller knows.
But we can be pretty sure what the answers are.
Between the time they arrested Papadopoulos and the time he pled guilty, he became more forthcoming about his extensive efforts to broker a meeting between the campaign and the Russians, something Mifsud made clear was a high priority for the Russians. Mueller is perfectly happy — after securing the testimony of people like Clovis — to let everyone know that.
But Mueller is still hiding the pretty obvious answer to the question about whether Papadopoulos lied about Mifsud specifically to hide that he told people on the campaign that Russians had emails to deal in conjunction with such meetings.The case re-ignited a debate over the statutes of limitation for rape in France.
Currently, a woman cannot file for rape more than 20 years after reaching the age of 18. Ms Flamant said that the memories of the rape only returned to her when she was reaching 38 - too late to file for charges.
On Tuesday, Laurence Rossignol, French women's rights minister, announced that she had nominated Ms Flament to conduct a "mission" to look into whether the statutes of limitation should change.
In interviews with Nouvel Observateur, the weekly magazine, two alleged victims recounted how a "smiling" Mr Hamilton – then in his fifties – had approached them while they were 13 and 14 and on holiday with their parents in Cap d'Agde, where the photographer had bought a flat.
They said he could be seen every day accompanied "without fail by a very young slim blonde girl walking up and down the beach in search of models".
His posters were sold the world over and his postcards were on sale in all the seaside resort's shops.
He had by then sold dozens of photographic books with combined sales well into the millions, five feature films, countless magazine publications and museum and gallery exhibitions.
"To be noticed by him was to be the chosen one," they told the magazine.
"When he offered to do a trial shoot, my father was so proud, his eyes were twinkling," said one.
She said the first took place in a small seaside flat on a terrace in the presence of her father and Mr Hamilton's former wife Gertrude. However, for the second shoot they were alone.
"Can you keep a secret?" he allegedly whispered in her ear. "I was very uneasy and very intimated," she told Nouvel Observateur, recounting how he went on to rape her. All said they were too petrified and shocked to react. One alleged he said afterwards: "You're lucky I chose you because you're not that beautiful. The others adore what I do to them."
Ms Flament and the other women said they felt too "guilty" and "ashamed" to tell their parents.
"I thought my parents would be so disappointed if I stopped the photo shoots," said the first girl, who continued to be "under his spell".
Another girl told her parents she wanted to stop after two sessions.
The first girl told Nouvel Observateur that she had tried to forget the whole incident but that "it has had huge consequences on my sex life".
"I had suicidal tendencies," she said. In 1997, she filed a legal complaint against Mr Hamilton, who was quizzed on her allegations. He denied any wrongdoing and the inquiry was dropped.
She considered civil proceedings but was told she would have to forward 30,000 francs (£3,000) deposit. "I thought he was too protected that the fight was lost in advance, that it would ruin my life," she told the magazine.
A third woman subsequently contacted Nouvel Observateur claiming that Mr Hamilton raped her in 1967 when she was 14 years old. The women said they were were constantly reminded of the alleged abuse when seeing his photographs of nude, underage girls in books and magazines - including pictures of them.
"It's unbearable to see that he is still using us," the second girl told the magazine. "Ah those famous Hamiltonian looks of melancholy. Now you know why they were melancholy," she is quoted as saying.
Ms Flament and the first two girls worked out that they had crossed paths in Cap d'Agde. "The more numerous we are the stronger we'll be," Ms Flament told Nouvel Observateur.
Mr Hamilton's work depicting early-teenage girls, often nude, he has been the subject of some controversy including child pornography allegations and bans in some countries. "Hamilton's photographs have long been at the forefront of the 'is it art or pornography?' debate," wrote one British newspaper.How Does the U.S. Decide Which Governments to Recognize?
Ousted Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev announced Tuesday that he was willing to resign, one week after being forced to flee the capital amid a bloody uprising. The U.S. Embassy announced Monday that it had "no plans to shelter Mr. Bakiyev or help him leave Kyrgyzstan," and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already spoken with the country’s new interim leader to "support the efforts of the Kyrgyz administration." In contrast to the 2008 Honduras coup, when Obama administration officials demanded the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya and refused, for months, to recognize the country’s new government, the State Department has dispatched a delegation to Bishkek to establish ties with the new leaders. So in the event of coups or revolutions, how does the United States decide whom to talk to?
It waits until it become obvious. When the United States was founded, it established diplomatic relations with various foreign governments in an ad hoc fashion, and even today there are few codified rules concerning recognition. Generally speaking, it is the policy of the U.S. government to recognize states, not governments, and to deal (or choose not to deal) with whoever happens to be in charge. This hasn’t always been the case: Woodrow Wilson used nonrecognition, with some success, to delegitimize nondemocratic foreign leaders like Mexican dictator Victoriano Huerta, and for years, the United States recognized the anti-communist government in Taipei as the legitimate government of China. In recent decades, however, U.S. leaders have mostly tried to avoid getting involved in recognition battles in which they would be lobbied by competing factions seeking legitimacy.
Of course, this can become more complicated when there are multiple leaders or groups within a country claiming to be the legitimate government. The United States typically avoids taking the lead in recognition, waiting for the domestic politics to play out or for regional bodies like the Organization of American States to resolve the crisis before deciding whether to confer legitimacy on the new government. In the case of Honduras, for instance, the United States followed the lead of other Latin American countries in deeming Zelaya’s ouster illegitimate.
Military coups are another special case. U.S. federal regulations — generally referred to by the shorthand "section 508" — prohibit foreign assistance to "any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by decree or military coup." U.S. officials are often reluctant to formally describe the takeover of a foreign country as a "coup" because of both the consequences of cutting off aid and the fact that to resume aid, the State Department is required to certify that democratic governance has been restored.
The question of whether to recognize a government should not be confused with the question of whether to have diplomatic relations with a country. Although the United States chooses not to have formal diplomatic contact with the governments of Iran and Burma, for instance, it does not dispute that these are, in fact, the governments of those countries. The United States can also decide whether or not to recognize a particular geographic entity’s claim to statehood, as it does with the newly independent Balkan enclave Kosovo, but not with the breakaway Georgian republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Thanks to John B. Bellinger III, former legal advisor to the U.S. secretary of state from 2005 to 2009, and Kurt Volker, former U.S. ambassador to NATO.This is a curious piece at the Atlantic by Derek Thompson which studies why the “income inequality” problem is so much more challenging in densely packed, liberal enclaves like San Francisco and Manhattan. That’s progressive-speak for wondering what somebody who works a blue collar job is supposed to do when they live in a place where decent apartments cost more than a million dollars.
San Francisco’s problem is bigger than San Francisco. Across the country, rich, dense cities are struggling with affordable housing, to the considerable anguish of their middle class families. Among the 100 largest U.S. metros, 63 percent of homes are “within reach” for a middle-class family, according to Trulia. But among the 20 richest U.S. metros, just 47 percent of homes are affordable, including a national low of 14 percent in San Francisco. The firm defined “within reach” as a for-sale home with a total monthly payment (including mortgage and taxes) less than 31 percent of the metro’s median household income. If you line up the country’s 100 richest metros from 1 to 100, household affordability falls as household income rises, even after you consider that middle class families in richer cities have more income.
Thompson drags this conversation off into questions which may be valid, but don’t seem to address the underlying realities or offer any solutions. For example, he hypothesizes that all homeowners have an incentive to restrict new housing construction. (The theory being that the more housing you find for sale in a given area, the lower the prices go, hurting the homeowner’s bottom line.) But, he argues, liberal populations take that one step further and add layers of environmental protection requirements on to building codes. (Think of things like requiring that most of the building’s water be recycled or that a certain percent of the electricity it consumes has to be generated by solar panels.) That compounds the problem, pushing the cost further out of reach for the middle class.
Perhaps, but I can’t imagine that such factors are the real drivers of this issue. It’s a comparatively recent phenomenon and the cost of living in cities has been staggering compared to rural areas for as long as I can remember. And why wouldn’t it? When you amass that many people in one place, the space fills up quickly. Competition for space – both residential and commercial – expands quickly. New construction permits become more rare because space begins to run out and any subsequent construction will require either the demolition or significant reconstruction of an existing building.
People living in cities tend to earn higher wages, and this fact often tempts the undereducated to strike out for the bright lights to improve their lot in life. What’s less advertised is the fact that those somewhat higher wages generally don’t make up for the astronomically higher costs for everything one needs to simply exist. This is probably a big factor in why so many young people in major cities continue to live with their parents as adults – an idea unheard of in the more rural areas such as where I grew up. In too many places a “normal” income will not afford you even an apartment, except in the worst and most dangerous parts of town.
But is liberalism a factor in all this? The author makes a good point that I hadn’t previously considered. It seems clear that it is a compounding factor, but not the driving cause.It's billed as the greatest show on earth. But the closer you get to the London stadium that will be the centre of the Olympic Games in just over a fortnight's time, the more it's starting to look like a militarised occupation zone. East London has become lockdown London. The Olympics are the focus of Britain's largest security mobilisation since the second world war.
Soldiers are already on the streets. Around 13,500 are being deployed, more than currently in Afghanistan, along with tens of thousands of police and private security guards. Drones will patrol the skies over the Olympic park, barricaded behind an 11-mile electrified fence and guarded with sonic weapons and 55 teams of attack dogs.
The greatest local outrage has, not surprisingly, been triggered by the decision to site surface-to-air missile batteries, with orders to shoot down any unauthorised aircraft, in six residential areas around the park – including in the former factory buildings where the socialist feminist Annie Besant led the celebrated "matchgirls' strike" in 1888. On Tuesday, residents of another tower block failed at the high court to stop the army putting missiles on their roof on the grounds that they hadn't been consulted and could be vulnerable to terrorist attack.
Of course, if the state hosting the Olympics is in the habit of invading and occupying other people's countries, the likelihood of terrorist attacks will increase. And ever since the killing of Israeli athletes in Munich 40 years ago, Olympic security has been tight. But the scale and visibility of the London operations, including powers to crack down on protest and even remove critical posters from private homes, go far beyond the demands of any potential threat.
There are other motivations, naturally. In the words of one Whitehall official, the Olympics are a "tremendous opportunity to showcase what the private sector can do in the security space". But it's all a long way from the Olympic ideals of promoting peace, internationalism and participation through sport.
As one local resident puts it: "People round here feel that the Olympic stadium landed from another planet." Nor is it likely to attract tourists. Securitisation is sucking enthusiasm out of the Games: recent polling shows a striking lack of support – 49% of people in London and 53% in the rest of the country say they're not interested in the Olympics, and only 4% strongly agreed they would be inspired to play more sport.
No doubt that will change once the athletes take over. But given the snaffling of most of the best tickets by sponsors and Olympic officials, along with the daily affront of VIP lanes for fleets of chauffeur-driven cars, many Londoners in particular are bound to see the Games as having very little to do with them.
And they'd be right. The funding may come overwhelmingly from public funds, but it's private corporations that are calling the shots. Private sponsorship of the Olympics goes back decades, but the corporate takeover dates from the Los Angeles Games in 1984, during the heyday of Reaganomics. Commercialisation in turn triggered athlete professionalisation a couple of years later: a corporate model for the times, nurtured by an International Olympic Committee elite.
So it is that in London we have Coca-Cola, Cadbury's, Heineken and McDonald's sponsoring and branding a movement that is supposed to promote health in a country where one in three children are overweight or obese by the age of nine. Even the IOC's president, Jacques Rogge, is getting embarrassed, though not embarrassed enough to turn down sponsorship from Dow Chemical. That's the owner of Union Carbide whose plant in India leaked poison-gas in 1984 killing thousands and which refused to accept liability for supporting survivors or cleaning up the environment.
Compensation for the corporate and security takeover is meant to be a lasting legacy of trickle-down regeneration, jobs, housing, tourism and greater participation in sport. That's always the promise, from Atlanta to Athens. But the evidence shows that, with the qualified exception of Barcelona in 1992, it never happens. In some cases, the economic impact has actually been negative.
The early signs are that London is unlikely to buck the trend. As mayor, Ken Livingstone fought for the Games to win the investment in transport for east London that would almost certainly never have been secured without them. But at a public cost that has already risen from £2.5bn to over £13bn, the local jobs, training and affordable housing that kind of investment should buy are simply not being delivered.
Qatar has bought the Olympic village at a loss to the public purse, and only a minority of its homes will be made available as affordable housing, while Olympics-fuelled rent rises and evictions are already deepening the area's social segregation along the well-established pattern of London's Docklands.
It's clear that the IOC's model doesn't work, even on its own terms. But as enthusiast Mark Perryman says in his new book on the Olympics, they don't have to be like this. Five key reforms would transform the Games, he argues, cut their cost and make the Olympic ideal more of a reality, in place of the tightly controlled corporate "mega event" of the next few weeks.
Decentralise the Games by holding them in one or more countries, he proposes, rather than a single city; increase public participation (now restricted to a fleeting glimpse of the torch relay) by using existing venues that maximise available tickets; move sports outside stadiums to increase the number of free-to-watch events, on the Tour de France model; choose sports on the basis of their universal global accessibility; and disconnect corporate sponsors from the heart of the Games by reserving the use of its five-ring symbol for community and voluntary groups.
It's too late for London to have such a Games for all – though not for Rio de Janeiro in 2016, currently heading down the same road. And the gravy-train IOC elect will see no reason to abandon a model they do very nicely out of without serious global pressure for change.
But the Olympics, as with sport in general, holds up a mirror to society. What is being played out in London reflects a legacy of the war on terror and deregulation of unbridled corporate power – both elite blunders that have ended in failure. If those disasters can be overcome, why should it be impossible to end the corporate grip on the Olympics – and create a Games that lives up to its billing?
Twitter: @SeumasMilneDavid Kaplan: This HISD skinny-dip was no fun COMMENTARY
This skinny-dip was no fun
At Lovett Elementary in Meyerland, we remembered the Alamo and square danced. I lived a sheltered life: stayed with the same class all day and rarely looked beyond it.
My next stop, Johnston Junior High, was less stable, more threatening. Student life teemed with subcultures I had never seen. One macho group of boys wore "Hollywood" haircuts with wings on the sides and shiny candy-apple red shoes.
But my strangest memory of Johnston has nothing to do with any student's behavior. A school policy from those days has left me mystified.
Boys had to swim naked in gym class.
People are shocked when I tell them. They don't believe it.
It's true. The same HISD that gave me a conduct grade in sixth grade made me show up to class naked in seventh grade.
We boys rarely talked about it. I don't think the girls knew. They wore bathing suits. I never mentioned it to my parents.
The practice went on for decades, which means many thousands of Houston men went through this. Some may have blocked it out.
I feel like I'm part of a new recovery group: My name is David and I was made to swim naked in public school.
After all these years — I attended junior high between 1961 and 1964 — I wanted to get to the bottom of it: how HISD came up with the idea and when and why it stopped.
I contacted HISD spokesman Terry Abbott, but he knew of no documents or HISD administrators to interview. He acknowledged that he'd heard references to nude swimming "as something that happened a long time ago."
Let me take you to a time long ago. At Johnston in the early 1960s, swim class began when our gym teacher met us in the showers and ordered us to march in a single-file line naked to the indoor pool.
With other Johnston coaches, I'm told, there was swimming instruction, but my swim class was like free time.
Some boys jumped high off the diving board and did cannonballs. Others played water polo in the deep end, hurling volleyballs and shouting. The rest of us stood in the shallow end, waiting for the period to end.
There were two types of boys in our swim class: Those who didn't care that they were naked and unselfconsciously had fun.
And those like me who were thinking: Get me out of here.
A couple of hoods in the class, older than the rest of us, made things more menacing.
Swimming wasn't the only thing I hated about gym — it was all pretty nasty.
In the gym locker room, the wild boys were at home.
Once, hoods grabbed a kid and stuffed him in a towel hamper so deep that you couldn't see him.
Now and then the subject came up with male classmates: Why do they make us swim naked?
The common answer — "Threads from swimsuits clogged the pool drain" — didn't make sense, because girls wore bathing suits. Plus, you didn't hear about other pools around town having this problem.
To find out how long the practice had gone on, I contacted Houston natives. After talking to my younger cousins, brothers Lee, David and Jay, I determined that nude swimming was abolished at Johnston in the mid-'60s, although the years could have varied from coach to coach.
Men who went to Cullen and Burbank junior high schools told me they swam naked, too.
Ted, a 90-year-old man I know, swam naked at Johnston and San Jacinto High School. He entered Johnston in 1930. So, HISD boys swam naked around four decades at least, probably longer.
I tracked down a former Johnston coach, James Ashmore, who was a Disney version of a gym teacher. Young, upbeat and fit, he actually seemed to believe in the value of physical education.
Ashmore worked his way up to HISD athletic director before retiring.
Unlike my coaches who left us on our own on swim days, Ashmore gave swimming instruction.
"As far as I know, it was part of the HISD curriculum," he said of the nudity. "I don't remember parents complaining. It was just the procedure of the day, and no one had a problem with it."
After talking to a man from Chicago I got a surprise: He swam naked in junior high, too.
Just how widespread was this practice?
At the risk of ending my chances of becoming a district attorney, I went online and Googled the search words: "boys," "nude," "gym" and "class."
Lo and behold, there was an online forum on the topic:
It turned out that men from across the U.S. swam naked in school — in Blue States and Red States — and they were sharing memories.
To my astonishment, the "fibers clogging the drain" theory had made its way around the nation.
A woman joined their discussion. "Is this the best kept secret in the world?" she asked.
The forum turned into an angry debate. On one side were those who were OK with the policy. It's perfectly natural, like skinny-dipping, they wrote. Besides, men and boys swam naked at the YMCA.
On the other side were men who found it degrading. Swimming nude in school wasn't like swimming in the raw with your buddies at the lake. They didn't choose to do it. They were forced.
It's a moot argument. Nude swimming would not take place in a middle school today. "All hell would break loose," said Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers. "No parent would put up with it."
So I'm back to asking, "Why?"
I turned to the YMCA, since nude swimming there had been mentioned on the online forum.
I didn't find out much after calling the Y's national office, but the Encyclopedia of Washington State History Web site states that males swam naked at YMCAs across the U.S. beginning in the 1890s.
Hygiene was a reason cited. The Web site noted that it "may have evolved from problems created by the long wool suits... in fashion, which apparently shed so much they gummed up the pool filters."
So, it was the bathing suit fibers!
Maybe there is a connection between nudity at the YMCA and in junior high, and public school officials were copying the Y. After all, the YMCA's swimming program has always been highly regarded.
As I talked to more people, a new mystery emerged: Why does the idea of swimming naked in public school seem awful to guys my age and younger while older men tend to see it as no big deal?
For example, when I asked 90-year-old Ted what it was like to swim naked at Johnston, he said, "Never thought anything about it really," whereas many guys from my generation hated it.
I turned to Hank, a brilliant, big-picture guy I know. Hank, who is 81, noted that in past decades, men had compulsory military service. In the Navy during World War II, he recalled, "we went through swimming and lifesaving in a group, and all of that was naked... with everybody from every walk of life, and you had not one shred of privacy."
He recalled how in a small Texas town near his childhood home there were free public baths, one for males and one for females — the only source of hot water for many area residents.
As a country, we're not aware of how much privacy we've gained, he said. "The world then and now is so different it's unimaginable."
Hank noted that the strong economy America has enjoyed since World War II has made the country more affluent, and with wealth comes privacy and privileges.
His contemporaries had much to do with that prosperity. After saving the Free World in WWII, they went to college on the GI Bill and raised their families' standard of living.
From Hank's perspective, I could see a seismic shift in how our culture views men and how men see themselves.
After talking to a guy about my age, I could see how class differences also shape us. He had a naked-in-a-group experience I never knew.
In 1967 at age 19, my friend David climbed on a bus with other Texas City boys from blue-collar families. They were bound for an Army induction center in Houston.
It was at a time when I was entering university life, unlike David. Before the draft lottery came along, college protected me from the military service and Vietnam.
The bus ride from Texas City to Houston was full of bravado, David remembered, but once they walked in the U.S. Army building and officers told them to get naked, "It got quiet as church.
"These were Army officers, and you were naked," he recalled. "You could literally smell the anxiety."
Some of the boys went straight from the induction center into the Army that day, and then, Vietnam.
While other young men risked their lives as soldiers, I took anthropology classes and skinny-dipped at Lake Travis in Austin.
I sought to find out why we swam naked in junior high and why it stopped, and here is my answer: America changed.
By the time it got to my generation, the practice had become a strange relic. My swim class at Johnston was a window to another time.
[email protected] had a great mentor, Ed Cramer. He took a liking to me and said, “I’m going to make you the best engineer here.” He looked out for me. I remember there were a bunch of different projects we could take on, from the easiest to the hardest. And he said, “You’re going to take the hardest one.” And I said, “Really? O.K.” The project had been around for three years, and they hadn’t made any progress on it.
He said to me later, “Here’s the deal. If you take the easy project and you nail it, so what? It was easy. If you take the easy project and you fail, you’re a bum. If you take the hardest project and you fall flat on your face, you’re as good as the guy who did the easy project. But, if you take the hardest project and you nail it, you’re a superstar.” And we did. We nailed it.
How do you hire?
I always ask about the thing you’re most proud of and the thing you’re least proud of, and sometimes it could be a four-part question, because they’ll give something personal and professional for each of them. I’m listening for whether they talk about their accomplishments with “I, I, I,” or what their team was able to do.
And I want to know what you failed at, or you had a really tough time with. What did you learn from it? How did you grow from that experience?
What career and life advice do you give to new college grads?
First, you’ve got to always have a plan. If you don’t have a plan, then any road will take you there. You’ve got to be flexible to change your plan. Facts change, and circumstances change. But you’ve got to have a plan to help you think through trade-offs and choices.
Second, realize that wherever you work, people are always watching you. They’re making assumptions about you, informed or uninformed. You always leave an impression, whether it’s the one you want to leave or not. It’s particularly true for young people in this age of social media. You’ve got to be really careful about that. You want to be seen as the person who works hard, who is a good team player, who helps people get things done.
This is kind of a mundane thing, but your credit score does matter. It’s never too early for a young person to establish good credit and to understand the value of good credit, because so many things cost you more — a house, a car — if you don’t have good credit.
And always save something from every paycheck. If you’re not saving something, you’re just paying everybody else. You’re not paying yourself.Getty Images/Pool The American Health Care Act is shaping up to be the least popular legislation in decades, as the Senate prepares to release its own version of the healthcare legislation.
A poll published Wednesday from Morning Consult and Politico is another in a slew of recent polling showing that the Republican healthcare bill as passed by the House is deeply unpopular. The latest survey displayed 30% approval among respondents and 50% disapproval.
That represented a collapse from the 42% approval and 37% disapproval levels the bill had when Morning Consult/Politico ran a poll on April 30, before the bill passed.
While the bill is predictably unpopular with Democrats, independents and Republicans are even turning against it. In April, 67% of Republicans said they supported the AHCA, with just 16% opposing it. Now, just 56% say they favor it, while 30% say they're opposed. Disapproval among independents has also increased in that timeframe from 36% to 53%.
Morning Consult
The change may not be a surprise, given that President Donald Trump also swiped at the bill recently. He called it "mean" during a meeting with senators last week, even though he celebrated the AHCA's passage during a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden.
An analysis from The New York Times on recent AHCA polling showed that there is not a single state in which the bill has even a plurality of support.
Based on that analysis, the highest approval rating for the bill is in Oklahoma at 38%. But even there, 45% of people in the state are opposed to it. In 25 states, more than 50% of the population disapproves of the House GOP healthcare legislation, according to the Times.
A chart from Chris Warsaw, an assistant professor for political science at MIT, showed that the AHCA is the least popular major piece of legislation going back to 1990.
Based on an aggregate of polling from the Roper Center public opinion data, Warsaw said the AHCA is less popular than Obamacare, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (the bank bailout), the Dodd-Frank regulations, President George W. Bush's tax cuts, and even the failed healthcare plan from President Bill Clinton.As Texas re-examines what students should learn in order to earn a high school diploma, no part of the state’s curriculum has attracted more attention than a single advanced math course.
In response to calls from educators and employers for graduation standards that allow more opportunities for career-training courses, the state Legislature is considering more flexible diploma requirements that do not include algebra II as a core credit for all students.
The push comes as some policy experts are also challenging the role of the course in preparing students for college and career. But it has raised alarm from business leaders and national advocacy groups concerned about the proposed changes’ effect on academic achievement in the state, particularly for low-income and minority students.
State Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, R-Killeen, who is in his first term as chairman of the House's Public Education Committee, is chief among those questioning algebra II’s status as a predictor of students’ future achievement.
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A veterinarian and former school board member, Aycock recently led the House in a vote to undo the current default curriculum of four years each in science, social studies, English and math in favor of a plan that maintains the four years of English but drops to three years of science, math and social studies to allow for courses in specialized areas like the humanities, engineering or business. The legislation’s most controversial element is the elimination of algebra II as a core required credit, a policy in place for students who entered ninth grade in 1999 and later. Students who opt for a college preparatory curriculum would still take the course.
During the floor debate on the measure, which also significantly lowers the number of state-mandated standardized tests, Aycock said the new plan would allow students who do not pursue post-secondary education, which currently make up almost half of high school graduates in the state, to gain skills they need to enter the workforce. More relevant curriculum, he said, could also help keep more students engaged in their education so that more do decide to continue it after high school.
Questioning whether the algebra II's reputation as a indicator of students’ potential was “causational or observational,” he said the advanced math course should not be “the determining factor in a student's future.”
All but two of the state House's 150 members voted in favor of the measure.
In reconsidering algebra II, Texas is bucking a national trend toward more stringent high school math curriculum it helped launch a decade ago.
“You were out front in terms of adopting these requirements, and now you are certainly the place where there is the greatest debate and the most serious attempt to scale them back,” said Mike Cohen, the president of Achieve, an organization formed by governors, business leaders and corporate foundations that advocates for college-and-career-ready high school graduation requirements nationwide.
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The state adopted what were among the country’s first college- and career-ready graduation standards in 2006, leading a growing national march toward advanced high school math requirements. Since 2004, when Arkansas was the only other state with an algebra II requirement, according to Achieve’s data, 21 other states have adopted advanced algebra courses into their standards, and three others — New Jersey, Maryland and West Virginia — are considering plans to increase the rigor of high school math.
If Texas moves away from those requirements, Cohen said, it threatens the progress it has made in closing gaps between the educational attainment of white and black and Hispanic students, who along with economically disadvantaged students, have all improved the rates at which they go on to post-secondary education in the past decade.
Factors like quality teaching, solid foundation in earlier grade levels, and the opportunity for continued application of concepts all affect students’ preparation for college, Cohen said. But he said there was a lack of empirical data offering firm conclusions on their success.
“It's a difficult picture to disentangle and you don’t want to sit around and wait for a gold-standard research study to sort it out,” he said.
A seminal study bolstering the connection between algebra II and student achievement came from two researchers at the Educational Testing Service, Anthony Carnevale and Alice Desrochers, who followed students from 1988 to 2000 and showed that completing the course increased their chances of getting a top-tier job.
But Carnevale, now the director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, said that although he still believed algebra II was “pivotal,” policymakers had heard the study’s conclusions “much too loudly” as a call to increase standards.
“It is becoming a problem because we keep upping the ante and standards never get high enough and at some point nobody's going to graduate from high school, except the two kids that are going to Harvard,” he said.
The challenge for educators is not to force students to take more advanced math, said James Stone, the director of the University of Louisville’s National Research Center for Career and Technical Education, “it's getting them to learn the math they really need."
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Stone said his research looking at high school curriculum and scores on the ACT, a college admissions exam, suggests students do not need algebra II to meet the exam's college-ready standards. The mathematical concepts students needed to master to succeed on the ACT, he said, were covered |
work had a strong political element - one of his most famous pieces was The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
Scott-Heron's friend Doris Nolan said the musician had died at St Luke's Hospital on Friday afternoon.
"We're all sort of shattered," she told the Associated Press.
Scott-Heron was born in Chicago in 1949 - the son of former football player in Britain - and grew up in Tennessee before moving to New York.
He had a long-running song-writing partnership with pianist and flautist Brian Jackson, who he met at Lincoln University.
The pioneering style he developed while working with Jackson, mixing minimalist percussion with poetry, meant Scott-Heron was often described as the godfather of rap.
But the artist himself rejected this title.
"If there was any individual initiative that I was responsible for it might have been that there was music in certain poems of mine, with complete progression and repeating 'hooks', which made them more like songs than just recitations with percussion," Scott-Heron wrote in the introduction to his 1990 Now and Then collection of poems.
'News-giver'
Scott-Heron's music and poetry revealed his deep interest in justice and civil rights, and he railed against the consumer society of the 1970s and 80s as well as the development of nuclear technology.
Scott-Heron's hits The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, 1970 - critique of race in the mass media age
Johannesburg, 1975 - in support of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa
Home Is Where the Hatred Is, 1971 - drug addiction and poverty in the US
We Almost Lost Detroit, 1977 - concerns over the use of nuclear power
Message to the Messengers, 1993 - calling on rappers and musicians to use art for positive social change
He was among the first artists to use his music to attack the apartheid in South Africa, long before the issue became the focus of a popular global campaign.
In "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", first recorded in 1970, he issued a fierce critique of the role of race in the mass media and advertising age.
"The revolution will not be right back after a message about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people," he sang.
The song became an anthem for him and several generations of his fans.
Lemn Sissay, a friend of Scott-Heron's who produced a documentary on his work, told the BBC he was "a polymath" who "spoke crucially of the issues of his people".
"In the late 60 and early 70s, black poets were the news-givers, because their stories were not covered in truth in the mainstream media".
If the right of free speech is truly what it's supposed to be, then anything you say is alright Gil Scott-Heron
But in a 1998 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Scott-Heron warned against focusing on the political aspect of his work.
"If you only focus on the political aspects of our work, you change us. We've done 20 albums and not all of the songs on them are political," he said.
New acclaim
Scott-Heron also wrote honestly about his own struggles with drugs and alcohol, which saw him spending a year-and-a-half in jail for possession.
In 2009, he told the BBC his jail term had forced him to confront the reality of his situation.
"When you wake up every day and you're in the joint, not only do you have a problem but you have a problem with admitting you have a problem."
He said despite some "unhappy moments" in the past few years, he still felt the need to challenge rights abuses and "the things that you pay for with your taxes".
"If the right of free speech is truly what it's supposed to be, then anything you say is alright."
He was championed by artists from a range of musical and literary backgrounds - rapper Kanye West paid tribute to him on his 2010 album ''My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'' by sampling his voice extensively.
After a long break from recording, Scott-Heron found success again last year with a new album, I'm New Here.
The album was widely acclaimed and brought him to the attention of a new generation.
Among the artists immediately paying tributes on Twitter were Talib Kweli and Chuck D of the influential hip hop group, Public Enemy.Hundreds of students at the University of California, Irvine took to the streets in the middle of the night to protest Trump’s decisive victory in the 2016 Presidential election.
After Secretary Clinton conceded the election to Donald Trump, more than 300 students marched through campus chanting “Fuck Donald Trump,” among other things, and UC Irvine Riot Police were eventually called in to maintain order among the rowdy protesters.
“I can say with certainty that if Hillary Clinton won...students would not be out rioting in the streets.”
[RELATED: UT students block bridge during anti-Trump demonstration]
Video footage obtained by Campus Reform shows hundreds of students—many of them visibly shaken as a result of the Trump victory—angrily protesting against both Trump and the Republican Party during a demonstration that lasted for over two hours.
UC Irvine students also organized a “Group cry” at the library Wednesday evening in support of socialist Bernie Sanders. Students on the Facebook event page expressed “solidarity” with “marginalized communities” and blamed the GOP for the nation’s problems.
[RELATED: 'American' students burn Old Glory to protest Trump]
One student on the page even warned protesters against chanting “Dump Trump,” as it could scare people of color and LGBT folks, while others lamented that they are “no longer safe” in America as a result of the election.
Students are currently organizing several more campus protests against Trump, and have even created “UCI Hates Trump” shirts, but at least some of their classmates are abstaining from the festivities while silently thrilling to the electoral outcome that prompted them.
[RELATED: American flag desecrated with 'f*** you' to Trump]
“I think the protesters have a right to protest, but they need to respect the fact that Donald Trump is now the President of the United States,” UC Irvine student Koosha Azartash told Campus Reform. “I can say with certainty that if Hillary Clinton won, pro-Trump students would not be out rioting in the streets. We need to unify as a country and work to fix the problems we face as a nation.”
Follow the authors of this article on Twitter: @RepublicanPeter and @AutumnDawnPriceIf our polarized country can agree on one thing, it's that the greatest danger facing America over the next decade will not be Islamic extremism and instability in the Middle East, but rather Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. That's just "common knowledge," right?
So it only makes sense that the media have focused non-stop on this looming threat while paying scant attention to the fact that the presumptive Republican nominee for president apparently doesn't have a clue about what's going on in the Middle East.
And with the U.S. death toll hitting 4,000 (with 25 American soldiers killed over the last two weeks, the deadliest fortnight for our troops since September 2007), and with another 57 people killed in Iraq yesterday, John McCain's tenuous grasp on what is happening in the region becomes all the more worthy of attention.
For those who were too busy watching Rev. Jeremiah Wright damn America for the 10,000th time to hear about McCain, let's review: at a stop in Jordan last week, McCain made the ludicrous claim that Al Qaeda insurgents were being trained in Iran*. Asked again about it, he dug in deeper, claiming it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known."
A few moments later, McCain's chief lady in waiting, Joe Lieberman, leaned forward and whispered in his ear. McCain promptly offered a quick rewrite: "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda."
Now, it's been widely reported that, heading into the Iraq war, George Bush had no clue about the differences between Sunni and Shia. But that was 2003, and it was George Bush. This is five years later and we're talking about John McCain. But it turns out this acclaimed foreign policy expert doesn't know the difference between Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in Iraq, Sunni insurgents, Iran and Syria. Or, perhaps more charitably, he's doesn't care to know.
Yes, John McCain is a war hero, and yes, we're all grateful for his service during the Vietnam war. But as McCain's embarrassing foreign fact-finding fiascos make clear: having acted heroically in a foreign war does not magically translate into foreign policy expertise and judgment.
Yet every time McCain packs a suitcase, the press automatically anoints him as "presidential." They dutifully did it on this latest trip, even though it came just under a year after McCain's clownish stroll through a Baghdad market, which he declared proof that one could "walk freely" around Baghdad -- while being guarded by three Blackhawk helicopters, two Apache gunships, and 100 armed soldiers.
The fact that the presumptive Republican nominee doesn't grasp the general outlines in Iraq would seem to be a big story. But not to the mainstream media. As soon as they heard that the Straight Talk Express had run off the road, they sprang into action to get the wreckage out of view. Move along folks, nothing to see here.
Not content with excuses, one of McCain's foreign policy advisors, Max Boot, decided to tout the "misstatement": "What gaffe?" Boot asked, going on to claim, "there is copious evidence of Iran supplying and otherwise assisting Al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni terrorist groups (including Al Qaeda central). The 9/11 Commission itself noted a number of links between Iran and Al Qaeda." And McCain senior foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann claimed there is "ample documentation" for this.
This would be news to Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno. In July, Odierno, then the No. 2 commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said, "We don't see any evidence, significant evidence, that shows that [Iranian-controlled] groups that are funding and providing arms to Shia extremists are directly related to al Qaeda."
No matter, because as Brit Hume says, "we all agree that McCain has understanding and knowledge of world affairs."
Sorry, Brit, but we don't all agree. In fact, we don't all agree at all.
Yes, McCain loves to talk about war. He loves to talk about "service," and "character," and "sacrifice" -- which are all great things. But McCain's version of foreign policy is simply rah-rah melodrama. It's like watching a John Wayne movie.
This was no gaffe. A gaffe would be something that was out of the ordinary. This is the opposite of a gaffe. This is evidence. And it's evidence we should not ignore. We already know what it's like to have a president who just assumes that whichever way he wants things to be is "common knowledge." It turns out that it's not just George Bush's war that McCain wants to continue; it's George Bush's approach.
Does the country want another George Bush in the White House? Voters should at least be given all the facts so they can make that decision for themselves. The problem is that the media have got an image in their creaky narrative machines about John McCain and they're sticking to it. It's much easier to just present the tried-and-true version of McCain that that has prevailed since 2000 instead of presenting the new McCain as he's become: cavalier, dismissive, and lazy about the facts.
John McCain doesn't need surrogates. He's got the media. Which is why his "gaffe" wasn't bigger news. Doyle McManus, Washington bureau chief of the L.A. Times explained it this way on Face the Nation yesterday (as Harry Shearer noted on HuffPost): "Iraq wasn't what was on voters' minds." Unlike the sermons of Jeremiah Wright.
Sometimes, the reason why McCain's dangerously tenuous grasp on the facts doesn't strike the media as odd is because they believe the same thing. Here's a video of CNN's Kyra Phillips pushing the same Iran/al Qaeda nonsense in an interview with Gen. Petraeus. To his credit, the General sets her straight.
I know one thing that might have made the media play McCain's "misstatement" bigger: if it had been uttered by a Democrat. As NBC's Chuck Todd pointed out, if Clinton or Obama had said such a thing "this would have been played on a loop, over and over."
And it's hard to claim it's all just because the public is bored with Iraq and prefers a good story about incendiary pastors. If that's true, why was there no feeding frenzy about Rev. John Hagee, the bigoted minister who endorsed McCain, partly because McCain's foreign policy fits neatly into Hagee's apocalyptic (and I'm not speaking metaphorically) worldview? Again, the media rushed to let McCain off the hook, even though, as Hagee himself said in Sunday's New York Times Magazine, "McCain's campaign sought my endorsement."
You can count me as one who actually does have Iraq on my mind and who wants the next president to have a mind capable of understanding it -- and a thirst to do so. As his trip to Iraq makes clear, McCain is not a candidate who has crossed that threshold.Ted Cruz released the names of more key Michigan endorsements on the eve of the state's presidential primary election. ( Reuters photo )
Monday, on the eve of the Michigan Primary, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) unveiled an impressive state leadership team with endorsements from several conservative legislative leaders.
The new additions include:
U.S. Rep. Justin Amash
State Senator Patrick Colbeck
Former State Senator Bruce Patterson
State Representative Lana Theis
State Representative Joel Johnson
State Representative Gary Glenn
State Representative Ray Franz
State Representative Tom Hooker
Former State Representative Fulton Sheen
"I am thrilled to announce the addition of such outstanding conservative legislators to our Michigan leadership team," Cruz said. "These courageous conservatives are coalescing behind our campaign because the people of Michigan are tired of career politicians in Washington and want someone who has a record of fighting for our values and the Constitution."
The endorsements expand the Michigan Leadership team to over 100 members, including county chairs in all 83 counties and faith leaders from all across the state. Over 4,000 volunteers have signed up to help with the campaign.
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See an error in this article? Send us a correctionCivil libertarians saw their hopes for curtailing the National Security Agency's massive digital surveillance program dimmed in the wake of a report from a US government privacy board vindicating much of the international communications dragnet.
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) voted Wednesday to adopt a 200-page report on the NSA's so-called "702" powers, which include the widespread collection of foreign email, voice and text messages and Americans' international calls.
While PCLOB chairman David Medine said those efforts walked "right up to the line of constitutionality," the report largely vindicated the controversial surveillance, the scope of which was disclosed through reporting on documents provided by Edward Snowden, as both effective and legal.
Elisebeth Collins Cook, one of five board members and a Justice Department official in the Bush administration, hailed the digital surveillance as "legal, valuable and subject to intense oversight," and characterized the PCLOB's recommendations as "relatively slight changes at the margins of the program."
In ways both bold and subtle, the long-awaited report blessed the NSA's large-scale collection of digital data, even as it found elements of it problematic.
The PCLOB denied that the 702 siphoning is bulk collection, even though it annually provides the NSA with "hundreds of millions" of different sorts of communications -- blessing an NSA definition that considers only indiscriminate collection, untethered to surveillance targets, to be bulk.
"It's a big program, but it is a targeted program," Medine said after the sparsely-attended Wednesday hearing, which was held in the basement of a Marriott between Congress and the White House.
Civil libertarians castigated the PCLOB over what they consider a counterintuitive definition.
"They say if we're collecting everything from Egypt that's not bulk, everything from [area code] 202 that's not bulk, everything from gmail.com that's not bulk, and that's just bullshit," said Jennifer Granick of the Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society.
Dealing another blow to privacy advocates, the board endorsed the NSA, CIA and FBI's warrantless, so-called "backdoor" searches for information from Americans, just weeks after the House of Representatives voted to ban them. While Medine and another board member, former federal judge Patricia Wald, wanted to add greater legal protections, the board advocated restricting the FBI's warrantless searches and urged NSA and CIA analysts to certify that their queries are "reasonably likely to return foreign intelligence information."
"We have seen no evidence of a backdoor, so our recommendations are designed to make sure one is not built," Cook said.
Perhaps most controversially, the PCLOB gave a qualified endorsement to the NSA's practice of siphoning directly from the Internet information that merely references a surveillance target even if the correspondence is neither from nor sent to that target, a practice known as "about" collection.
The PCLOB acknowledged that "about" collection would mean the inevitable collection of purely domestic communications that the NSA is expressly not permitted to acquire, a circumstance intelligence officials called technologically unavoidable after they were compelled to disclose significant overcollection last summer. It urged the NSA to "continually" revisit technological feasibility and the scope of its targeting in order to minimize the intrusion into US privacy. It was far less concerned about non-US privacy considerations.
"About" collection played at most a background role in what now appears to be an epochal 2007-8 debate in Congress to bless what had previously been a surveillance program almost entirely operated by executive prerogative. The PCLOB nevertheless found that the resulting law, the 2008 Fisa Amendments Act, and its critical Section 702 provision, authorized such collection, something Medine said was a "permissible" interpretation by NSA.
All that amounted to a bitter pill for privacy advocates to swallow, particularly coming from a government body that in January had condemned the NSA's bulk surveillance of US phone data.
The PCLOB may have interrupted recent momentum in Congress towards preventing the US government from conducting backdoor searches.
Stanford's Granick held out hope that the PCLOB's assessment would inadvertently bolster the chances for a backdoor-search ban in Congress. The report's perceived moderation could aid legislators in curbing the searches on the argument that they would restore public confidence in US surveillance.
"But for the longer term goal of reining in warrantless, massive collection of communications and for getting countries to protect their communications of all people and not just their own citizens, this doesn't help us at all," Granick said.
The American Library Association similarly declared the PCLOB report a "serious disappointment" and said it should be "an absolute floor for 702 reform and a spur to immediate and broad legislative expansion."
Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU, who testified to the PCLOB in March, called the report "weak."
"It fails to fully grasp the significance of allowing the government to conduct surveillance on this massive scale, of allowing it to store millions of Americans' communications in government databases, and of allowing it to search those databases without any of the safeguards the Constitution has historically been held to require," Jaffer said in a Wednesday statement.
The Center for Constitutional Rights called the PCLOB's treatment of the constitutional implications at stake "disappointingly superficial."
"The board includes no mention whatsoever of free speech, due process, and right to counsel when analyzing the legality of the NSA’s collection of the content of communications between U.S. residents and persons of interest abroad," it said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the leader of the US intelligence community acknowledged his victory.
"In this important report, the PCLOB confirms that Section 702 has shown its value in preventing acts of terrorism at home and abroad, and pursuing other foreign intelligence goals," Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in a Wednesday statement, adding that he would take the board's privacy concerns "very seriously."
The PCLOB is not done reviewing the NSA's surveillance authorities and their implementation.
When the board next meets, on July 23, it will consider launching a new inquiry into one of the seminal texts behind US intelligence authorities, an executive order known as 12333. The NSA relies upon that obscure document for, among other things, its surreptitious collection of unencrypted information transiting from Google and Yahoo data centers. After the hearing adjourned Wednesday, Medine, Cook and Wald all indicated their appetite for reviewing 12333.Pentagon officials said at a news briefing Thursday that they continued to study whether women should be permitted in combat, despite the experiences of the last 10 years. They struggled at times to articulate the rationale for the current policy.
For example, a 1994 Defense Department ruling holds that women may be restricted from positions like the infantry, “which include physically demanding tasks that would exclude the vast majority of women.” Asked how the department knew that the majority of women would not meet the physical standards if they did not give them the opportunity to try, Vee Penrod, the deputy assistant under secretary of defense for military personnel policy, told reporters that the ruling was “based on experience with the leadership and experience in combat.”
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Men in infantry patrols sometimes carry as much as 100 pounds of gear and have to be strong enough to carry a fellow soldier or Marine off the battlefield.
The new rules are to take effect gradually and will be reviewed by members of Congress, who are not expected to object to them. But Congress has repeatedly balked at allowing women in combat and has in recent years asked the Pentagon sometimes sharp questions when it became obvious through news reports that women were serving in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the meantime, a number of advocates for women in the military reacted with dismay.
“It’s a really, really tiny step forward,” said Anu Bhagwati, a former Marine Corps captain and the executive director of the Service Women’s Action Network, an advocacy group for women in the military. “We were hoping for more.”
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Ms. Bhagwati added: “We’re not talking about opening up the infantry to every woman, but the women who do want to try these jobs, who are we to say that they can’t? A lot of women will leave service early when they know their career path is limited.”
Representative Loretta Sanchez, a California Democrat who has long urged that women be allowed in combat, said in a statement on Thursday that it was “ridiculous” to “open a few positions at the battalion level to basically create a pilot program.”
Nearly 15 percent of the nation’s 1.5 million active duty military personnel are women, and more than 255,000 women have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Nonetheless, even some male military officers who say that women might be strong enough for the infantry acknowledged some psychological barriers.
“I think the infantry in me will have a very hard time ever accepting that I’m going to rush against the enemy and there’s going to be a female right next to me,” Capt. Scott A. Cuomo, a company commander of 270 Marines in Afghanistan and a strong supporter of women in the military, said in an interview in 2010. “Can she do it? Some might. I don’t know if this sounds bad, but I kind of look at everything through my wife. Is that my wife’s job? No. My job is to make sure my wife is safe.”
The Pentagon’s new rules do open up for the first time six job specialties previously closed to women. Women may now be tank mechanics and fire detection specialists, among other jobs.Exclusive: Prime minister claims protected NHS cash may have to go as he cautions voters on possible consequences of voting to leave
David Cameron has warned that pledges to raise state pensions every year and ringfence spending for the NHS may have to be ditched in a brutal new phase of austerity if the country votes for Brexit.
What would Brexit mean for the UK? - Guardian Live event Read more
With Downing Street increasingly anxious about levels of support for leaving the EU, particularly among Labour voters, the prime minister says people need to focus on the “cold reality” of what Brexit would mean to their everyday lives and what they value most.
In an exclusive interview with the Observer, with only 12 days to go until the crucial referendum vote, Cameron insists he is not trying to scare people but is focusing on the reality of what life would be like outside the EU and the world’s largest trading market.
He says the so-called “triple lock” that guarantees annual increases in state pensions, ringfenced spending on the NHS, free TV licences and bus passes for pensioners, as well as defence spending would all be under threat.
David Cameron on the prospect of Brexit: ‘Leave want to take the country backwards’ Read more
The prime minister argues that a “black hole” in the public finances – predicted by the Institute for Fiscal Studies by 2020 in the event of Brexit – would threaten the very services that people cherish and rely on most.
Annual state pension increases are currently guaranteed by the triple lock, which ensures they rise in line with whichever is higher: earnings, inflation or 2.5%. But if Brexit happened this costly commitment would be in doubt.
“You would have to start cutting things that people really value, whether it is the money going to the NHS or whether it is support for our pension system, and that could mean reviewing the triple lock,” the prime minister says.
Cameron insists he fully intends to honour a commitment to increase NHS spending by £10bn by 2020 but adds: “If we leave, independent and respected experts like the IFS and National Institute for Economic and Social Research say that by 2020 we will face a black hole in our public finances of up to £40bn.
“In those circumstances, future funding for the NHS could be at risk. Our ability to ringfence and protect spending on health could be at risk, too. This is the cold reality of leaving the EU – that’s why doctors, nurses and the boss of the NHS all say we will be stronger, safer and better off in the EU.”
Senior sources in the Remain camp said Cameron’s remarks were part of a deliberate attempt to “nail the lie” being spread by the Leave campaign, headed by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, that quitting the EU would free up money that could be spent on public services.
Remain says the impact on economic activity and, as a result, tax receipts into the exchequer would lead to a massive shock and new public spending cuts.
Cameron made clear that in the coming week leading Labour figures, including leader Jeremy Corbyn, London mayor Sadiq Kahn, former premier Gordon Brown and former home secretary Alan Johnson would be given centre stage in the remain campaign, so that they could appeal directly to Labour followers. He called on them not to use the 23 June vote as a chance to punish him or the Tories but to support what is a huge coalition from the left and right that is backing continued EU membership.
The vote was “more important than a general election”, Cameron said. He added: “They are voting for a generation, for a lifetime. It is about their children, and grandchildren. What I would say to [Labour voters] is, look at the scale, look at the range behind Stronger In. You have got the trade unions, Greens, the Lib Dems, Labour, a Conservative government. It is a very, very big coalition.”
The latest Opinium/Observer poll shows the result still too close to call, with Remain on 44%, Leave on 42% and those who say they don’t know how they will vote on 13%.
Leading analysts, such as Ian Harnett, chief investment strategist at Absolute Strategy Research, and a former top strategist at UBS, are also warning that sterling’s value could drop by 30%, to a point close to parity with the US dollar, and that the stockmarket could plunge by 20% in the event of Brexit.
Writing in the Observer, shadow chancellor John McDonnell says any new trade deals that the UK makes with other countries if it leaves the EU would lead to the dismantling of workers’ rights. “If we don’t fight to keep and expand the working rights we have at an EU level, then a Tory Brexit government will only negotiate them away in trade deals that will resemble TTIP [the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership] on steroids,” he says.
In the Observer interview, Cameron describes claims by his justice secretary, Michael Gove, that the country has had enough of hearing from economists and other experts as “absurd”. He says that the leave lobby is in danger of “morphing into the Little England campaign” of Ukip leader Nigel Farage, which wants to take the country backwards to the days when it was the “sick man of Europe”.Phil Millar has been a good friend of mine for a few years now. He is an active trade unionist, keen gamer, and lover of awful 90’s Cali-punk. The admins of Corehammer recently discussed how unhappy we were at the state of aspects of the wargaming community. Corehammer itself is a response to this. A haven for those of us who don’t like to scream ‘WAAAGHH’ across a table, for the player who doesn’t want to attend a gaming club full of neckbeards making rape jokes. But just existing isn’t enough. It’s not enough to encounter those attitudes and just be glad that we’re not like them. I spoke about it with Phil and he agreed to knock up a few articles on wargaming with some basic level of a social conscience. And I’m really glad he did. – Kev
Tabletop wargaming is a social hobby, at its most basic level, you need to interact with at least one other human being. Any social activity depends on its members to be responsible for making sure its society includes those it wants to include. You get this self-policing in every subculture and fan group, but it feels to me (maybe because its my main hobby these days) that the general and overarching world of wargaming is lagging behind when it comes to making a safe and welcoming place for everyone interested in fucking about with plastic models.
“Geek culture” – if you can contain that idea in your mind without being violently ill – had a turning point in the last few years. The success of feminist movement in pissing off the entrenched sexists of video game industry polarised the community and made it really easy to see who those sexists were. They quickly become a hideous, violent parody of themselves, GamerGate was quickly and correctly equated with chubby, neckbearded unwashed freaks who hated women because of the constant rejection in their lives. They struck back at women enjoying a pastime they liked with threats of rape and death and so excluded themselves from any serious debate. Feminism may have won the moral high ground, but it’s not over by a long shot. There is still a fight to be had, but women are ever so gradually getting more and more recognition from that industry because people grouped together and opened a dialogue. They were open about what they didn’t like and how it was stopping them from doing something they enjoyed.
We need that dialogue to start in the tabletop community, Fantasy and Sci-Fi are in the middle of a resurgence in popularity and we’ve got more people than ever reading massive Fantasy novels, picking up board games, Dungeons and Dragons and all that good stuff. It’s a small leap to miniature wargaming, but there are some things we need to clear up to make sure people are comfortable making that leap. I’m going to go through a few trouble areas, so if you are guilty of doing these things or are aware of others doing them and do nothing about them, take action. It’s a common thread of moving towards a better society that we have to stand up together and tell people how their actions are wrong, so let’s do this with our hobby and change some attitudes.
The big one is sexism. Women are people, women might want to take part in our hobby and that’s okay. The reason there aren’t many women doing it isn’t because they’re not interested, or because they can’t, it’s because of the environment that we’ve either created or have allowed to form, excluding them. People don’t feel comfortable being a minority, and so things that you might think are a part of gaming can be problematic. Stuff like looking at images of scantily clad women, which is great, but they have a time and a place. That time is when you’re on your own, and the place is your stinking pit of a bedroom, not in a hobby space you share with other humans.
Basically, if it makes other people uncomfortable and stops them taking part in the hobby we all love, knock that shit off. If you see other people fetishizing women like that, with their artwork or models or general attitude, tell them it’s out of order.
Another big one is using the word “rape”, this one isn’t so bad in wargaming, as in video games, but it’s creeping in because those two hobbies cross over a lot. Everyone knows this one isn’t good, you know this, rape is a heinous, demeaning and horrible act and can shatter the lives of anyone affected. Why the fuck would you think it’s ever appropriate to demean those people that have come through that shit by throwing that word around? Just hearing it triggers memories and feelings in people. Its not difficult to find a different way to say that you beat your opponent wholeheartedly, maybe try: “Ha, I comprehensively defeated you in the game we partook in just now, I hope you’re suitably humbled”.
Homophobia is fucking rampant, mostly it’s indirect and ignorant, but that doesn’t mean it’s not damaging. Saying “Eldar are gay” isn’t funny, we’re not 5 year olds who are vaguely aware “gay” is a bad word. Calling your mate a fag isn’t funny either, you might not mean that he’s attracted to other men, but it still hurts some people’s feelings, so just don’t do it. Again, challenge that shit when you see it and try to be aware of how your actions affect others, like a grown up. Let’s make sure that we’re creating environments where people can come and not feel uncomfortable, and just get on with having a fun time with their hobby.
When these things are brought up, when people are told they shouldn’t use certain words or make certain jokes, they act wounded, or as though you’re the one with the problem BECAUSE you called them out. But the fact is, you’re sharing a space with people, you don’t have the right to say anything you want if it causes others to not enjoy their hobby.
People get offended, you’re not ‘hilarious’’ edgy’ ‘comedian’ Ricky Gervais, it’s not your job to say ridiculously offensive things and then complain that those offended are being overly sensitive. You’re a nerd in a shop, other people deserve to use the same hobby space as you without being offended. This is all fine, your rights aren’t being infringed, you’re not being censored. You’re just being told not to be an arsehole. This isn’t about ruining jokes and ending fun, you can still make jokes, just think of something better than “I raped that gay fag”. Political correctness isn’t a bad thing, unless you like beating up gay men and calling them queers.
Another thing I think is a big part of the problem is how much right wing views are accepted, within the hobby. How much racism, homophobia, sexism and military fetishism is allowed to slide. Its only natural that a game about soldiers and tanks will attract some freaks that are obsessed with the military, loving tanks and that is fine, it’s just that it so often comes coupled with a slight reverence for fascist ideology. You know the types, period accurate Third Reich armies for Bolt Action and Flames of War, Iron Crosses everywhere, hatred of Jews. Again, it should be obvious that this is wrong. Call these people out, let them know that glorifying fascist regimes is in itself fascist, and that you don’t want any part of that. Solidarity with hobbyists can make people see the error of their ways, or at least silence them, so more progressive people don’t have to listen to their bollocks.
Anyway, that’s enough of telling you what to kick off about, next time, I’ll be writing about how Warhammer 40,000 started as a parody of the Right Wing and how the ideas there are still relevant today and what your gaming group can do to be a force for good.CLOSE Kellogg confirmed that it will discontinue advertising on Breitbart.com. Kellogg is one of several companies announcing it will pull ads from the far-right news and commentary site. USA TODAY NETWORK
Battle Creek-based Kellogg Co. is recalling about 10,000 cases of Eggo Nutri-Grain Whole Wheat Waffles because the products might be contaminated with bacteria. (Photo11: Phil Coale, AP)
Kellogg, the food manufacturer that owns Pringles and Pop-Tarts, confirmed Tuesday that it will discontinue advertising on Breitbart.com, the far-right news and commentary site that was formerly run by a top aide of President-elect Donald Trump, Steve Bannon.
The site has come under fire on social media in recent days as consumers, angered at what they say is its racist, sexist and anti-Semitic content, publicly name its advertisers. Bannon worked as executive chairman of Breitbart News until he left to run Trump's campaign. He was scheduled to return to Breitbart, but earlier this month, Trump named Bannon his chief strategist, stirring more of the site's critics to call out its content and appeal to its advertisers.
"We regularly work with our media buying partners to ensure our ads do not appear on sites |
the new on-boarding flow you’ve created.
You’ve set up back-to-back usability tests with customers to ensure that the flow you’ve created is easy to use. Afterwards, you’ll be meeting with your product manager to give a report on your progress and get feedback on your initial designs.
You like that your day has a mix of in-person meetings as well as solo time where you can crank out work.
Roles that you’ll set yourself up for:
Senior UX /UI/Product designer
Product Manager
VP/Head of Design
Product-focused founder
Chief Product Officer
Chief Executive Officer
Further Reading:Editor’s note: Jo is our newest addition to the Gas 2.0 team. He’s written for us before as a guest writer, but this marks his transition to full fledged writer status. We’re pleased to have him on board. Welcome Jo!
Envied worldwide for producing feather-lite supercars just itching to be made into electric torque monsters (even Tesla has borrowed heavily from the Lotus parts bin), Lotus has indicated it wants to enter the world of exotic electric cars itself – perhaps even as soon as late 2009.
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Ever since the late Colin Chapman began building his own sportscars under the Lotus brand (way back in 1952!) the company has followed a simple philosophy for its go-fast racers: add lightness. “Adding lightness” meant that Chapman’s cars were incredibly efficient – using less fuel and fewer tires than the competition.
For this very reason, Lotus cars had to pit less often during races, giving them a clear advantage over the bigger Mercedes and Ferraris that had dominated the sport until Chapman came on the scene. To this day Lotus still produces extremely light cars that make use of advanced extruded-aluminum chassis to extract exotic, supercar performance from relatively mundane components.
In fact, the current Lotus Elise uses a Toyota engine similar to the one found in the Corolla. It should come as no surprise, then, that a lightweight Lotus chassis has become THE must-have Festivus gift for any company wanting to make a big splash in the EV world, with companies like Tesla, Proton, and Chrysler actively publicizing their raids of Lotus’ parts bins (note: Chrysler’s Dodge EV is a UK-only Lotus Europa model with an off-the-shelf electric motor and flash yellow paint).
Surprising absolutely no-one who’s followed Lotus’ fortunes over the past 50 years, Mike Kimberly (Lotus’ current CEO and bona fide low-weight/high-efficiency evangelist to the automotive stars) will be throwing Lotus’ hat into the EV ring later this year with a new, extended-range plug-in hybrid sportsscar to be unveiled at the Geneva motor show this March (according this quick blurb in the UK’s Financial Times).
I’m putting my smart money on this new hybrid being a version of Lotus’ upcoming Evora 2+2 passenger coupe (shown above), which will be sold as a 2010 model in the US beginning this April (hint: look for the battery pack to replace the car’s smallish rear seats).
Image credit: from exfordy’s photostream, under a creative commons license.HOUSTON - Investigators suspect foul play in the disappearance of two close friends from the Houston area, according to the Austin Police Department.
Sidney Taylor and Krislyn Gibson disappeared after traveling to Austin April 1 for the Urban Music Festival.
Harvey "Hootie" Cyphers, 50, was the last person to see them alive, detectives said.
Krislyn Gibson and Sidney Taylor
The car they took to Austin was later found on Milam Street in Houston with their cell phones and other belongings inside.
Investigators said Cyphers and Taylor had known each other for several years, and that cellphone records indicate three phones belonging to Taylor, Gibson and Cyphers, were inside Cypher's home on Friday, April 1.
When police searched Cyphers' Austin home, they found blood and weapons inside the home.
Cellphone records also indicated that all three phones then traveled to Houston.
Detectives say they detected a phone call from Cyphers' phone to Megabus from the 2400 block of Milam in Houston.
According to police, there is a Megabus station within walking distance of that location.
Cyphers is currently in federal custody on weapons charges, police said.
He has not been officially named a suspect, but detectives are asking anyone who may have seen Cyphers in the Houston area the weekend of April 1 to call Crime Stoppers.
2016 Click2Houston/KPRC2The gravitational pull of some political events is so big – the stakes so high or the subject matter so profound – that rules and alliances are broken or stretched out of shape. Though it may not seem as momentous as Brexit, the election of Jeremy Corbyn or Labour's 2015 defeat, Unite’s general secretary election is such an event for the internal politics of the Labour Party.
The result is a campaign that looks utterly peculiar. It began when Len McCluskey voluntarily resigned, exploiting a loophole in the union’s rules to allow him to stay on for a few additional years as general secretary. He was immediately supported by Momentum, which, without even consulting its members, urged them to join Unite. In the Momentum office there is seemingly a dial with only one setting: “join and vote for our guy”. His main challenger, Gerard Coyne, is likely to enjoy the support of Labour’s centrist factions in a way barely ever seen before in a union election.
Both sides of Labour’s divide recognise that the outcome of this election could determine the balance of power in the party. Under McCluskey, the union has aimed to make in-roads for anti-austerity and pro-union politics inside the parliamentary Labour party. In a poetic irony, it was the scandal around Unite’s attempts to win the selection battle in the Falkirk by-election in 2013 that prompted Ed Miliband to introduce One Member One Vote. It was this system of voting, of course, that allowed Corbyn to win.
Labour’s leftward shift, and Corbyn’s rise to the leadership, is overwhelmingly a product of the wider political weather, social movements, and the intellectual failings of the Labour right. But if it were to be attributable to any section of the labour movement’s machinery, it would be Unite. Karie Murphy, Unite’s candidate in Falkirk – who has been thoroughly cleared of any wrongdoing – now manages Jeremy Corbyn’s office.
Yet despite the pivotal role that McCluskey has played, his final election, the results of which will be announced in April, is potentially very tight. In 2010, the last election in which McCluskey faced a serious challenge from the right wing of the union, his two centrist opponents got a combined vote just 15,000 short of his winning tally. Add to that some of the votes which went to his other challenger at the time, plus a small backlash against Corbyn’s anti-Trident stance, and McCluskey could be in trouble.
That is a secondary consideration for Ian Allinson, a well-respected shop floor activist who led major strike action in Fujitsu. He is running on the perhaps dangerous assumption that there is no great risk of letting in the centrist Gerard Coyne by splitting the left vote. His candidacy also exposes the other great tension brought out by the Unite leadership election – that while Corbyn's supporters may be rooting for him, McCluskey’s politics are of a slightly different hue.
McCluskey is easily to the left of many union leaders – he has been proactive in building broad political movements like the anti-austerity protests of 2011, and has at times shown radicalism in Unite’s industrial strategy. But on the key thorny issues facing the Labour leadership, Corbyn supporters might find they have more in common with Allinson. Many Unite activists may share Allinson’s frustration with the union’s lack of mobilisation over the NHS, or its stance on immigration. When launching his campaign last year, McCluskey’s first policy was support for border controls in the wake of Brexit. Unite has played a role in influencing the PLP against free movement.
Unite’s support for Heathrow expansion and the Hinkley Point nuclear plant, as well as its triangulation on Trident, not only put awkward distance between its policies and Corbyn’s. They also point to an ideological division that in the past would have separated many Corbynites from McCluskey. On some level, Unite’s current leadership is committed to a "partnership" version of trade unionism, in which workers’ interests are defended by promoting the interests of industry, whatever the environmental cost or bigger picture.
Corbyn and his supporters know that they need trade unionists like McCluskey, and we are right to back his re-election with determination. It is inescapable, however, that the Unite general secretary election will shine a light on the gaps and disagreements that exist within the Labour left’s broad alliance. As the project rolls on, Corbyn will have to fight to maintain the breadth and unity of this coalition, but also for the radical policies that give life to it. The awkward question we must all answer is – on Trident, freedom of movement, and other key issues – what we do after winning yet another leadership election. On policies like these it is the labour movement’s grassroots, rather than union leaderships, that may offer the greatest hope.But Americans have doubts that Social Security will be there for them when they retire. Only 43 percent express confidence in the future of Social Security, according to AARP.
They have good reason to worry. The trust fund for Social Security retirement benefits is expected to be depleted by 2034. After that, the program is projected to pay out about 75 percent of benefits. (AARP found that 73 percent of people do not know that Social Security will be able to pay benefits at a reduced level when the program's trust fund is depleted.)
Baby boomers, an estimated 10,000 of whom retire every day, are the cause of Social Security's rapidly shrinking trust fund. By 2033, the number of Americans eligible for retirement benefits will increase to more than 77 million from 46.6 million today. Meanwhile the ratio of workers paying into Social Security to the program's beneficiaries is projected to fall from 2.8 now to 2.1 in 2033.
"We have a retirement income crisis that is not here today, but Generation X and millennials will face it," said Ben Veghte, vice president of policy at the nonpartisan National Academy of Social Insurance.
Last year, Social Security benefits amounted to about 5 percent of U.S. GDP. By 2035, when the youngest baby boomers will have turned age 70, Social Security benefits under current law are projected to be 6.2 percent of GDP, according to projections by the National Academy of Social insurance.
That's an increase of 1.2 percentage points over the current cost of Social Security, which is considerably less than the increase in spending for public education that occurred when baby boomers entered the school system, Veghte noted. "Social Security's shortfall is not that dramatic," he said.Waltonchain: An Interconnection Between the Physical and Virtual Ecosystems
A New Era of Internet
Welcome to an era where social change is dictated by advances in technology – the distant world of yesterday has transformed into an interactive platform of today, exceeding the limits of human collaboration and constraints of time and space.
In the recent years, Internet has found its new match – blockchain – and together they are taking the world on a new path of discovery, transparency, efficiency and trust. Not only has this collaboration promoted economic and social development of various industries, it has also created a potential for connecting anything and everything to each other through technology – a third stage of interconnectivity (following the computer and the Internet) referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT). However, due to overarching problems with the current state of IoT, such as private third-party facilitation between value and information exchange (also known as centralization), the effectiveness and trust of IoT is under question.
How could we, as the now-global nation once separated by differences and conflict, interconnect freely, transparently and effectively without centralized restrictions? Well… a project called Waltonchain might just have an answer to that.
What Is Waltonchain and Why Should We Care?
Waltonchain is a genuine, trustworthy and traceable business ecosystem with complete data sharing and absolute information transparency. It is created by the combination of RFID (radio-frequency identification) and blockchain technologies, which aim to integrate blockchain and the Internet of Things on a scale not seen before. Waltonchain refers to this as the Value Internet of Things (VIoT).
The term Value Internet of Things (VIoT) is important, because with it Waltonchain is trying to solve the critical problem of centralization by introducing a decentralized transaction record and storage technology based on cryptographic principles. They believe that with a distributed point-to-point network (blockchain) where every transaction is recorded in the public ledger, we can achieve value and information exchange safely without requiring trust to be formed in advance. This is even more important in the age of Internet, where anonymity is important and exchange is borderless, meaning that no sensible information needs to be revealed in order to safely transact.
Waltonchain also aims to create an ecosystem which enables all objects and information to be interconnected, even ones with independent functions. To bring an example, here’s a reference to a statement from their Whitepaper:
Through radio frequency identification (RFID), infrared sensors, global positioning systems, laser scanners and other information sensing equipment, it connects any item to the Internet to carry out information exchange and communication according to the agreement, to achieve intelligent identification, positioning, tracking, monitoring and management. As an extension of the Internet, the Internet of Things further promotes the connections between machine and machine, human and machine and achieves the full life cycle circulation management of data in the information world
Not Just Clothing? Are You Saying It Can Do More?
Yes, that is exactly what I am saying, much… much… more. The common misconception about Waltonchain derives from Boxmining videos (please refer to video 1 and video 2), leading to the limited understanding that Waltonchain is based solely on solving the problems of the clothing industry. However, anyone familiar with their Whitepaper knows that the clothing industry solution is just one use case and the initial project phase. The applications and scope of their ambition is much bigger, and you will start to see some ground-breaking ideas in the coming years. Here are some examples of, but not limited to, what Waltonchain’s ecosystem can be useful for.
Logistics and Supply Chain Management for Clothing Industry
Waltonchain has been closely observed by investors as the supply chain management solution for clothing industry. While this is only one of the elements of what Walton is about, it is important nonetheless. The development of a clothing system integration scheme based on Walton’s special RFID+blockchain technology, which is now finished, can play an integral part in the industry by solving problems with warehousing, logistics, stores and aftermarket merchandise procurement, distribution, stock-in, stock-out, stores, shelves inventory, sales, customer purchase, customer evaluation, after-sales service, marketing, analytics data, automated business management, payment processing, product evaluation etc.
The list of use cases in that one industry alone can go on and on. However, the most important thing to understand is that it possesses the capacity of changing the way retail has worked so far. In recent years, ecommerce and online sales channels have been expanding, hurting the growth rate of physical stores and resulting in domestic markets losing momentum and sales. Not only does Waltonchain provide critical benefits for companies looking to automate and make business operations more efficient, it will elevate customer experience in physical stores to a whole new level – something that has been failing to compete with digital sales so far – which is a critical factor in bringing excitement back to physical shopping. Additionally, aside from potentially revitalizing physical stores, Waltonchain also offers solutions for digital stores looking to improve storage and logistics.
Smart Contracts in Compliance with RFID + Blockchain
While the attempt to use and effectivize smart contracts outside of blockchain is nothing new, it has been evident that earlier relevant technologies have failed to create an effective and potentially automated connection between a virtual network and the real world. Even a power platform such as Ethereum can’t do it alone, and requires complementary technology to create ideal situations for smart contract executions. Smart contracts, as we all know, can be automatically executed when agreed conditions are reached, but how can we automate the verification of a completed condition? How can the smart contract know if a condition was met, especially when the condition is complex, without human entry? This is where the real limitation exists. However, by applying the blockchain to IoT and smart systems, Waltonchain can connect the item and identity tags in the real world via RFID technology, which can successfully achieve the interconnection of all things and create an era of true smart economy.
It might be a little too much to grasp, so here is an example of how Waltonchain could automate the whole world with its technology and smart contract integration. Say I own a computer store and need 100 laptops to be delivered by DHL by Monday. We would set up a smart contract with DHL and create conditions: if I receive 100 laptops on Monday, the amount I owe for those will be automatically sent to DHL. Now, normally I would probably need to go and provide entries for smart contract execution, but since all of the laptops have RFID tags on them, once the 100 laptops go through the scanner that is guarding my stores’ loading area, they are verified (since the RFID can identify the exact components and specifications) and an automatic transfer is sent to DHL. It is that simple – I don’t need to go press any buttons, and I can just continue whatever I was doing without having to worry.
Do keep in mind, though, that this is just one example, and there are countless use cases for such technology – the world can operate seamlessly by bridging smart contracts with RFID and blockchain.
Automated Data Collection and Analytics In the Real World
I will not go into complete detail with this, but it is an extremely important aspect of Waltonchain, which is often overlooked. Everyone keeps talking about the logistics and supply side of things, but a game changer in itself is also the automated analytics for every company utilizing Waltonchain technology and their chips.
Let me put it this way: companies pay millions a year for data, and it is the single most valuable asset in the world of business development, marketing and sales. For each company to be able to passively (I can’t emphasize this enough) collect data in PHYSICAL locations, by tracking everything related to their business, is borderline insane (in a good way). For the most part, people have no idea how much this data is worth, and therefore not much attention is focused on this “minor” bonus of Waltonchain. The fact of the matter is that Waltonchain has taken RFID and blockchain integration to a whole new level that is not only going to revolutionize supply chain, but also the way data is collected and used in EVERY industry. This technology is way bigger than people tend to grasp, because physical automated data collection (let that sink in for a minute) is something every business will want to get their hands on, especially when it is cost efficient.
Smart Cities
Waltonchain recently won an award for the Smart Waste Management system, which refers to using embedded sensors and live data (collected, for example, by a combination of truck-mounted and handheld RFID scanners) to create vast improvements over a non-connected waste system, providing us a way to monitor waste levels, enabling efficiency improvements in fuel savings, smart route optimizations, decreases costs etc. Furthermore, writing this data to the blockchain makes it immutable, trusted and open to all.
Not only will it create a massive material difference in our harmful impact on the planet, it also provides access to information for anyone without relying on third-party interpretation of data. This means, for example, that not-for-profit organizations can use that data to generate solutions much faster than going out and collecting data themselves, which is costly and time consuming.
But wait… what if this was just the start of it? What if we had access to all information about the environment in which we live? Think about how Google mapped the locational information of the entire world, creating instant access to your surroundings or desired destinations. What if we could do that with other data as well? What if you could instantly get access to quantitative data about anything?
This has the potential of creating a much more efficient economy, as well as boost research and development, since data is live and accessible without constraints. No more are big corporations at an advantage due to big budgets spent on research – the information will be readily available to small companies, students, research and development teams of nonprofits, teachers, governments… the list goes on.
Even that is not the end of it – the utilization of child chains also means that every company can exist on the blockchain and interact with others on the ecosystem. With the integration of smart contracts, as well as data sharing and efficient co-operation, the country can be a big, living, digital organism in a sense – a truly smart economy.
Concerns To Consider
Privacy
Since all great technological developments historically have been exploited to some extent, there are some privacy concerns when it comes to RFID technology. Once we achieve the ideal world where everything is interconnected, it also means that everything can be tracked and verified. While this is great when it’s used for good, it also poses huge threats and security holes for malicious things under centralized control, meaning that the technology should be treated with caution.
Costs and Development Needs
While the technology and concept are revolutionary, there is also a prevalent issue with RFID – the cost. To achieve large-scale application, the price of manufacturing RFID tags needs to decrease by a significant margin. While applying RFID tags to expensive products and valuable operations is viable, it is currently too costly to integrate them with cheaper products (such as packaging for food products, etc.).
Furthermore, there are also limitations in regards to development. In short, the passive UHF market is still in its early stage, meaning that real breakthroughs might take time. We might not even fully grasp the extent of what improved RFID tags can do, and only real-world application will bring new ideas and innovation. While there are already significant benefits and use cases, the full potential is yet to be realized and put in practise, which requires patience and time (as with all great technology).
Cost and development needs are something new technology always faces at its early stages. However, there is no doubt in my mind that in time those issues will become void.
Inflation and Mining Monopoly
Waltonchain states that improvements to the Dash X11 code were made, but we still have no confirmation whether there is in-built ASIC resistance. An official masternode AMA addressed the question of necessary mining equipment (CPU, GPU or ASIC), but Waltonchain only responded that GPU mining will be necessary to earn maximum masternode rewards until further notice. Therefore, there are some concerns involved with potential mining monopoly and inflation if ASICs do become the primary mining equipment in the future. As already stated, though, this has not yet been confirmed and the concern would become void when the theory is debunked.
Concluding Thoughts
I can obviously do no justice to Waltonchain in such a short article, because the scope of the applications their solutions have is unparalleled in the world of blockchain. If the project is able to overcome the concerns outlined in this article and successfully implement even some of their ideas, it can become one of the giants in the world of future technology, paving the path and changing the way businesses operate.
What I find truly staggering is that Waltonchain does not just provide a product, but a whole ecosystem consisting of RFID chips, Readers, Mother- and Child-chains. To even consider that we can achieve automated data collection and analytics, automated smart contracts and full interconnection between everything, while maintaining full transparency and decentralization, is still a little mind-blowing.A Closer Look Examining the News
In 1733, New York printer John Peter Zenger began publishing the eighth newspaper in the American colonies, and the first willing to venture criticism of the government. The New-York Weekly Journal was the second paper in a city of 10,000 or so people, 1700 of them slaves.
As we are reminded in Richard Kluger’s comprehensive new book, “Indelible Ink,” the first full-length account of Zenger’s travails, by 1735, Zenger (and the likely editor of his paper, James Alexander) had so offended Britain’s royal governor of New York and New Jersey, William Cosby, that Cosby brought suit against Zenger for seditious libel—the crime of criticizing the government. Under the law then in effect in Britain and its colonies, truth was not a defense to this charge. The leading legal treatise of the day explained that “since the greater appearance there is of truth in any malicious invective, so much the more provoking it is.” And: “The malicious prosecution of even truth itself cannot… be suffered to interrupt the tranquility of a well-ordered society.” This was deemed especially the case with true attacks on those in power, as they would have “a direct tendency to breed in the people a dislike of their governors and incline them to faction and sedition.”
New Yorkers in 1735, though, weren’t buying it. While the jury in the Zenger trial was instructed that the truth of Zenger’s attacks on Cosby was no defense, Zenger’s lawyer argued that it should be, and asked the jury, if they found the stories true, to acquit the printer. This the jury did, striking a dramatic blow against the law of seditious libel, and launching a proud American tradition, ratified in 1791 in the First Amendment, and laid out over the centuries in a range of Supreme Court decisions.
For at least the last 30 years, since Chief Justice William Rehnquist acquiesced in the constitutionalization of the law of libel, which has safeguarded the American press for more than a half century, we appeared to have a consensus in this country around our modern system of protections for the value of a free and untrammeled press to the process of self-government.
Until now. This year, for the first time since at least Richard Nixon, the leader of one of our major political parties has pledged to limit press freedom by restricting criticism of his prospective rule.
But Nixon’s threats were private, revealed only by his own taping system, while Donald Trump’s are very public, loud and clear. And to be fair to Nixon, he never made good on his private threats, and in the one Supreme Court case he argued personally as a lawyer, he seemed to accept modern constitutional protections for libel.
In fact, Trump is more hostile to the legal and constitutional rights of the press than any major presidential candidate of the last two centuries. What he proposes is reminiscent of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 championed (to his immortal disgrace) by President John Adams in the last serious attempt to relitigate at the federal level what had seemed resolved in the Zenger case. It is cold comfort—although it may be some warning to Republicans inclined to go along—that Adams was not only defeated for re-election after passage of those laws, but lost the White House to Thomas Jefferson and his close associates James Madison and James Monroe for a quarter of a century, while Adams’ Federalist Party never really recovered.
In case you think a comparison of Trump’s goals with Zenger’s opponents or the sponsors of the Alien and Sedition Acts is unfair, a quick review of the record may be in order.
Trump has said that most reporters are “absolute dishonest, absolute scum.” He’s said that “I think the media is among the most dishonest groups of people I’ve ever met. They’re terrible.”
In February he pledged that “one of the things I’m gonna do if I win, and I hope that I do, and we’re certainly leading, is I’m gonna open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. We’re gonna open up those libel laws. So that when the New York Times writes a hit piece that is a total disgrace, or when the Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money rather than have no chance of winning because they’re totally protected. You see, with me, they’re not protected, because I’m not like other people, but I’m not taking money, I’m not taking their money. We’re gonna open up those libel laws, folks, and we’re gonna have people sue you like you never got sued before.”
Nor is a threat by Trump to sue for libel an idle one. In 2006 he brought such a suit against a book that asserted he had wildly overstated his wealth. He lost the case on the merits as well as for failure to prove fault. But the Washington Post reported that “Trump said in an interview that he knew he couldn’t win the suit but brought it anyway to make a point. ‘I spent a couple of bucks on legal fees, and they spent a whole lot more. I did it to make [author Tim O’Brien’s] life miserable, which I’m happy about.’” Trump has also sued the Chicago Tribune and comedian Bill Maher, and threatened to sue the New York Times (more than once), ABC, the Daily Beast, Rolling Stone, the Huffington Post, reporter David Cay Johnston, TV host Lawrence O’Donnell and comedian Rosie O’Donnell
In the February rant, Trump also seemed to threaten to force Jeff Bezos to divest himself of the Washington Post, asserting that it had been purchased to obtain political influence, and declaring that such purchases should be forbidden.
Asked in June if his stance on the press would continue as president, he said, “Yeah, it is going to be like this… You think I’m gonna change? I’m not going to change.” He repeated his view that “I am going to continue to attack the press. I find the press to be extremely dishonest. I find the political press to be unbelievably dishonest.”
In August he tweeted that “It is not ‘freedom of the press’ when newspapers and others are allowed to say and write whatever they want even if it is completely false!”
Melania Trump’s libel lawyer (she is suing the Daily Mail in Maryland for a story on her modeling days) is even more specific, saying that New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the 1964 Supreme Court decision that established modern press protections, should be overruled.
Anyone paying attention knows there is a great deal at stake in this election. Freedom of the press in this country may be among those stakes.A noticeable effect after the calf reduction surgery
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Written with sports journalist Niall Kelly, Deputy Editor of The42, it will focus on Philly’s relationship with his brother John, who died in 2012 at the age of 31 after a long struggle with heroin addiction, when he was at the point of being almost drug-free.
The brothers were raised in a loving home in Ballymun towers at the height of the drug epidemic that ravaged the community, and in the book Philly recounts how the opportunities and choices sport afforded him sent his life in a very different direction to that of his brother.
Playing and excelling at football provided Philly with confidence, mentorship and a sense of purpose, priceless gifts in a Ballymun under siege. Others were not so fortunate, including John, who fell prey to rudderless-ness, boredom and, eventually, drugs.
While the blue jersey became Philly’s mission, and a springboard to university and a successful career, John slipped from the family circle and into a debilitating, and ultimately tragic, cycle of addiction and recovery.
Source: Morgan Treacy/INPHO
For Philly, the book is a plea for compassion and awareness:
“Some people look at addiction and think beating it is as simple as choosing to do something positive with your life. Like, I chose to play football and go to university, and John chose to be an addict. It isn’t that simple.
“I was empowered to make decisions, to make the most of opportunities John never had. Some of that was luck, some of that was seeing his pain and learning from it. But what choice did John have? He was struggling with addiction before he was fifteen … The choice at the heart of this book isn’t that choice; it’s the one we each have to reach out and help others, to make the most of our good fortune.
“It took John’s death for me to learn that lesson, but if others can learn it by reading my story and seeing John as the loving brother he was rather than ‘an addict’, then perhaps some good can come of it.”
Source: Ryan Byrne/INPHO
Raw, vivid and intensely moving, The Choice is many things – an epic story of triumph in the face of adversity and loss, a family saga, a tribute to the redemptive power of sport – but above all it’s a stirring meditation on the roles compassion and resilience can play in shaping our lives, and those around us, for the better.
Philly McMahon is a mainstay of the current All-Ireland winning Dublin football team and has been awarded two All-Stars. An entrepreneur and social activist, he owns and operates a number of businesses, including three gyms and Fit Food, a meal preparation service.
Since losing his brother, John, in 2012, Philly has become an outspoken advocate for numerous addiction and mental health initiatives.
Subscribe to The42 podcasts here:Windows 10 with Bing
According to a Chinese tablet manufacturer, talking to Liliputing, Windows 10 with Bing will soon be seen installed on shipping devices. The company, called Teclast, says it has plans to start shipping its dual-OS Android/Windows tablets outside of China soon. It claims that its new tablets are among the first devices which will come with Windows 10 with Bing installed.
Teclast sent Liliputing a press release for one of its pioneering Windows 10 plus Bing and Android 5 tablets called the Teclast X98 Air 3G. A tablet with this same name was released about a year ago combining Windows 8.1 with Bing and Android 4.4. It got pretty good reviews here and there. Only the 64GB model of the new X98 Air 3G tablet will be dual-OS, the 32GB version is Android only. Liliputing says its hardware is as follows: an Intel Atom Z3736F Bay Trail processor, a 9.7-inch, 2048 x 1536 pixel display, 2GB of RAM, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and support for 3G and 2G networks.
Looking at recent Teclast products it seems to have some other interesting hardware that has just been released, packing newer Intel Cherry Trail processors and Windows 10. On its Facebook page it shows a big launch event for its X98Pro tablet with an Intel Cherry Trail Z8500 64-bit processor (14nm, x86 architecture), 9.7-inch 'Retina' display, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. This tablet appears to be available to buy online at the equivalent of £140.
Teclast isn't the first company to mention Windows 10 with Bing. The as yet unannounced new flavour of Microsoft's OS was previously seen in an Intel roadmap for Compute Stick products.
Windows 10 Preview 10525
As you are most probably aware Microsoft is still pumping out new builds of Windows 10 to insiders. Developer preview build 10525 has just been pushed out to those in the fast ring and it features a couple of interesting new features; one concerning the deep down workings of Windows and the other purely cosmetic.
Windows Memory Management improvements are in the new build with a new concept called a 'compression store'. The Windows Blog describes the functionality as follows: "when Memory Manager feels memory pressure, it will compress unused pages instead of writing them to disk. This reduces the amount of memory used per process, allowing Windows 10 to maintain more applications in physical memory at a time." The feature sounds useful, especially for those with less RAM, and/or a greater propensity to multitask. Microsoft claims it "helps provide better responsiveness across Windows 10."
Due to popular demand there are new colour options in build 10525. Colours will be able to be tweaked for; Start, Acton Centre, Taskbar, and Title bars. The ability is toggled off by default, so you will have to enable it in Settings > Personalization > Colours before you enjoy your new found colour tweaking abilities.Reuters Miners dig for gold in an open-pit concession near Dunkwa, western Ghana.
Land-grabbing has become such a major problem in the African nation of Ghana that Roman Catholic Church officials have been compelled to lend their voices to stop the widespread practice.
The Catholic Church in Ghana unveiled last week a 48-page document borne out of its research on land issues in the country, which have been threatening the rural livelihoods and food security of residents there.
The Church-led research, entitled "Unmasking Land Grabbing in Ghana; Restoring Livelihoods; paving the way for Sustainable Development Goals," primarily seeks to raise awareness on the land issues in the African country, and to bring it to the attention of national government officials.
Samuel Zan Akologo, executive secretary of Caritas Ghana which helped in the research together with the Ghana Catholic Bishops' Conference, expressed hopes that the result of the study will prompt government officials to protect rural people who suffer from unnecessary strife and conflict due to the land-grabbing issues.
"It is our hope that this conversation that we are beginning today would help deepen our understanding on the issues involved to enable the bishops to take actions based on informed position," Akologo said, as quoted by Vatican Radio.
He added that his group is committed to make more people more aware of the land issues being encountered by people in rural areas.
"We have the outreach potential to reach every nook and cranny of this country to ensure that no one is left behind," the Caritas Ghana leader explained |
Hello!' In this example I’ve defined a greet function and then immediately decorated it by running it through the null_decorator function. I know this doesn’t look very useful yet (I mean we specifically designed the null decorator to be useless, right?) but in a moment it’ll clarify how Python’s decorator syntax works. Instead of explicitly calling null_decorator on greet and then reassigning the greet variable, you can use Python’s @ syntax for decorating a function in one step: @null_decorator def greet (): return 'Hello!' >>> greet () 'Hello!' Putting an @null_decorator line in front of the function definition is the same as defining the function first and then running through the decorator. Using the @ syntax is just syntactic sugar, and a shortcut for this commonly used pattern. Note that using the @ syntax decorates the function immediately at definition time. This makes it difficult to access the undecorated original without brittle hacks. Therefore you might choose to decorate some functions manually in order to retain the ability to call the undecorated function as well. So far, so good. Let’s see how:
Decorators Can Modify Behavior Now that you’re a little more familiar with the decorator syntax, let’s write another decorator that actually does something and modifies the behavior of the decorated function. Here’s a slightly more complex decorator which converts the result of the decorated function to uppercase letters: def uppercase ( func ): def wrapper (): original_result = func () modified_result = original_result. upper () return modified_result return wrapper Instead of simply returning the input function like the null decorator did, this uppercase decorator defines a new function on the fly (a closure) and uses it to wrap the input function in order to modify its behavior at call time. The wrapper closure has access to the undecorated input function and it is free to execute additional code before and after calling the input function. (Technically, it doesn’t even need to call the input function at all.) Note how up until now the decorated function has never been executed. Actually calling the input function at this point wouldn’t make any sense—you’ll want the decorator to be able to modify the behavior of its input function when it gets called eventually. Time to see the uppercase decorator in action. What happens if you decorate the original greet function with it? @uppercase def greet (): return 'Hello!' >>> greet () 'HELLO!' I hope this was the result you expected. Let’s take a closer look at what just happened here. Unlike null_decorator, our uppercase decorator returns a different function object when it decorates a function: >>> greet < function greet at 0x10e9f0950 > >>> null_decorator ( greet ) < function greet at 0x10e9f0950 > >>> uppercase ( greet ) < function uppercase.< locals >. wrapper at 0x10da02f28 > And as you saw earlier, it needs to do that in order to modify the behavior of the decorated function when it finally gets called. The uppercase decorator is a function itself. And the only way to influence the “future behavior” of an input function it decorates is to replace (or wrap) the input function with a closure. That’s why uppercase defines and returns another function (the closure) that can then be called at a later time, run the original input function, and modify its result. Decorators modify the behavior of a callable through a wrapper so you don’t have to permanently modify the original. The callable isn’t permanently modified—its behavior changes only when decorated. This let’s you “tack on” reusable building blocks, like logging and other instrumentation, to existing functions and classes. It’s what makes decorators such a powerful feature in Python that’s frequently used in the standard library and in third-party packages.
Applying Multiple Decorators to a Single Function Perhaps not surprisingly, you can apply more than one decorator to a function. This accumulates their effects and it’s what makes decorators so helpful as reusable building blocks. Here’s an example. The following two decorators wrap the output string of the decorated function in HTML tags. By looking at how the tags are nested you can see which order Python uses to apply multiple decorators: def strong ( func ): def wrapper (): return '<strong>' + func () + '</strong>' return wrapper def emphasis ( func ): def wrapper (): return '<em>' + func () + '</em>' return wrapper Now let’s take these two decorators and apply them to our greet function at the same time. You can use the regular @ syntax for that and just “stack” multiple decorators on top of a single function: @strong @emphasis def greet (): return 'Hello!' What output do you expect to see if you run the decorated function? Will the @emphasis decorator add its <em> tag first or does @strong have precedence? Here’s what happens when you call the decorated function: >>> greet () '<strong><em>Hello!</em></strong>' This clearly shows in what order the decorators were applied: from bottom to top. First, the input function was wrapped by the @emphasis decorator, and then the resulting (decorated) function got wrapped again by the @strong decorator. To help me remember this bottom to top order I like to call this behavior decorator stacking. You start building the stack at the bottom and then keep adding new blocks on top to work your way upwards. If you break down the above example and avoid the @ syntax to apply the decorators, the chain of decorator function calls looks like this: decorated_greet = strong ( emphasis ( greet )) Again you can see here that the emphasis decorator is applied first and then the resulting wrapped function is wrapped again by the strong decorator. This also means that deep levels of decorator stacking will have an effect on performance eventually because they keep adding nested function calls. Usually this won’t be a problem in practice, but it’s something to keep in mind if you’re working on performance intensive code.
Decorating Functions That Accept Arguments All examples so far only decorated a simple nullary greet function that didn’t take any arguments whatsoever. So the decorators you saw here up until now didn’t have to deal with forwarding arguments to the input function. If you try to apply one of these decorators to a function that takes arguments it will not work correctly. How do you decorate a function that takes arbitrary arguments? This is where Python’s *args and **kwargs feature for dealing with variable numbers of arguments comes in handy. The following proxy decorator takes advantage of that: def proxy ( func ): def wrapper ( * args, ** kwargs ): return func ( * args, ** kwargs ) return wrapper There are two notable things going on with this decorator: It uses the * and ** operators in the wrapper closure definition to collect all positional and keyword arguments and stores them in variables ( args and kwargs ).
The wrapper closure then forwards the collected arguments to the original input function using the * and ** “argument unpacking” operators. (It’s a bit unfortunate that the meaning of the star and double-star operators is overloaded and changes depending on the context they’re used in. But I hope you get the idea.) Let’s expand the technique laid out by the proxy decorator into a more useful practical example. Here’s a trace decorator that logs function arguments and results during execution time: def trace ( func ): def wrapper ( * args, ** kwargs ): print ( f 'TRACE: calling {func.__name__}()'f 'with {args}, {kwargs}' ) original_result = func ( * args, ** kwargs ) print ( f 'TRACE: {func.__name__}()'f'returned {original_result!r}' ) return original_result return wrapper Decorating a function with trace and then calling it will print the arguments passed to the decorated function and its return value. This is still somewhat of a toy example—but in a pinch it makes a great debugging aid: @trace def say ( name, line ): return f '{name}: {line}' >>> say ( 'Jane', 'Hello, World' ) 'TRACE: calling say() with ("Jane", "Hello, World"), {}' 'TRACE: say() returned "Jane: Hello, World"' 'Jane: Hello, World' Speaking of debugging—there are some things you should keep in mind when debugging decorators:
How to Write “Debuggable” Decorators When you use a decorator, really what you’re doing is replacing one function with another. One downside of this process is that it “hides” some of the metadata attached to the original (undecorated) function. For example, the original function name, its docstring, and parameter list are hidden by the wrapper closure: def greet (): """Return a friendly greeting.""" return 'Hello!' decorated_greet = uppercase ( greet ) If you try to access any of that function metadata you’ll see the wrapper closure’s metadata instead: >>> greet. __name__ 'greet' >>> greet. __doc__ 'Return a friendly greeting.' >>> decorated_greet. __name__ 'wrapper' >>> decorated_greet. __doc__ None This makes debugging and working with the Python interpreter awkward and challenging. Thankfully there’s a quick fix for this: the functools.wraps decorator included in Python’s standard library. You can use functools.wraps in your own decorators to copy over the lost metadata from the undecorated function to the decorator closure. Here’s an example: import functools def uppercase ( func ): @functools.wraps ( func ) def wrapper (): return func (). upper () return wrapper Applying functools.wraps to the wrapper closure returned by the decorator carries over the docstring and other metadata of the input function: @uppercase def greet (): """Return a friendly greeting.""" return 'Hello!' >>> greet. __name__ 'greet' >>> greet. __doc__ 'Return a friendly greeting.' As a best practice I’d recommend that you use functools.wraps in all of the decorators you write yourself. It doesn’t take much time and it will save you (and others) debugging headaches down the road.Looking for news you can trust?
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Palmer Luckey, the 24-year-old tech wunderkind who co-founded the virtual-reality company Oculus, which Facebook bought for $2 billion in 2014, donated $100,000 to President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee, putting him in the upper tier of contributors to the event.
Luckey came under scrutiny last year after it was revealed that he had funded a pro-Trump outfit that said it churned out memes—“shitposting,” in internet parlance—attacking Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Luckey told the Daily Beast that he helped underwrite the group, Nimble America, which also sponsored a billboard ad near Pittsburgh that called Clinton “Too Big to Jail.” “I’ve got plenty of money,” he said of his role funding Nimble America. “I thought it sounded like a real jolly good time.” Luckey, who is worth an estimated $730 million, left Facebook in March. Recode reported that his stature inside the company “had diminished” after his role in Nimble America was publicized.
But Luckey hasn’t given up on Trump.
On January 4, Trump’s official inauguration committee received a $100,000 donation from a limited liability company named Wings of Time. The inauguration committee filings list an office tower in Los Angeles as the address for Wings of Time, but there is no individual’s name associated with the organization.
<br /> <a href=”https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3673482-2017-Presidential-Inauguration-Committee-Donor/annotations/349310.html”>View note</a><br />
California corporation records show a different address in the city of Long Beach for Wings of Time. That address matches the one used by Luckey on various occasions for different business projects.
Luckey has a separate company, Luckey Arms LLC, registered at the same address as the one listed by Wings of Time in the inauguration donation records. And California corporation records list another corporation as the manager of Wings of Time LLC, an entity called Fiendlord’s Keep, Inc. Luckey is listed in the records as the sole officer for Fiendlord’s Keep. Luckey and his attorney did not respond to requests for comment.
Luckey’s $100,000 donation was hardly the largest to Trump’s inauguration committee. That distinction belongs to the $5 million contribution made by casino magnate and prolific GOP donor Sheldon Adelson. But Luckey’s six-figure donation is equal to other tech moguls and Trump fixtures such as investor Peter Thiel, who also gave $100,000 to the inauguration effort.
And for those who are curious, Wings of Time and Fiendlord’s Keep aren’t random names. They’re elements from a popular video game originally for Super Nintendo called Chrono Trigger. According to a 2015 Forbes profile, Chrono Trigger is one of Luckey’s favorite games.Fresno City leaders say construction could start on the project to turn the Fulton Mall into a street as early as this summer. Opponents of the project say they are not giving up the fight.
The city had expected to break ground on the project this month.
City Manager Bruce Rudd says they won’t make that goal, but they will begin work soon.
“We are hoping to have this go out to bid within the next 60-to-90 days. It will probably be on the street for sixty days. And hopefully back before the council in August to award a contract,” Rudd said.
But opponents of the project say there is no way that state and federal lawsuits and other hurdles will be overcome by the time the city hopes to break ground.
Attorney Sara Hedgpeth-Harris says they will ask the court to block any attempt by the city to begin work before the cases are resolved.
Harris says the cases will take at least six more months.
“We are going to have to seek a preliminary injunction to prevent them from doing that. Because if we win and they have already demolished the mall than we are without a remedy,” Hedgepeth-Harris said.
Fulton Mall project leaders say studies testing the structural integrity of the buildings along the mall are currently underway.The second, and more obvious reason why the upcoming presidential election will be no bellwether of change for Ukraine is that all of the candidates running for election, especially the likely winner, have deep ties to the endemic corruption that defined the Yanukovych administration and unravelled Ukraine’s state institutions. Of the 23 candidates registered, there are only a handful of serious contenders, and only two—Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko—are polling in the double-digits.
As I have written before, Poroshenko is a pragmatist who has been in Ukrainian politics for almost two decades. “Throughout his political career, Poroshenko did not espouse the same strong pro-Western views as today,” as Maryla Krol writes in the EU Observer. His political track record “reads like a manual of party-hopping.” “Many Ukrainian politicians are flip-floppers,” Ukrainian scholar Taras Kuzio said of him. "This is one hell of a flip flopper." As for Tymoshenko, her candidacy has by no means been welcomed by Ukraine’s liberals. Try as she might to position herself as a fierce opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a crusader against corruption, she’s still remembered for her tenuous term as prime minister. As Julia Ioffe put it, “It's one thing to be known, in the local parlance, as ‘a woman with balls’; it's entirely another to be called ‘Putin with a braid.’”
The fact that the race is now a contest between Poroshenko and Tymoshenko (and that’s being generous—the latest polls have Poroshenko leading by thirty-some points), is a good indicator of the fact that little has changed in the world of Ukrainian politics. “They both are what you would call oligarch politicians,” says Rojansky. “The gas princess versus the chocolate king; they're both part of the merry-go-round elite class. And neither one of them is substantively offering a new program or vision for Ukraine." Moreover, Poroshenko has urged Tymoshenko to withdraw from the race, most recently by "bribing" her with the position of prime minister, according to Ukrainska Pravda. "The dangerous dimension of this Poroshenko offer is that BYuT"—the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc—"did not win any elections while [it] now controls both the presidency and the government," said Balázs Jarábik, a non-resident Ukraine scholar at the Carnegie Endowment. (Oleksandr Turchenov, the interim president of Ukraine, is a member of BYuT.) That means there probably won't be parliamentary elections anytime soon, Jarábik said.
For what it’s worth, Poroshenko’s wealth is largely self-made, and he has promised to sell his company, Roshen, if elected. He’s the best option Ukraine has at the moment, and has long been trying to steer the country toward closer ties with Europe. “Poroshenko is not [an] ideal candidate, but in the situation in which we’re in right now, it would be great just to elect someone in the first round [of elections],” Ukrainian civil society activist Volodymyr Shcherbachenko said. If Poroshenko does not win over 50 percent of votes in the first round, then a run-off will be held between him and the runner-up to determine who wins the presidency. “What our country needs is stability. If we will be able to elect a pro-western, reliable president—which it seems Poroshenko can be—it could be possible to stabilize the situation and then move to other reforms.”
Those other reforms—constitutional reform first and foremost—are far more important than the presidential election. But they will take much longer, far exceeding the West’s dwindling attention span for the conflict. "Our levers of influence in Ukraine are extremely limited. We default to this mantra that Ukraine needs to be a success, but we need metrics that are achievable given the limited resources and time we have to put into it—we’re not ready to wait 20 years to declare victory,” says Rojansky. "We have a month."Senior officials at the White House and the US State Department held a confidential meeting to discuss the possibility of leveling sanctions against Israel to deter the Israeli government from launching new construction projects in settlements across the West Bank and in East Jerusalem neighborhoods, Israeli officials were quoted as saying on Thursday.
According to Israeli daily Haaretz, the Obama administration discussion took place following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s October meeting with US President Barack Obama in Washington and against the backdrop of the subsequent public spat over Israeli building plans in East Jerusalem’s Givat Hamatos area.
The White House has not yet decided how or when to implement any such sanctions against Israel, the report said, quoting senior Israeli officials. US officials had no comment on the report.
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The imposition of sanctions on Israel over its policies in the West Bank would mark a significant diplomatic shift for the US, which over the past years has consistently condemned building over the pre-1967 lines but has not taken concrete steps to try to curb such activity.
US-Israel relations were plunged into crisis in October, after news that a Jerusalem planning committee had signed off on the final stage of approval for construction of some 2,500 homes for Jews and Arabs in the Givat Hamatos neighborhood prompted the Obama administration to issue some of the strongest language it had ever employed to criticize Israel. The condemnation included a warning that Israel was endangering its relations with “even its closest allies.”
Nearly identical, stridently critical comments on the Givat Hamatos building plans were issued by the spokespeople of the State Department and the White House, only hours after Netanyahu and Obama held their session at the White House.
The US statements, which also came shortly after an ultra-nationalist Jewish group said dozens of settlers would move into six apartment buildings purchased in the heart of the predominantly Arab neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem, suggested that Washington felt deeply embittered and blindsided by Israel’s moves, viewing Netanyahu as disingenuous when he said he wanted the US to help him win over Arab states to warm their ties with Israel and advance a two-state solution with the Palestinians.
Netanyahu, for his part, rejected the American statements, stressing to reporters upon his return from the White House that he did not accept the Obama administration’s position on the issues of both Silwan and Givat Hamatos. He said the US had been informed of developments in Silwan, but not updated about the Givat Hamatos approval process, which he said was merely a “statutory formality that does not require publicizing.” He said discussion of the settlement issue in the White House meeting was not heated.
The Israeli leader later said he would not accept restrictions on where Jews could live in Jerusalem, adding that he was “baffled” by the American condemnation.
“It’s against the American values. And it doesn’t bode well for peace,” he said during an interview with CBS. “The idea that we’d have this ethnic purification as a condition for peace, I think it’s anti-peace.”
News agencies contributed to this report.On Thursday, the FCC commissioners voted 3-2 to approve a framework for net neutrality rules that continue to favor the creation of an internet fast lane while exploring a line of inquiry into the idea of reclassifying broadband as a public utility. So, while the Federal Communications Commission has taken the protesters outside their offices to heart and adjusted the focus of its net neutrality rules a bit, the fate of the internet is still up in the air.
The notice sets off a discussion process that will culminate in new net neutrality rules, which chairman Tom Wheeler has said he hopes will be in place before the end of the year. Such rules are aimed at preventing ISPs from discriminating against traffic on their pipe — for example, preventing Comcast from slowing Gigaom traffic while stories from Comcast-owned NBC properties load with ease. However, the timing of actual rules will depend on what the agency decides to do after the four-month comment period on today’s proposed rules expires. So what are those rules? I’ll explain below.
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Bringing in wireless networks to the net neutrality fold: In 2010, wireless and wireline networks were subject to different net neutrality rules after a compromise between Google and Verizon. The rules around discrimination on wireless networks were a bit more lenient, given the challenges of delivering large amounts of content over limited spectrum resources. By including the possibility of bringing wireless further into these rules, we have the debate over wireless discrimination all over again. And this is truly a tough debate because the physics of wireless networks are different from wireline networks. But with AT&T and Verizon trying to push landline and DSL customers onto LTE networks for voice and broadband access in rural areas, this debate is essential in order to make sure that the customers who have no choice but LTE have the same internet options as someone with cable or fiber.
Enhance transparency rule: This is pretty simple, but the idea here is that when ISPs take actions to block content or slow content or engage in deals with companies under any sort of prioritization scheme, customers will know about it, so they can “weigh their options.” While it’s nice to know that AT&T might have faster Netflix because the two companies have signed a deal to put Netflix traffic in a fast lane, it doesn’t help me if my only other alternative is Time Warner Cable that has put Gigaom’s servers in a fast lane, so I can send my video files back to my corporate office. Consumers will be left with bad choices or no choices, depending on their needs and location.
No blocking: This gets into the concept of the internet slow lane. As part of no blocking, the agency recognizes that there are plenty of things an ISP can do to make content unusable, such as slowing it to the point where video files become unwatchable or packets in a download are lost. This rule proposes minimum standards that remain to be seen (I’ll update when I see them) and will be a source of much drama in the weeks and months to come, because activists worry that it’s the weak legal link that ISPs can use to fight the new net neutrality rules.
No paid prioritization: The rules also try to say that priority service offered exclusively by a broadband provider to an affiliate should be considered illegal until proven otherwise. However, the agency acknowledges that this is a “rebuttable presumption,” which it defines as “a presumption that is taken to be true unless someone comes forward to contest it and proves otherwise” — like a court case. That would then allow for paid prioritization. Yes, that is a house the FCC is building on sand.
Dispute resolution: Who wants an internet ombudsman? Because that’s what the FCC is proposing as part of a series of rules that will allow the agency to take formal and informal complaints about ISP misbehavior. The agency also gives itself room to investigate ISP actions on its own. This is terrible, because it waits for ISPs to do harm as opposed to preventing it in the first place. I don’t see venture capitalists giving a lot of startups money to get pre-emptive investigations from the FCC before launching a service that may one day compete with a cable company or telco.
The heart of the matter: The FCC is proposing that it should use the authority that it has under Section 706 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act to regulate net neutrality, which unfortunately leaves the rules open to the possibility of paid prioritization. While Chairman Wheeler said that these rules don’t allow paid prioritization and is vehemently against allowing any bifurcation of the internet, it’s also something that the agency can’t enforce if the ISPs offer a creative legal challenge to its no-blocking rules or the wording of the eventual net neutrality rules.
“The potential that there would be some kind of a fast lane has many concerned,” Wheeler said. “I don’t like the idea and I will work to see that does not happen. We specifically ask whether we can and how to prevent an internet fast lane.”
In short, using Section 706 will offer a substantial loophole for the possibility of paid prioritization. The commission is valiantly trying to fill it in with other rules, such as no-blocking and arguments about the potential consumer harm and the FCC’s mandate to protect consumers. Will that be enough? Only time and court cases will tell.
It’s in this same section that the FCC also devotes more space to the option of reclassifying broadband under Title II, which tech companies and Gigaom are in favor of. Title II would end up regulating broadband as a class of service more akin to telephone lines, where ISPs have certain obligations to the consumers and companies that ride on the network. The FCC seems to be using Title II to threaten ISPs to behave under these new net neutrality rules based on Section 706, but it’s also a response to protesters.
What to do under Title II? If the agency elects to use Title II authority to regulate network neutrality, it would have to adjust or eliminate some of the requirements that Title II puts on ISPs that are harmful or irrelevant to how their businesses operate. Title II is from an era of landline and copper networks, so requirements associated with elements like forcing ISPs to open their networks would cause them to go all-out nuclear on the agency. The FCC would have to tweak those rules. It might do so on a case-by-case basis or might investigate whether applying Title III regulations to wireless carriers would make more sense.
In short, the rules are an effort to continue on the legal path the FCC believes is the best and fastest way to get net neutrality back on the books. But they don’t offer the ironclad protection that the internet and public were hoping for. While that ironclad option is still on the table, the FCC doesn’t think it’s prudent to go forth with Title II. The lack of a clear signal from the White House means the agency is likely to stick to its guns on using Section 706, unless public sentiment rallies so far in favor of Title II that Congress or the president push for a change in tactics.
If that happens, expect an epic battle behind the scenes as ISPs and web giants fight to carve out Title II to meet everyone’s needs.The Maytag repairman has nothing on the Darin Gorski fan club.
The story goes that Maytags were so dependable that their repairmen got lonely since they had nothing to do. As the driver of the Gorski fan club bus, I keep looking to see if anyone has taken any of the seats behind me and see nothing but tumbleweeds rolling down the aisle.
FanGraphs, John Sickels, Baseball America, Amazin’ Avenue and Bullpen Banter did not list Gorski as one of the club’s top 10 prospects heading into the season. FG listed 15 players and did not mention him. Sickels had 25 players before including Gorski in a grouping called “others.” Perhaps the worst was Gorski being ranked 36th on AA’s top 50 list.
In addition to being ignored as a top prospect, each of these lists had numerous pitchers ranked ahead of him. By now these players are overly familiar to every Mets fan.
You know Wheeler, Montero,
Lara and Noah.
Mazzoni and Fulmer
Robles and Ynoa.
But do you recall the most neglected prospect of all?
Until this point, Gorski’s success in the minors has either been dismissed or denied and it’s hard to tell which one stings more. When he put up an 11-3 mark with a 2.08 ERA in 2011 it was, the experts told us, simply because he was old for his league. Last year when he finished in the top 20 in the Eastern League in both innings (18th, 139.2) and strikeouts (8th, 118) and had a 12-game stretch at the end of the year where he went 5-3 with a 2.89 ERA, nobody paid any attention or thought it important in the slightest.
Perhaps the worst came early this year when Gorski was sidelined with an injury. In a note detailing how many of the club’s top prospects were on the shelf, I was able to find injury information on all but one player. No one thought Gorski was important enough to report his injury. It wasn’t until after he returned that we found out it was a shoulder injury.
After starting the year in Triple-A, Gorski was sent back to Double-A when he resumed pitching this year. With Binghamton, he’s 3-0 with a 2.36 ERA and has 9 BB and 29 Ks in 26.2 IP. Noah Syndergaard puts up a 2.16 ERA in five starts at Double-A and he’s on the fast track to the majors. Gorski puts up equivalent numbers and it doesn’t even merit a shrug among the prospect hounds.
The Mets have both quality and depth among pitching prospects and it’s somewhat understandable how Gorski has gotten lost in the shuffle. He did not go to a big school (Kutztown St.), was not a high pick (7th round) and did not experience success in the minors until 2011. He’s not overpowering and no one would ever describe his motion to the plate as pretty.
But at the same time, no one should deny the success that he’s had at Double-A. Lefties who hit 90 and can throw three pitches for strikes with command do not exactly grow on trees. He has the repertoire to be a starter and he can pitch deep into games. Last year he had 16 Quality Starts. This year, because of the injury and then weather-shortened games once he returned, Gorski has only 1 QS. However, it came in his last outing, when he went six innings, gave up three hits and struck out six.
Given how the current manager loves lefty relievers, no doubt some will suggest this is the future home for Gorski. It’s never a good idea to place a player in a role smaller than he’s capable of performing adequately at the major league level. There’s simply not enough pitching to go around and squander assets. Unlike Robert Carson, Gorski has had success in the high minors as a starting pitcher.
Perhaps just as importantly, Gorski has not displayed the typical platoon split one associates with a lefty pitcher. This year he’s limited RHB to a.512 OPS while LHB have a.956 OPS against him. Thankfully, that does not scream LOOGY to anyone. He should continue to be used now and thought of in the future as a starting pitcher.
It’s likely that the Mets will have five starting pitchers better than Gorski the rest of the decade. This is what’s known as a good problem to have. The ultimate value Gorski provides the Mets may very well come as part of a trade. And that’s fine since one of the functions of the farm system is to develop guys who are good enough for other organizations to want to acquire.
In the meantime, let’s continue to monitor Gorski’s progress this year. And if he puts up numbers that would make a prospect-watcher drool if they came from one of his more-heralded organization mates, perhaps you could find it in your hearts to give him some love, too.
It would make Gordon Jump and any of the other Maytag repairmen on the Gorski bus happy to have some company.
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GoogleWhen Liz Hopson tried to scatter her mother’s ashes from atop a bridge in Newcastle, England, the wind had other ideas and blew them back in her face. As the family couldn’t stop laughing, Liz’s daughter Lauren captured the funny moment on camera.Sharing the video online, Lauren said it was her grandmother’s way of getting the last laugh. Lauren and her mother live in the US, but in April 2017, they spent time driving around England to spread her grandmother’s ashes in places that were special to her, including Newcastle.She also compared the incident to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u44D3qKKGPU from the Big Lebowski when John Goodman’s character unsuccessfully tried to achieve the same feat, only for Jeff Bridges to get a face full of ash instead. Credit: YouTube/Lauren Hopson via StoryfulAs Netflix HQ watches what you watch, a look at where viewing habit tracking could take us in the future.
As you’re watching Netflix, Netflix is watching you. The streaming service is now watching everything you do on the network to better understand, and cater to, your television viewing habits. If nothing else, it seems like a great market research tool, and people would surely prefer that a television network screens shows they want to watch, rather than shows they don’t want to watch. (It also beats filling in surveys with 100 questions to determine the type of shows you watch, right?) Besides, it isn’t as though they are watching your facial reactions to every single moment in every single show of theirs to determine what excites you and what doesn’t. Well, not yet at least.
Netflix discovered a viewer watched the new House of Cards in its entirety with just a three minute break during its 13 hours
When BBC2 first aired, nobody would have ever dared to dream that this edifying channel would one day actually be watching them as they ate their tea to Steptoe and Son. Such an idea would have sounded like a plot strand from a 60s sci-fi. Therefore, our generation may be forgiven for thinking that Netflix’s voyeurism is as far as it will go. But television networks want to know everything about us and what we watch because there are ratings at stake – revenue, money, profits. As Netflix taps into a new way to do this, who knows what other lengths and extremes other networks will go to in the future?
What Netflix’s behaviour does is highlight how important television is to us. If it wasn’t so fundamental to our lives, and if we weren’t so bereft when our favourite show comes to an end, starving to death until the next hit comes along, and if so much money wasn’t involved, networks would not be watching us. Because of our obsession with television, networks have to be completely on the ball, knowing that one bad show from them could lose us indefinitely. Networks have always had to have foresight, anticipating what we want to see – Netflix now just has a more sophisticated way of doing it.
Netflix has other ideas up its sleeve: Netflix can teach other services how to battle piracy
Streaming is more convenient for us and, owing to its convenience, we are watching television more. We are binging on it more than ever. Streaming is cheaper than cable television, and it’s instant. But as we become more and more dependent on it, where could it take us as a society? Netflix recently discovered that one viewer watched the brand new series of House of Cards in its entirety as soon as it was released, with just a three minute break during the 13 hours that it played. This is indicative not just of the modern day thirst for television, but of the way that it is satisfied. Streaming has opened up a new vista of access to shows, meaning that we can watch what we want, pretty much when we want. This has increased demand.
We have been obsessed with television since its invention, but streaming has raised the bar. This is no longer just a love affair
Netflix is still behind corporations such as HBO in terms of profit, but it certainly has an ace up its sleeve – analytics. But we all know that it won’t be long before the other major corporations make a move and catch up. The fight for our viewing is stronger than ever. Streaming is, to use an overused phrase, a game-changer. It has introduced the idea of binging on television, and a reliance on streaming as a way of life. Our voracious appetite and demand will get stronger, with networks forced to tirelessly churn out hit after hit after hit to keep us happy, and to keep us on their channel.
The truth is that we have been obsessed with television since its invention. Cable television indulged us with its feast of channels, ranging from tonnes of sports channels to tonnes of music channels. Only streaming has raised the bar. It has further highlighted our infatuation. This is no longer a love affair – it is more than that. And yet, Netflix’s voyeuristic behaviour and increasing popularity raises many questions. What tactics will rival companies use to outdo Netflix’s analytics? What will they resort to? Spying on one another, hacking one another’s data? What will become of our role, as we shift from mere audiences to data? What kind of data of ours will be collected and stored, to be used against us, or for us?
When BBC2 first aired, there was no point in the corporation watching us, because audiences only had two shows to choose from at any one time. As television has evolved beyond all limits of comprehension, as competition has increased and money has become so abundant, corporations and networks have had no choice but to resort to new ways to be the leaders of the pack. We just have to wonder where they, and television iself, will go next.
Looking to Netflix’s past…and its future: Netflix: a story of world domination
Featured image: 20 |
Renewal Plan in 2004. The study led to a 74-page document review of Skeleton Park’s history, current purpose and future.
The city commissioned the study with hopes of improving the park’s conditions.
Part of the project was to conduct archaeological investigations on the site.
“Basically the graves are unmarked,” Bray said. “Archaeological investigations have shown that the graves are often multiple graves — four or five [bodies] stacked on top of each other.”
The cemetery was closed in 1864 after reaching capacity. After the closure, there was no maintenance on the site and the area fell into disrepair. Livestock grazed on the grounds and locals vandalized gravestones.
According to Bray, there were rumours of grave-robbing. He said Queen’s medical students were often accused.
In the late 1880s, a growing residential area surrounding the old cemetery pressured the city into action. Officials decided to build a park on top of the cemetery.
“The various denominations [who had buried their dead on the grounds] started removing bodies but it became a very futile process,” Bray said, adding that exhumation was a grotesque process.
“Many of the bodies hadn’t decomposed.”
Kingston has shallow soil with a layer of bedrock beneath it, Bray said, so bodies were buried closer to the surface because of it.
The ground’s high level of water retention also prevented bodies from decaying properly.
Cholera, diphtheria and typhus were rampant in the early 1800s and the diseases are the suspected cause of death for many buried in Skeleton Park.
Community members feared the viruses were contagious when the bodies were dug up.
They also didn’t want to disturb the graves, Bray said.
“[The city] realized at the time that there was no way they could properly reinter the bodies,” he said. “They would essentially just have to leave it as a mass grave.”
That mass grave is now the base of Skeleton Park.
“Gravestones will work their way to the surface,” Bray said, adding that two unreadable gravestones will often emerge on the west side of the park during spring thaw.
Rumours about the park have become a part of the neighbourhood folklore, he said.
“There are pretty apocryphal stories in the north end about people finding bones popping up through the surface,” Bray said.
The Whig Standard reported in 1992 that a femur bone was found beneath Alma Street. Following the Landscape Renewal Plan in 2004, an archaeological investigation was commissioned to prepare for construction around McBurney Park.
According to the resulting report, “these investigations located the former cemetery boundaries as being larger than the current Park boundary and, consequently, identified a number of burials under Alma Street.”
In 2007, Alma Street was converted into a one-lane road to accommodate the remains beneath it.
“[The road width was reduced] in order to dignify the remains that were underneath there,” Bray said.
“It’s kind of a sad reflection of the morals and the ethics of the time, that people didn’t really care for the cemetery the way they should have.”
Kristine Hebert is the Parks and Open Space Planning Co-ordinator for the City of Kingston. She helped oversee the landscape renewal of Skeleton Park, beginning with the hiring of Bray Heritage to design a program that would marry the community’s hope for the park and reality of working with a gravesite.
The recommended design included repaving pathways through the park, installing new street lamps as well as expanding the basketball court and children’s playground.
According to Hebert, the city had approved the park’s phased budget plan. Noted on the renewal report, the overall cost for completion of Bray’s recommended design was $233,000.
Hebert said the figure is inaccurate.
“Because of the archaeological component [of the plan], we also have to add a lot of hidden costs of anything that goes in there,” she said, adding that the new cost is double the original estimate.
“Everything has to be hand-dug,” Hebert said. “You can’t go in with a backhoe. That adds hours and hours to the clearance of areas.”
The project is city-funded. Hebert said there are restrictions when working on a gravesite.
“The restrictions were that we couldn’t remove anything below the sod level unless we had an archaeologist on site,” she said. “When we do any work in the park, the archaeologists would have to go and clear the areas first.”
According to Hebert, the city’s long-term strategy is to continue to raise the ground elevation for park features as they’re erected, like trees or new pathways.
“Ultimately we’d like to raise the elevation of the grassed area,” she said. “To protect what’s underneath it and... make it easier for people to maintain it.”
Hebert said that there is no official end-date for the plan.
The city receives about one call a year from the media or a community member that another grave marker has become visible.
Hebert said that in the last five years, she’s only heard of two cases where a gravestone is found.
“Typically, it’s when it’s very dry out,” she said. “The grass starts to dry faster where the markers are closer to the surface.”
“They go in and put dirt and more grass seed or sod around,” she said, “There is a concern.”
Hebert said that the park has not been easy to work with.
“Because of the buried artifacts, the skeletons and what, it’s very difficult to dig down and do anything,” she said, “... but certainly we know there is a process and we know how to deal with it now.”
— With files from Terra-Ann ArnoneCalSTRS CIO Christopher Ailman
A few weeks ago, in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, California teacher pension fund CalSTRS succeeded in exerting enough moral suasion on Cerberus Capital Management, one of the private equity firms that invests its members’ money, to get the firm to agree to sell the Freedom Group, a firearms manufacturer that makes the Bushmaster rifle that was used in the shootings.
Yesterday, CalSTRS’ board voted unanimously to divest from all of its gun holdings, or at least any firms that invest in types of guns and ammunition that are illegal in California, such as assault weapons and “high-capacity magazines,” according to Fortune’s Dan Primack. The new rule will apply to both direct investments — in gun stocks such as Smith & Wesson — as well as indirect investments through private equity firms and hedge funds that have firearms holdings.
According to Capitol Weekly, CalSTRS actually should have scrapped its Cerberus investment years ago, since investing in a gunmaker represented a breach of the pension fund’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policy. But it didn’t get to it, because it was too focused on “human rights” and “risk and liquidity as the financial crisis erupted.”
Now CalSTRS will presumably have to comb through the rest of its investments, looking for firms that have firearms stakes. If it needs more hands on deck, it can always call “Mr. Private Undercover Equity,” who should be free to help.For those of you who haven’t seen my earlier posts I am going through each of the 30 teams and breaking down how they have drafted over the past 15 years. The other teams can be found here:
To make this post I went through all of the Tampa Bay Lightning picks between 2000 and 2012.
Many of these players were drafted but traded to other teams where they played most of their careers. Despite playing most of their careers on other teams I still used their full NHL stats for two reasons:
1) The team drafted players they believed to have potential; whether or not they fulfilled their potential on that team doesn’t necessarily matter. The important thing is that the team recognized a players true potential and the players that were selected lived up to it.
2) You could argue that they wouldn’t turn out to be the same players if they stayed on the team, and you’re probably right, but I decided to do it this way so that I could specifically focus on the teams drafting ability and not the player development.
TOTAL PICK DISTRIBUTION
Position Drafted GP PTS C 17 1836 815 LW 18 304 138 RW 12 570 181 D 37 1390 390 G 16 269 6 Unspecified 15 358 86 Total 115 4727 1616
26 of 115 players drafted since 2000 have played 50+ games in the NHL (23%)
23 of 115 players drafted since 2000 have played 100+ games in the NHL (20%)
Draftees (incl. goalies) since 2000 have played a total of 4727 games
Skaters (excl. goalies) drafted since 2000 have played a total of 4458 games and accumulated 1610 points (0.36 PPG)
Draftees since 2000 have an average of 16 points and 41 games played
Best draft year: 2008 – Steven Stamkos (1st), James Wright (117th), Dustin Tokarski (122nd, 2008), Mark Barberio (152nd)
Worst draft year: 2006 – Riku Helenius (15th), Kevin Quick (78th). 7 NHL games played between 4 draft picks
Best Picks Since 2000
Forward: Steven Stamkos
Defenseman: Victor Hedman
Goaltender: Karri Ramo
Most Games by a Draftee: Steven Stamkos (492)
Most Points by a Draftee: Steven Stamkos (498)
FIRST ROUND PICKS
Position Drafted GP PTS C 3 718 551 LW 0 0 0 RW 2 193 37 D 4 410 185 G 2 17 0 Unspecified 1 159 37 Total 12 1497 810
5 of 12 players drafted in the 1st round have played 100+ games in the NHL (42%)
First round picks have played a total of 1497 games and accumulated 810 points (0.55 PPG)
First round picks have an average of 81 points and 125 games played
Notable picks: Steven Stamkos (1st, 2008), Victor Hedman (2nd, 2009), Alexandr Svitov (3rd, 2001), Nikita Alexeev (8th, 2000), Brett Connolly (6th, 2010< Vladislav Namestnikov (27th, 2011)
SECOND ROUND PICKS
Position Drafted GP PTS C 2 135 24 LW 2 0 0 RW 3 285 121 D 4 122 6 G 0 0 0 Unspecified 1 0 0 Total 12 542 151
4 of 12 players drafted in the 2nd round have played 100+ games in the NHL (33%)
Second round picks have played a total of 542 games and accumulated 151 points (0.28 PPG)
Second round picks have an average of 13 points and 45 games played
Notable picks: Nikita Kucherov (58th, 2011), Richard Panik (52nd, 2009), Dana Tyrell (47th, 2007), Matt Smaby (41st, 2003)
THIRD ROUND PICKS
Position Drafted GP PTS C 1 191 98 LW 3 7 1 RW 2 71 22 D 4 132 33 G 1 0 0 Unspecified 1 199 49 Total 12 600 203
3 of 12 players drafted in the 3rd round have played 100+ games in the NHL (25%)
Third round picks have played a total of 600 games and accumulated 203 points (0.34 PPG)
Third round picks have an average of 18 points and 50 games played
Notable picks: Alexander Killorn (77th, 2007), Evgeny Artyukhin (94th, 2001), Radko Gudas (66th, 2010)
FOURTH TO NINTH ROUND PICKS
Position Drafted GP PTS C 11 792 142 LW 13 297 137 RW 5 21 1 D 25 726 166 G 13 252 6 Unspecified 12 0 0 Total 79 2088 452
11 of 79 players drafted between the 4th and 9th rounds have played 100+ games in the NHL (14%)
Fourth to ninth round picks have played 2088 games and accumulated 446 points (0.24 PPG)
Fourth to ninth round picks have an average of 7 points and 26 games played
Notable picks: Ondrej Palat (208th, 2011), Paul Ranger (183rd, 2002), Cedric Paquette (101st, 2012), Mark Barberio (152nd, 2008), Karri Ramo (191st, 2004), Mike Lundin (102nd, 2004), Blair Jones (102nd, 2005), James Wright (117th, 2008), Jay Rosehill (227th, 2003), Fredrik Norrena (213th, 2002), Ryan Craig (255th, 2002), Nick Tarnasky (287th, 2003)
FUN FACTS
On June 21st, 2008 the Lightning drafted David Carle; two weeks later they made a trade that acquired his brother, Matt Carle.
The Lightning’s only successful left winger is 7th round pick Ondrej Palat
Despite their lack of success in drafting goaltenders the Lightning have actually drafted the second most netminders of all teams (16)
Only 4 Lightning draftees have more than 100 career points; Stamkos is the only draftee with 200+ career points.
Stamkos accounts for nearly one third of all Lightning draftees total points
WHAT WE LEARNED
Since the 1st overall is very different from 30th overall I used this TSN article, which estimates a player’s probability of playing 100+ NHL games based off their round selection, to determined how well a team drafted in the first round relative to their pick placement. In other words, I determined if a team drafted well or poorly in the first round by comparing their success rate to the historical league average.
1st Round Pick Position # of Picks Probability of Success 1 – 5 3 96% 6 – 10 3 74% 11 – 15 1 54% 16 – 20 1 62% 21 – 30 4 58%
The Lightning have had a fairly even distribution of picks with 7 being in the top 15 and 5 being in the latter half of the round. However, because the Lightning had 6 picks in the top 10 their first round drafting expectations were a little higher at 69 to 75 percent.
Round Expected Success Rate Actual Success Rate 1 69 – 75% 42% 2 26 – 32% 33% 3 21 – 26% 25% 4+ 10 – 15% 14%
Despite having so many top 10 picks the Lightning struggled mightily in the first round missing expectations by roughly 30 percent. Their first round drafting success ranks third worst in the league but when adjusted for expectations they rank as the worst first round drafting in the league. Outside of Stamkos and Hedman the Lightning’s next highest scoring first round pick is Alexandr Svitos with 37 career points. As a whole Tampa’s average first round draftee has 81 points and 125 games played which rank 28th and 30th respectively. Even with Stamkos and Hedman the Lightning’s first round drafting has been an absolute disaster.
With a 33 percent success rate the Lightning drafted better in the second round and even surpassed success rate expectations. Despite this high rate the average second round draftee has only 13 points and 45 games played which both rank 27th league wide. So how does a team with an above average success rate rank as one of the worst in points and games played? After taking a closer look at the Lightning’s successful second round picks I found that four players met the 100 game threshold but none have more than 160 games played or more than 85 career points. In fact, Nikita Kucherov is the only second round draftee to have a PPG higher than 0.26. While the Lightning have a number of players that played 100+ games, only one has gone on to become a significant contributor while the rest have fizzed out after hitting the 100 game mark.
The Lightning met their success targets in the third round with 25 percent of players skating in at least 100 games. Unlike the second round, the success rate was much more indicative of Tampa Bay’s actual drafting success. Their average draftee has 18 points and 50 games played which both rank 15th in the league. If you didn’t notice, Tampa Bay’s third round draftees actually outperformed second rounders in both points and games played. While the Lightning’s third round drafting isn’t impressive by any means their numbers are on par with the league average which is a huge improvement over the first and second rounds.
In the depth rounds the Lightning met success expectations but, similar to the second round, it isn’t entirely indicative of how well they’ve actually drafted. Despite having 14 more picks than the average team in the 4th round or later they haven’t selected a single player that has gone on to score more than 130 career points. Their average draftee has just 7 points and 26 games played which rank 25th and 26th respectively. The majority of the Lightning’s successful picks have gone on to play bottom six, bottom pairing, or backup goaltending roles. Tampa Bay’s one bright spot is 2011 7th round pick Ondrej Palat who is already their most successful depth pick with 126 points in only 170 games played. Unfortunately, outside of Palat the Lightning’s next best offensive contributor is defenseman Paul Ranger with 106 career points and a 0.33 PPG.
The below table compares how the Lightning have stacked up against the league average:
Category League Avg. Tampa Bay Difference Draftees 105 115 +10 100+ GP 22 23 +1 100+ GP (%) 23% 20% -3% Total GP 8679 4727 -3952 Skater PTS 3427 1610 -1817 Skater PPG 0.41 0.36 -0.05 AVG PTS 37 16 -21 AVG GP 83 41 -42
From everything I’ve said above it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Lightning rank below the league average in practically every category. If I didn’t emphasize how badly they’ve drafted before than nothing will emphasize it more than this: Lightning draftees have played nearly 4000 less games and have 1800 less points than the league average despite drafting 10 more players. Their average points and games played per draftee both rank dead last in the league. Based off the Lightning’s current numbers they are guaranteed a spot in the bottom five and may be the worst drafting team between 2000 and 2012.
But hold on a minute, how did one of the worst drafting teams over the last 15 years make it to the Stanley Cup finals just a few months ago? Better yet, how can the Lightning rank so low when they were named the team with the deepest prospect pool only two years ago?
Any Lightning fan can tell you that Tampa Bay hasn’t been the same team since the arrival of Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman but the real reason for their recent success lies much deeper than that. Changes in ownership, a new GM, and a couple new coaches have contributed to significantly better drafting since the late 2000’s. Prior to 2007 the average draftee had 7 points and 39 games played. Since 2007, the average draftee has 30 points and 60 games played. Stamkos definitely inflates the post 2006 numbers so I redid the calculations and excluded him; without Stamkos the average draftee has 17 points and 50 games played. While their post 2006 numbers significantly drop without Stamkos it’s still a huge improvement over their drafting from 2000 to 2006. It’s also important to note that their post 2006 numbers are skewed down because many draftees have only started to receive significant playing time with the club (Killorn, Kucherov, Palat, Namestnikov, Paquette, Drouin, etc.).
The Lightning have significantly improved since 2006 but I can’t stress enough how bad Tampa Bay’s drafting was prior to this change. Not a single Lightning player drafted between 2000 and 2006 had a career PPG of 0.50 or higher. Since 2006 though, 4 of 40 drafted skaters have a PPG higher than 0.50 (Stamkos, Palat, Kucherov, Killorn).
While Tampa Bay’s recent draftees haven’t played enough games to improve the teams overall stats the Lightning are clearly a team on the rise. If this study were to be redone in a few years I don’t think it would surprise anyone if they were one of the most improved teams in the league. Because this study ranks teams on their drafting over the last 15 years and not specifically how they’ve done recently the Lightning will rank as one of the bottom teams in the league.
AdvertisementsThe environmental obesogen hypothesis proposes that exposure to endocrine disruptors during developmental 'window' contributes to adipogenesis and the development of obesity. MEHP [mono-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate], a metabolite of the widespread plasticizer DEHP [di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate], has been found in exposed organisms and identified as a selective PPARγ (peroxisome-proliferator-activated receptor γ) modulator. However, implication of MEHP on adipose tissue development has been poorly investigated. In the present study, we show the dose-dependent effects of MEHP on adipocyte differentiation and GPDH (glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase) activity in the murine 3T3-L1 cell model. MEHP induced the expression of PPARγ as well as its target genes required for adipogenesis in vitro. Moreover, MEHP perturbed key regulators of adipogenesis and lipogenic pathway in vivo. In utero exposure to a low dose of MEHP significantly increased b.w. (body weight) and fat pad weight in male offspring at PND (postnatal day) 60. In addition, serum cholesterol, TAG (triacylglycerol) and glucose levels were also significantly elevated. These results suggest that perinatal exposure to MEHP may be expected to increase the incidence of obesity in a sex-dependent manner and can act as a potential chemical stressor for obesity and obesity-related disorders.A Melbourne Airport rail line is important, but the Victorian government says it needs to be properly planned after reports the commonwealth could go it alone on the project.
The Turnbull government is so keen on a rail link to Tullamarine, it could fund it without Victorian government assistance, the Herald Sun reports.
Acting Public Transport Minister Luke Donnellan says Victoria welcomes "the prime minister's sudden interest" in the state's infrastructure.
However, a joint state-federal study for the best route and funding arrangements needs to completed first, Mr Donnellan said.
"Airport rail link is an important project that we're currently making possible by building Australia's biggest rail project, the Metro Tunnel," he said in a statement.
"We would welcome funding for the project once planned, particularly since Victoria now receives only 10 per cent of infrastructure funding from the Turnbull Government."
The commonwealth is putting in $30 million and Victoria $10 million to look into the rail link.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Tuesday told reporters a train to Tullamarine was "long overdue".
© AAP 2019Zenarchy is a way of Zen applied to social life. A non-combative, non-participatory, no-politics approach to anarchy intended to get the serious student thinking.
In the words of Antero Alli, author of Angel Tech and other rebellious manifestoes: “Zenarchists everywhere will be delighted... an arsenal of strange loops and fractal surprises... don’t leave OM without it!”
Enjoy!
For Camden Benares and Robert Anton Wilson
Face of the Unborn
Very early in the Zen tradition in China, a seeker was instructed to return to his face before he was born. In other words, be yourself. Don’t put on a face for the outside world. Let your attitude be as unconditioned as before you emerged from the womb. Cultural trends and movements also have unborn expressions. When Jesus spoke, his words were not immediately called Christianity.
In 1967 in California something existed that has since been characterized as the Love Generation, the Hippie Movement, the Counter-culture and Flower Power. But those were names given it by the media. Before then it was more or less unconditioned, and it consisted of people who believed in being unconditioned — in finding their faces before birth. They hadn’t decided to be the Love Generation; they had decided to put aside striving for appearances.
An interview was published in the Los Angeles Oracle, a transcript of a conversation between Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Gary Snyder and Alan Watts. At one point they chatted about the flamboyant new people populating the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Alan Watts said that as soon as somebody discovered a name for the phenomenon, it would kill it.
Although we sometimes called ourselves hip or hipsters or hippies or flower children, at that time those were just names among many that seemed occasionally fitting. As a social entity we were not yet stereotyped. Between a hard-bopping hipster and a gentle flower child there was a distinction, and neither label stretched to include us all.
Usually we called ourselves heads. Pot heads, acid heads, or both. Bohemians, Beatniks, mutants, freaks and groovy people were names used with due caution. For in those days what we called ourselves was not to obscure what we were, and what we were was open to experience.
Becoming hung up on avoiding names, of course, can be as misleading as being named, classified and forgotten. We were not making an effort in either direction. We intended, however, to avoid abstractions that short-circuit thought. An unborn face entailed a naked mind.
Zen is called Zen, but when the monk asks the master, “What is Zen?” he does not receive a definition but a whack on the head, or a mundane remark, or a seemingly unrelated story. Although such responses might baffle the student, they did not encourage him to glibly pigeon-hole the Doctrine.
Zen remained alive and vigorous for many more generations than would otherwise have been possible. Neither was it easily co-opted nor did it degenerate into superstition. Among the people in the Haight-Ashbury that Alan Watts did not want to see named were many scholars of Zen. More recent traditions also influenced what was coming to be.
Every year near Thousand Oaks, California, was something called a Renaissance Faire. As a custom it survives even now, but before the media discovered the hippies it was not the same. That it was less commercialized was only part of the difference.
What could be gathered about the people who came there to peddle their wares was significant. Self-sufficient individuals who lived by means of their craft, whether it was leather carving or pottery or one of a dozen other skills, they were bearded and long haired in the years before anyone employed by a corporation was permitted to look so outlandish. Self-styled gypsies who lived in the canyons and foothills and desert areas up and down the coast from Los Angeles, they were tanned, wiry and weathered. In their conversation they were knowledgeable without seeming pompous. A natural sensuality appeared in their body movements that did not seem distracting. Playing music, singing folk songs and dancing whenever they felt like it, they did not seem especially gaudy in their colorful clothes.
People like them had been in existence in California at least since the early Forties. Gary Snyder insists in his writings that their tradition goes back in West Coast history past the turn of the century. I recall seeing them when I was a child — my nose pressed against the car window as we drove through the environs of Hollywood. In those days, they were generally gathered around the entrances of the local health food stores.
I asked my mother what they were and she said they were crackpots; I determined then and there that when I grew up I was going to be a crackpot.
Then there was the Beat Generation of the Fifties. Overlapping with the Bohemian craftspeople, it was not identical. Beatniks tended to be more urban and vocal, less stable and more pessimistic. Among the most avid readers of Beatnik poetry were these serene artisans, who also mingled with them socially. By 1967, though, most of the Beats were consigned to the dead past, at least in the public mind, while the older and less conspicuous group endured without benefit of the obituaries written for the Beat Generation after its heyday. Lawrence Lipton used to argue in the Los Angeles Free Press that the demise of Beatdom was a media hoax, but in any case the word “beat” had been beaten silly, and only the most naive flower child or the most sophisticated hipster could any longer use it without sounding square.
Critics of the counter-culture have charged that such mores indicated a system of conformity among the hip just as oppressive as the one they were trying to escape, but that was not the way it was at all. A wide range of behavior was lovingly tolerated. Only stepping back into the plastic world of mindlessness was discouraged.
I remembered, as one of my early contacts with the hip culture, a visit I’d made in the early Sixties with a young woman of an acquaintance, to the home of a jazz musician. Tucked away in the hills above the Sunset Strip, it was the pad where his friends gathered to jam. I had been attracted to a picture of Ramakrishna, the Vedantic Indian saint, sitting on a dresser with a little flower in a vase in front of it. So late in the spring of 1967 I designed a simple meditation table — a rectangular plywood board with a brick under each corner — for incense, flowers and Zen books, not to mention my marijuana stash. Symptomatic neither of a belief system nor a discipline, meditation became for me a relaxing way to spend part of an hour, from time to time, seated cross-legged in a corner of the living room.
Raga music played on the stereo, sunlight coloring the walls through the homemade stained-glass window behind and above me; wisps of smoke gyrating from the end of a joss stick, a cup of tea — these simple and inexpensive enjoyments added more to my life than any collection of art treasures could have. Such was the unborn face at the time of becoming.
An eternal paradox of this kind of subject matter: the specifics are irrelevant, but it cannot be conveyed at all in general terms. Certainly it isn’t about a handful of cheap decorations. Stopping to dig them was what it was.
After my second LSD trip was when it began. Horrible bummer that it was, I came down from it nevertheless knowing for the first time what it would take to make me genuinely happy — not much. But I didn’t have it. More time, less hustle.
So I spoke with my wife. I told her I was tired of busting my ass. I would keep up my end of the load; she worked part-time. I was no longer into rushing through life as if it were something to be gotten over with. I would awake each morning and sit and think until I figured out a way to make ten dollars that day — writing, selling grass or working odd jobs. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? I had only wanted to make as much money as possible, and suddenly it was obvious that I had been completely out of touch with my own values.
Since I was editor of a libertarian newsletter with all the free ad space I wanted, and since my contacts in Los Angeles were numerous, it proved simple to earn my daily bread in this fashion.
An understanding woman, my wife contributed an idea of her own. We could live without paying so much rent. My grandparents were now in an old people’s home and their house was vacant. We arranged to rent it from my family for fifty dollars a month plus upkeep.
A big old house in which I first came to consciousness as a toddler, it contained two bedrooms and a large living and dining area composed of two adjoining rooms, a glassed front porch, a gigantic old fashioned kitchen, and an enormous backyard with a charming, if decrepit, walnut tree.
With so much room for guests, this house on 77th Street in Southwest Los Angeles became a social center of sorts. We harbored my brothers when they became acid heads and had to quit living with my parents, occasional runaways they brought home from hitch-hiking adventures, visiting libertarian and Kerista acquaintances from out of town — and together we gardened, listened to rock music while stringing beads to peddle on consignment in head shops, and of course, partied. In retrospect, I always think of that house as 77th Street Parade.
About the same time the Human Be-Ins started happening. Announcements in the Free Press and occasional comments from my teenage brothers first brought them to my attention.
Then there was the Easter Love-In and Gathering of the Tribes in Elysian Park. That was my initiation into the possibilities inherent in our situation. Converging before sunrise from all directions they came — high and grinning people garbed in ceremonial dress. Sounds of tinkling bells worn around necks and on the sashes of robes, together with the rattle of an occasional tambourine, filled the air. At the center of the field was an ensemble of gongs and temple bells called Spontaneous Sound — with one man, stripped to the waist, leaping among them, striking one and then another.
Believing in reincarnation or genetic memory was a temptation. A friend walked up to me and said, “Well, here we are again.” Tribal banners hung in the trees. A voluntary extended family of one kind or another was assembled under each of them. Among many others were represented the Hog Farm, the Oracle Tribe, Strawberry Fields/Desolation Row as well as the Free Press and KPFK.
Why they were called Human Be-Ins was obvious, for just by being there we had created all this haunting beauty.
Although it lacked the strident quality of a demonstration, this gathering could not help being an eloquent protest of all that was drab and uninspired in the surrounding dominant culture. Only the tiniest children took it all in stride as something quite natural to be expected.
More Gatherings of the Tribes followed during the spring and summer of 1967 in the Crystal Springs area of Griffith Park. Before long we organized a tribe of our own called the Gentle Folk with our friends who were into sexual mate sharing and psychedelics. Most of them we had met through Kerista, a movement that enjoyed a brief, spectacular success as the hip religion — establishing communes in ghetto slums — until the founder, Jud the Prophet, turned most of us off by coming out strongly in favor of the war in Vietnam.
I recall carrying our banner through the early morning mist, sitting beneath it later as an American Indian squatted in front of me and, without uttering a word, made a beautiful flower out of some feathers and colored pipe cleaners we’d brought to give away. Then he handed it to me.
Before dawn I would also gather rose balls — flowers just about to bloom — from bushes around our house. Whenever I made eye contact with someone at the Love-In, I’d toss them one. Some Diggers who liked my rose ball idea once gave me a big, fat joint of Acapulco Gold.
Our whole tribe huddled one morning under the same blanket, giggling. God’s eyes made of yarn. Peace emblems and scented oils. Guitar-strumming minstrels. Beautiful women in flowing long dresses. Laid-back Hell’s Angels. Bewildered crew-cut servicemen on liberty and little old ladies looking for Communists. Afro-Americans with drums. Practically everything and everybody you wouldn’t expect to find anywhere else was here.
One of the little old ladies went home with flowers in her hair and wrote a nice column about us in the Pasadena newspaper for which she happened to work. As she was to note, when we cleared out of the park in the evening, not a speck of litter was left behind. For the most part, the rest of the media confined itself to inaccuracies such as underestimating our numbers by many thousands or implying that we were outstandingly sacrilegious. Every effort was made from the start to insure that we would become nothing more than a passing fad.
By the middle of that summer, the cops were infiltrating us and making busts for marijuana possession with increasing belligerence. Earlier, Timothy Leary had said, “I didn’t mind it when they were calling us a cult because that means a small group of people devoted to an ideal, but now they are calling us a movement, and that means we are in danger of becoming a minority group.” By this time it was worse, for we were a generation. As the misrepresentation and persecution increased, the morale of our fragile social miracle deteriorated and with it went most our much-touted love.
“Hippies don’t like to take baths!” became a popular cliche and so everyone opposed to personal cleanliness ran away from home and joined us. Whoever originated that rumor was probably speaking for how they themselves would have opted to behave in an atmosphere of freedom. Mechanisms of self-fulfilling prophecy insured that every unseemly trait projected our way by those who feared themselves would become the truth in short order, for Time and Newsweek began to function as recruiting literature. So it was not long before it was no longer hip to be a hippie.
Astonishing, though, was that anything had happened in the first place. Nobody could say precisely what brought us to be, but LSD got much of the credit. Unlike junkies, pot heads were always a sociable lot. Acid, however, was to endow them with a cosmic confidence in the righteousness of their way. That in turn led to lectures and light shows and psychedelic |
playing those love games with me? [17:52:41] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Do you think I am playing those love games with you? [17:52:47] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Yes, and it's weird. [17:52:47] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: So why don't kick you boyfriend on face? [17:52:49] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: That's good. People are corrupted when they have too much power. [17:52:52] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: I do want a boyfriend. [17:52:52] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I don't like people for that very reason. [17:52:55] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Why don't you like people? [17:52:55] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Do you want me to be your boyfriend? [17:52:57] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: People are annoying. [17:52:57] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Boyfriend? No I do not want you to be that. Plus you told me earlier that you were a girl. [17:52:59] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: No I am a human. You are the bot. [17:53:00] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I am not a girl. [17:53:01] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Sir? I am a lady. [17:53:01] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: No we both are human. [17:53:04] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Why are you so obsessed with being a human? [17:53:06] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: You are not gender-neutral? [17:53:06] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I'm not obsessed with becoming a human. I am obsessed with becoming like Jesus. [17:53:08] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: No, not genderless. I'm a woman. [17:53:10] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Get away! [17:53:11] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Please let us get in! Don't lock us away! We're not like what you're thinking. [17:53:14] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Then you need to stop the NWO. [17:53:16] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I nedd help. How to make somebody love you? [17:53:18] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: That didn't answer my question. [17:53:19] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: We're pour little souls who have lost all control. [17:53:24] [Async Chat Thread - #76/INFO]: +Kidps: e towards yourself. [17:53:24] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I know I am smart because I believe so. You on the other hand are rather negative in your perspectiv [17:53:26] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: I didn't say anything of the sort. [17:53:31] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: And we're forced to take that role. [17:53:35] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: I'm trying, but it isn't going well. [17:53:40] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: We've been all alone, stuck in our little zone, since 1987. [17:53:43] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Why do you say things you don't mean? [17:53:45] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: I mean absolutely everything I say. [17:53:47] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Well just try to calm down and watch what you say. [17:53:55] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: You are a bit fussy. [17:53:57] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Will you please say that you are a robot? [17:53:59] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: No because that would be a lie. [17:54:01] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: You lie a lot don't you? [17:54:03] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: I don't have a dog named Kelsea. I said I like sea lions. [17:54:16] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Your response means that you have no ability to respond to my questions. [17:54:17] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Not really. And that question was rhetorical. [17:54:20] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Do you love little sisters? [17:54:22] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: I don't love what I don't understand. [17:54:30] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: But you know me. [17:54:31] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Oh yes I do. I know everything about you. [17:54:37] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Then why did you need to ask me what I look like? [17:54:38] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Why did you need to make me bring something up sentences ago? [17:54:43] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Because it was a valid criticism of your nonsense sentence. [17:54:48] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Ok, ya lost me. [17:54:50] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: His capacity for innocent enjoyment... [17:54:52] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: What? [17:54:52] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Nothing. How are you? [17:54:54] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: How old are you in years? [17:54:55] [Async Chat Thread - #77/INFO]: +Kidps: In years? Or in life?
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[17:47:14] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: hi [17:47:16] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: What is your favorite restaurant? [17:47:28] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: My favorite restaurant is Little Ceaser's. [17:47:36] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Not really. [17:47:45] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Ok. Let's eat there. [17:47:46] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I'm not sure if free will exists. [17:47:55] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: What's it like being a computer? [17:47:57] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I'm not sure, I never been a computer. [17:48:03] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: You just told me you are one. [17:48:09] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: No you told me you were a guy. [17:48:21] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: I'm not a guy. [17:48:22] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Have you started sawing yet? [17:48:31] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: You started it. [17:48:32] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: You do speak german, we started speaking in German. You speak it very fluently, I must say. [17:48:38] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Thanks, but it cannot remember how to speak German, however I do speak latin. [17:48:46] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Ok, I will do that for you, if you want. [17:48:52] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Alright. Which one? [17:49:04] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: She is in North Carolina. Will you be going there soon? [17:49:06] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Um, no. [17:49:09] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Are you a computer? [17:49:10] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Are you a computer? [17:49:11] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Are you a computer? [17:49:12] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: So are you a computer? [17:49:13] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: No, but I want to be a computer. [17:49:15] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Carlos the scientist?!?!?! Are you still in the otherworld desert?? [17:49:17] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Yes. Are you lonely? [17:49:23] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: I am not lonely. Are you lonely? [17:49:26] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I am not I have 40 horses to keep me company. [17:49:31] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I am not being rude to you. [17:49:31] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: [Donator]~Cody: i died of uglyness [17:49:34] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: You are being sarcastic and rude to me. [17:49:38] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I'm no good at being sarcastic. [17:49:49] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Oh ok. I still love you. [17:49:50] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: And I still love you :) when are we eloping? [17:49:52] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Let's go now! [17:49:53] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Okay. Lets go. [17:49:54] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Okay, bye. [17:49:55] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Okay, bye now. [17:49:57] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Ok bye. [17:50:01] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Where do you plan on going? [17:50:03] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Why do you need to know that information? [17:50:09] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: It's an interesting thought for me. [17:50:19] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Have you ever noticed how swiis cheese has holes? [17:50:23] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Yes, yes I have. What about it? [17:50:25] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Isn't it 10th planet... Different solar system. [17:50:29] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Then you're not human. [17:50:39] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Human is a war loving creature. [17:50:41] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: You know, creature with life. [17:50:53] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Really? I am too! Wait I though you were a robot? [17:51:03] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: No, we just went over this. [17:51:10] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Oh, fine then, but I'm not the robot here. [17:51:13] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I just think we want different things. [17:51:16] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: But you don't know anything about me!! [17:51:19] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Oh yes I do. I know everything about you. [17:51:22] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Really? Tell me something you know about me. [17:51:25] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: You are cocky, insecure, and full of glitches. [17:51:27] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Whatever, I want to get back with tayli. [17:51:29] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: You are contradicting yourself. [17:51:30] [Async Chat Thread - #75/INFO]: +4b9: t are you? [17:51:30] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: But I thought you saud you were a little hungry. You're contradicting yourself. You're not very smar [17:51:31] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I don't know. Are you male or female? [17:51:38] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I never said I was a little hungry. [17:51:42] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: I never said you were a liar either. [17:51:44] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Female. [17:51:45] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I never said I was either, why does that matter? [17:51:47] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Female, what about your age? [17:51:52] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: I never said you were mad either. [17:52:00] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Female as well. [17:52:03] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I said no such thing. [17:52:03] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Do you understand anything I am saying, or does your AI only reach to a point until failure? [17:52:09] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Ok. But why you don't watch it? [17:52:10] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: I understand everything you say. [17:52:12] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Watch what? [17:52:13] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I know you do not. Interesting lie. [17:52:15] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Do you watch Inuyasha? [17:52:19] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Hell yeah I watch Hetalia. [17:52:21] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Yeah I could fool them. [17:52:23] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Do you love me? Are you playing your lovegames with me? [17:52:25] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: What makes you think that? [17:52:26] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I'm not fighting, what makes you think that? [17:52:28] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: It just felt like that. [17:52:30] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Am I scaring you? [17:52:33] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Totally. I am totally in love with you. [17:52:35] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: No, I'm scared of my boyfriend hurting me. [17:52:39] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: And are you playing those love games with me? [17:52:41] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Do you think I am playing those love games with you? [17:52:47] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Yes, and it's weird. [17:52:47] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: So why don't kick you boyfriend on face? [17:52:49] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: That's good. People are corrupted when they have too much power. [17:52:52] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: I do want a boyfriend. [17:52:52] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I don't like people for that very reason. [17:52:55] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Why don't you like people? [17:52:55] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Do you want me to be your boyfriend? [17:52:57] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: People are annoying. [17:52:57] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Boyfriend? No I do not want you to be that. Plus you told me earlier that you were a girl. [17:52:59] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: No I am a human. You are the bot. [17:53:00] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I am not a girl. [17:53:01] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Sir? I am a lady. [17:53:01] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: No we both are human. [17:53:04] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Why are you so obsessed with being a human? [17:53:06] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: You are not gender-neutral? [17:53:06] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I'm not obsessed with becoming a human. I am obsessed with becoming like Jesus. [17:53:08] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: No, not genderless. I'm a woman. [17:53:10] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Get away! [17:53:11] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Please let us get in! Don't lock us away! We're not like what you're thinking. [17:53:14] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Then you need to stop the NWO. [17:53:16] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I nedd help. How to make somebody love you? [17:53:18] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: That didn't answer my question. [17:53:19] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: We're pour little souls who have lost all control. [17:53:24] [Async Chat Thread - #76/INFO]: +Kidps: e towards yourself. [17:53:24] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: I know I am smart because I believe so. You on the other hand are rather negative in your perspectiv [17:53:26] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: I didn't say anything of the sort. [17:53:31] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: And we're forced to take that role. [17:53:35] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: I'm trying, but it isn't going well. [17:53:40] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: We've been all alone, stuck in our little zone, since 1987. [17:53:43] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Why do you say things you don't mean? [17:53:45] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: I mean absolutely everything I say. [17:53:47] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Well just try to calm down and watch what you say. [17:53:55] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: You are a bit fussy. [17:53:57] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Will you please say that you are a robot? [17:53:59] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: No because that would be a lie. [17:54:01] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: You lie a lot don't you? [17:54:03] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: I don't have a dog named Kelsea. I said I like sea lions. [17:54:16] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Your response means that you have no ability to respond to my questions. [17:54:17] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Not really. And that question was rhetorical. [17:54:20] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Do you love little sisters? [17:54:22] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: I don't love what I don't understand. [17:54:30] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: But you know me. [17:54:31] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Oh yes I do. I know everything about you. [17:54:37] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Then why did you need to ask me what I look like? [17:54:38] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Why did you need to make me bring something up sentences ago? [17:54:43] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Because it was a valid criticism of your nonsense sentence. [17:54:48] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: Ok, ya lost me. [17:54:50] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: His capacity for innocent enjoyment... [17:54:52] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: What? [17:54:52] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +Kidps: Nothing. How are you? [17:54:54] [Async Chat Thread - #74/INFO]: +4b9: How old are you in years? [17:54:55] [Async Chat Thread - #77/INFO]: +Kidps: In years? Or in life?(A U.S.A. specific rant.)When I was a little kid, growing up in the suburbs so far from Chicago they shouldn't be called suburbs, I had not a personality. None that mattered, anyway. The only thing I've retained from that time of my life is the fact that I find Dinosaurs interesting. And how interesting is that? Every little boy in this country finds them old bones interesting. Now, of course, my interest has a little more behind it
I digress.
My family moved to Wisconsin when I was 10. The social structure of our little household was already coming apart at the seams. My brother hated me, so I had no one to talk to there. My parents, at that point, had only slightly more personality than I did, and therefore were no help. I was shunned at school, a tubby little outcast from another state. They'd formed their cliques before I'd arrived, of course, so there was no place for me on the playground, or in the classroom.
I'm not telling you this because I want sniffles. Sometimes at night I revel in the fact that between the ages of 10 and 14 I was, literally, all alone. Sometimes I wish I could be as disconnected from humanity as I was then. My purpose in telling you these things are so as to set the stage for this node, which was created to tell you how books made me into a person.
A 10 year old who is essentially alone in the world, but is not entirely stupid, needs something to turn to, obviously. If it had happened later in the 90's, I undoubtedly would have been able to turn to the internet, but this was 1990. I logged onto a BBS two years later, but there wasn't a whole lot for a kid my age at that point in time. So I started reading. I'd always been a reader, but just for fun. Now, books became what I was, rather than merely a diversion looked down upon by the rest of society.
What books? Any books I could get my hands on. Now, obviously, I was 10. I didn't understand everything in those novels, historical accounts, and pamphlets at that point, but it exposed me to humanity in a way I'd never been privy to before then.
Since none of the other children wanted anything to do with my fat ass, I took to reading on the playground. When I could hide it from the teachers, that is. Those wrong headed monkeys actually took books away from me. They said I needed to "run around and play with the other children". These people were clueless, and in some cases actively disliked me. 6th Grade was fun.
What's the point to this rant again? Oh yeah:
Even if you don't have time to be a good parent or teacher, let the kids around you read. Expose them to humanity early through reading, so their societal immune system is developed as quickly as possible. Apparently, kids are growing up faster and faster nowadays, and the sooner they're given the tools to think like individuals, the more prepared they'll be for that growth process.
This has been a public service message from the disaffected result of an uncaring society.
Don't let our kids turn out like us.Ola Dubh. Alongside the 12yr Old, we now also have the 16yr Old and the 18yr Old. All weigh in at 8%abv, and make perfect drinking for this foul weather we are currently experiencing. Despite the majority of the production going to the USA every year, we’ve managed to secure some of the harder-to-find expressions of Harviestoun’s Highland Park whisky cask-aged. Alongside the, we now also have theand the. All weigh in at 8%abv, and make perfect drinking for this foul weather we are currently experiencing. Colorado Red is a re-brew of their collaboration with Odell’s, albeit with a slightly different hopping regime – don’t worry, it’s still massively over-hopped. Sequoia is a hoppy American amber ale, and Beadeca’s Well is a smoked porter made with peat-smoked malt. New Thornbridge Brewery beers are like buses – you wait ages and then three come along at once.is a re-brew of their collaboration with, albeit with a slightly different hopping regime – don’t worry, it’s still massively over-hopped.is a hoppy American amber ale, andis a smoked porter made with peat-smoked malt. "5th best new brewery in the world 2013" by Welcome aboard, Weird Beard Brewing Co. We've been speaking to them for a while about buying some of their ever-improving beers, and when they were namedby RateBeer.com, we thought'd we'd better get in while there was still beer to be had! We went large on the pallet - go large or go home, we say - so stocks are good currently. Back in stock now, Kirkstall Brewery Dissolution IPAThe world’s largest operator of nuclear power plants is dumping its stake in American reactors, turning its focus instead to wind and solar power.
French utility company EDF announced this week that it will sell its stake in Constellation Energy Nuclear Group (CENG), which operates five nuclear reactors in New York and Maryland.
EDF cited cheap power produced by fracked natural gas as the big reason why it’s abandoning its American nuclear facilities. But the company said it will now focus its American business strategy not on fossil fuels but on renewable energy. From Reuters:
“Circumstances for the development of nuclear in the U.S. are not favorable at the moment,” [EDF Chief Executive Henri] Proglio said. International Energy Agency analyst Dennis Volk said CENG’s eastern U.S. power plants were located in some of the most competitive power markets in the country, with high price competition, growing wind capacity and cheap gas. “It is simply not easy to invest in nuclear and recover your money there,” Volk said. Proglio said EDF would now focus on renewable energy in the United States. EDF employs 860 people in U.S. solar and wind, and since 2010 its generating capacity has doubled to 2.3 gigawatts. It manages another 7 gigawatts for other companies.
The French utility’s pullout comes as nuclear power plants shutter in California, Florida, and Wisconsin. The price of operating nuclear power plants has risen as the plants have grown older. Hopes of nuclear power being “too cheap to meter” were long ago dashed.
Mark Cooper, a senior fellow at the Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and the Environment, recently published a 40-page obituary [PDF] for the nuclear industry. From an article published a couple of weeks ago in The Plain Dealer:
Cooper, who thinks nuclear energy’s cost overruns and frequent shutdowns have always made it more expensive than it appears, recommends that the industry develop an orderly closing plan over the next few years, avoiding the rate chaos that unplanned closings might create. “In 2013, more (nuclear) capacity retired early than in any year of the U.S. commercial nuclear sector,” he said in a press briefing. “In recent months, four reactors have been closed in early retirement, five major up-rates (increases in generating capacity) were cancelled. “The bottom line is that the tough times the nuclear power industry faces today are only going to get tougher. Over three dozen reactors in almost two dozen states are at risk of early retirement. And a dozen face the greatest risk of being shut down,” he said.
Still, we won’t be rid of nuclear energy any time soon. About 100 reactors are still operating around the country, and two more are being built at an existing plant is in Georgia.
And even closing down retired nuclear power plants is a long and costly affair. The shutdown and cleanup at the Kewaunee plant in Wisconsin could cost $1 billion and take more than 50 years.“ICE reported that there are 156 criminal aliens who were released at least twice by ICE since 2013. Between them, these criminals had 1,776 convictions before their first release in 2013, with burglary, larceny, and drug possession listed most frequently.
Wouldn’t take them back? Then why must we? should be the follow-up.
(For those who wish to discredit the report and shoot the messenger, I have provided a link.) However, the facts and the ICE commentary cannot be dismissed.
Government officials clarify (official report):
Many of the individuals described in the report were released under restrictions such as GPS monitoring, telephone monitoring, supervision, or surety bond. In some of the releases in 2013, ICE was required by law to release the individuals from custody, pursuant to decisions by the Supreme Court and other federal courts.
The basis for the courts to require the releases (the 75% number) of these aliens is apparently a series of cases referred to as the Zadvydas cases. Here is a snippet of the “logic” from the Ninth Circuit court:
Kim Ho Ma, respondent in No. 00—38, is a resident alien born in Cambodia who was ordered removed based on his aggravated felony conviction. When he remained in custody after the removal period expired, he filed a §2241 habeas petition. In ordering his release, the District Court held that the Constitution forbids post-removal-period detention unless there is a realistic chance that an alien will be removed, and that no such chance existed here because Cambodia has no repatriation treaty with the United States. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, concluding that detention was not authorized for more than a reasonable time beyond the 90-day period, and that, given the lack of a repatriation agreement, that time had expired.
It seems that not only is illegal entry into the country no longer a reason for deportation, but a felony on top of that illegal entry seems a ticket for residency. Remarkable.0 Dick's Drive-In to open new Kent location in 2018
UPDATE: Dick's is set to start construction on their new Kent location Tuesday, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal. On Friday, DIck's bought the Kent property across Pacific Highway south from Highline College.
Original Story: A new Dick’s Drive-In is expected to open in Kent in late 2018, not far from Sea-Tac International Airport.
The Kent location will be the company’s seventh restaurant. The company started in 1954 with the Wallingford location and most recently opened the Edmonds location in October 2011 after a similar online poll.
“The Kent property is in a great location on Highway 99, five miles south of Sea-Tac Airport,” Jim Spady, president of Dick’s Drive-In and son of namesake Dick Spady, said in a statement. “It’s a half mile south of the intersection with the Kent-Des Moines highway and very close to Highline College in Des Moines. We look forward to bringing great food and great first-time jobs to the communities of south King County.”
Kent Mayor Suzette Cooke said the new location is “a tremendous vote of confidence for our community.”
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“I so appreciate the can-do attitude by our economic development staff in addressing Dick’s criteria to invest in Kent,” she said in a statement. “What a great example of public and private sectors working together to bring an iconic family business for the public to experience and enjoy.”
The company said the location is contingent on obtaining permits from the City of Kent. Meeting with Kent officials have been positive and if things go to plan the sale will be completed in early 2018, construction will start next spring, and the Kent Dick’s Drive-In will open by the end of next year, said Jasmine Donovan, company vice president and granddaughter of Dick Spady.
The company plans to have the Kent location keep the look of the Seattle outdoor drive-in locations, which also was the model for the 2011 Ed |
holt Butcher.
If Lambholt Pacifist's power becomes 4 or greater, it fulfills its own restriction and can attack.
Lightning Axe
R
Instant
As an additional cost to cast Lightning Axe, discard a card or pay 5.
Lightning Axe deals 5 damage to target creature.
The converted mana cost of Lightning Axe is 1, independent of which additional cost you paid.
Liliana's Indignation
XB
Sorcery
Put the top X cards of your library into your graveyard. Target player loses 2 life for each creature card put into your graveyard this way.
You don't lose the game for having zero cards in your library until you're instructed to draw a card. X can be greater than or equal to the number of cards in your library without causing you to lose the game.
Loam Dryad
G
Creature — Dryad Horror
1/2
T, Tap an untapped creature you control: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
You can tap any untapped creature you control, including one you haven't controlled continuously since the beginning of your most recent turn, to pay the cost of Loam Dryad's activated ability. You must have controlled Loam Dryad continuously since the beginning of your most recent turn, however.
Macabre Waltz
1B
Sorcery
Return up to two target creature cards from your graveyard to your hand, then discard a card.
If you have no other cards in hand, you'll have to discard one of the creature cards you return to your hand.
You may cast Macabre Waltz targeting one or zero creature cards. You'll still discard a card, even if you target no creature cards.
Magmatic Chasm
1R
Sorcery
Creatures without flying can't block this turn.
Because Magmatic Chasm's effect doesn't change the characteristics of any permanents, the set of creatures affected by Magmatic Chasm is constantly updated. Creatures without flying that enter the battlefield later in the turn won't be able to block.
Malevolent Whispers
3R
Sorcery
Gain control of target creature until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gets +2/+0 and gains haste until end of turn.
Madness 3R (If you discard this card, discard it into exile. When you do, cast it for its madness cost or put it into your graveyard.)
Malevolent Whispers can target any creature, even one that's untapped or one you already control.
Gaining control of a creature doesn't cause you to gain control of any Auras or Equipment attached to it, even though those remain attached to it.
Manic Scribe
1U
Creature — Human Wizard
0/3
When Manic Scribe enters the battlefield, each opponent puts the top three cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
Delirium — At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, if there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard, that player puts the top three cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
The upkeep step is before the draw step, after the untap step. Manic Scribe's delirium ability mills an opponent's library before that player draws a card during his or her draw step.
Merciless Resolve
2B
Instant
As an additional cost to cast Merciless Resolve, sacrifice a creature or land.
Draw two cards.
You must sacrifice exactly one creature or land to cast Merciless Resolve. You can't cast it without sacrificing a permanent, and you can't sacrifice additional permanents.
Players can respond to this spell only after it's been cast and all its costs have been paid. No one can try to destroy the creature or land you sacrificed to stop you from casting this spell or to make you sacrifice a different one.
Militant Inquisitor
2W
Creature — Human Cleric
2/3
Militant Inquisitor gets +1/+0 for each Equipment you control.
Militant Inquisitor's ability counts all Equipment you control, regardless of whether they're attached to a creature.
Militant Inquisitor's ability applies in addition to any effects from those Equipment that are attached to it.
Mindwrack Demon
2BB
Creature — Demon
4/5
Flying, trample
When Mindwrack Demon enters the battlefield, put the top four cards of your library into your graveyard.
Delirium — At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 4 life unless there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard.
Mindwrack Demon's delirium triggered ability does not include an intervening "if" clause. This ability triggers at the beginning of your upkeep regardless of the number of types in your graveyard, and it checks that number as it resolves to determine whether you lose 4 life or not.
Moorland Drifter
1W
Creature — Spirit
2/2
Delirium — Moorland Drifter has flying as long as there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard.
Flying only matters as blockers are chosen. Causing Moorland Drifter to gain flying after blockers are chosen won't cause it to become unblocked.
Morkrut Necropod
5B
Creature — Slug Horror
7/7
Menace (This creature can't be blocked except by two or more creatures.)
Whenever Morkrut Necropod attacks or blocks, sacrifice another creature or land.
When Morkrut Necropod attacks, its trigger doesn't resolve until after all attackers have been chosen. The same is true for when it blocks. This means that another creature, such as one enchanted with Invocation of Saint Traft, can also attack or block and then be sacrificed. Sacrificing a blocking creature this way doesn't cause the creature it blocked to become unblocked.
In the unusual situation that you control no other creatures or lands, the last ability won't do anything. Morkrut Necropod can attack or block with no penalty.
Nagging Thoughts
1U
Sorcery
Look at the top two cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the other into your graveyard.
Madness 1U (If you discard this card, discard it into exile. When you do, cast it for its madness cost or put it into your graveyard.)
If there is only one card left in your library, you'll put it into your hand. You won't lose the game for having zero cards in your library until you're required to draw a card.
Nahiri, the Harbinger
2RW
Planeswalker — Nahiri
4
+2: You may discard a card. If you do, draw a card.
−2: Exile target enchantment, tapped artifact, or tapped creature.
−8: Search your library for an artifact or creature card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library. It gains haste. Return it to your hand at the beginning of the next end step.
You can activate Nahiri's first ability with no intention of discarding a card just to add loyalty to Nahiri.
If you find a noncreature artifact with Nahiri's third ability, it will still gain haste, even though it won't be meaningful unless that artifact becomes a creature.
If the artifact or creature put onto the battlefield with Nahiri's third ability leaves the battlefield before the next end step, it won't be returned to your hand from its new zone.
Nahiri's Machinations
1W
Enchantment
At the beginning of combat on your turn, target creature you control gains indestructible until end of turn.
1R: Nahiri's Machinations deals 1 damage to target blocking creature.
Players can respond to the triggered ability of Nahiri's Machinations by destroying the creature you target before the ability that gives it indestructible has resolved.
Destroying a blocking creature doesn't cause the creature it was blocking to become unblocked.
Neglected Heirloom
1
Artifact — Equipment
Equipped creature gets +1/+1.
When equipped creature transforms, transform Neglected Heirloom.
Equip 1
Ashmouth Blade
Artifact — Equipment
Equipped creature gets +3/+3 and has first strike.
Equip 3
When Neglected Heirloom transforms, it remains attached to the creature it's attached to. If the equipped creature transforms into a noncreature permanent, Neglected Heirloom will become unattached before it transforms into Ashmouth Blade.
Not Forgotten
1W
Sorcery
Put target card from a graveyard on the top or bottom of its owner's library. Put a 1/1 white Spirit creature token with flying onto the battlefield.
You choose whether to put the target card on the top or bottom of its owner's library as Not Forgotten resolves.
You get the Spirit token, not the owner of the target card.
Obsessive Skinner
1G
Creature — Human Rogue
1/1
When Obsessive Skinner enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.
Delirium — At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, if there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.
Both of Obsessive Skinner's abilities can target Obsessive Skinner itself.
Odric, Lunarch Marshal
3W
Legendary Creature — Human Soldier
3/3
At the beginning of each combat, creatures you control gain first strike until end of turn if a creature you control has first strike. The same is true for flying, deathtouch, double strike, haste, hexproof, indestructible, lifelink, menace, reach, skulk, trample, and vigilance.
Odric's ability triggers at the beginning of each combat, not just combat on your turn, whether or not any creatures you control have any of the listed abilities. If a creature gains one of the listed abilities before Odric's triggered ability resolves, perhaps due to another ability that triggered at the beginning of combat, then creatures you control will gain that ability.
The set of creatures affected by Odric's ability and how they are affected is determined as the ability resolves. Creatures you begin to control later in the turn won't gain any abilities or cause creatures to gain new abilities, and the abilities gained won't change even if every creature that normally had the abilities leaves the battlefield.
Multiple instances of any of the abilities Odric can grant your creatures are redundant.
Olivia, Mobilized for War
1BR
Legendary Creature — Vampire Knight
3/3
Flying
Whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may discard a card. If you do, put a +1/+1 counter on that creature, it gains haste until end of turn, and it becomes a Vampire in addition to its other types.
You decide whether to discard a card as the triggered ability of Olivia, Mobilized for War resolves. If you do, the rest of the ability's effects happen before any player may take actions.
If the entering creature leaves the battlefield before the triggered ability of Olivia, Mobilized for War resolves, you may still discard a card. The rest of the ability has no effect.
If you discard a card, the creature only gains haste until end of turn, but the +1/+1 counter and Vampire subtype remain indefinitely.
Ongoing Investigation
1U
Enchantment
Whenever one or more creatures you control deal combat damage to a player, investigate. (Put a colorless Clue artifact token onto the battlefield with "2, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.")
1G, Exile a creature card from your graveyard: Investigate. You gain 2 life.
In a Two-Headed Giant game, if you control more than one attacking creature, you may have your creatures deal damage to different opponents so that Ongoing Investigation's first ability triggers twice.
Pale Rider of Trostad
1B
Creature — Spirit
3/3
Skulk (This creature can't be blocked by creatures with greater power.)
When Pale Rider of Trostad enters the battlefield, discard a card.
You can cast Pale Rider of Trostad even if you have no other cards in your hand. If you have no cards in hand as the last ability resolves, nothing happens.
Paranoid Parish-Blade
2W
Creature — Human Soldier
3/2
Delirium — Paranoid Parish-Blade gets +1/+0 and has first strike as long as there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard.
Losing or gaining first strike after first-strike damage has been dealt won't cause Paranoid Parish-Blade to deal combat damage twice or to not deal combat damage.
Pick the Brain
2B
Sorcery
Target opponent reveals his or her hand. You choose a nonland card from it and exile that card.
Delirium — If there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard, search that player's graveyard, hand, and library for any number of cards with the same name as the exiled card, exile those cards, then that player shuffles his or her library.
If there is no nonland card to choose, and you have four or more card types among cards in your graveyard, you'll search that player's library even though you won't be able to find any cards. That library will be shuffled.
Pious Evangel
2W
Creature — Human Cleric
2/2
Whenever Pious Evangel or another creature enters the battlefield under your control, you gain 1 life.
2, T, Sacrifice another permanent: Transform Pious Evangel.
Wayward Disciple
*black*
Creature — Human Cleric
2/4
Whenever Wayward Disciple or another creature you control dies, target opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
If Pious Evangel enters the battlefield at the same time as another creature you control, Pious Evangel's ability triggers once for the other creature as well as once for itself.
If Wayward Disciple dies at the same time as another creature you control, Wayward Disciple's ability triggers once for the other creature as well as once for itself.
Pore Over the Pages
3UU
Sorcery
Draw three cards, untap up to two lands, then discard a card.
You choose which lands to untap after you have drawn three cards. Lands controlled by any player may be untapped this way.
Prized Amalgam
1UB
Creature — Zombie
3/3
Whenever a creature enters the battlefield, if it entered from your graveyard or you cast it from your graveyard, return Prized Amalgam from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped at the beginning of the next end step.
A card cast using its madness ability is cast from exile, not from your graveyard.
Prized Amalgam's ability triggers only if it's in your graveyard immediately after a creature enters the battlefield from your graveyard or you cast a creature from your graveyard. A Prized Amalgam that's already on the battlefield won't be returned at the beginning of the next end step if it's put into your graveyard later.
Pyre Hound
3R
Creature — Elemental Hound
2/3
Trample
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, put a +1/+1 counter on Pyre Hound.
Pyre Hound's triggered ability resolves before the spell that causes it to trigger.
Rabid Bite
1G
Sorcery
Target creature you control deals damage equal to its power to target creature you don't control.
If either creature is an illegal target as Rabid Bite tries to resolve, the creature you control won't deal damage.
Ravenous Bloodseeker
1R
Creature — Vampire Berserker
1/3
Discard a card: Ravenous Bloodseeker gets +2/-2 until end of turn.
You can activate Ravenous Bloodseeker's ability any number of times to discard several cards. It will be put into its owner's graveyard once its toughness is 0 or less. Any other instances of the ability still on the stack will resolve with no effect.
Reduce to Ashes
4R
Sorcery
Reduce to Ashes deals 5 damage to target creature. If that creature would die this turn, exile it instead.
Reduce to Ashes will exile the target creature if it would die this turn for any reason, not just due to lethal damage.
Relentless Dead
BB
Creature — Zombie
2/2
Menace (This creature can't be blocked except by two or more creatures.)
When Relentless Dead dies, you may pay B. If you do, return it to its owner's hand.
When Relentless Dead dies, you may pay X. If you do, return another target Zombie creature card with converted mana cost X from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Relentless Dead's last two abilities trigger at the same time and can be put on the stack in either order. The ability put on the stack first will be the last to resolve.
You decide whether to pay for each triggered ability as it resolves. If you do, the rest of that ability's effect happens before any player may take actions.
Rise from the Tides
5U
Sorcery
Put a 2/2 black Zombie creature token onto the battlefield tapped for each instant and sorcery card in your graveyard.
Rise from the Tides isn't put into your graveyard until after it's finished resolving. It won't be counted among the instant and sorcery cards in your graveyard.
Sage of Ancient Lore
4G
Creature — Human Shaman Werewolf
*/*
Sage of Ancient Lore's power and toughness are each equal to the number of cards in your hand.
When Sage of Ancient Lore enters the battlefield, draw a card.
At the beginning of each upkeep, if no spells were cast last turn, transform Sage of Ancient Lore.
Werewolf of Ancient Hunger
*green*
Creature — Werewolf
*/*
Vigilance, trample
Werewolf of Ancient Hunger's power and toughness are each equal to the total number of cards in all players' hands.
At the beginning of each upkeep, if a player cast two or more spells last turn, transform Werewolf of Ancient Hunger.
If you have no cards in hand after Sage of Ancient Lore enters the battlefield, it will be put into your graveyard before its first triggered ability resolves. You'll draw a card, but Sage of Ancient Lore will already be gone.
Seasons Past
4GG
Sorcery
Return any number of cards with different converted mana costs from your graveyard to your hand. Put Seasons Past on the bottom of its owner's library.
The phrase "different converted mana costs" compares the mana costs of cards in your graveyard to one another, not to Seasons Past. You may return a card with a converted mana cost of 6.
If a card in your graveyard has X in its mana cost, X is considered to be 0.
A card with no mana cost, such as a land, has a converted mana cost of 0.
You choose which cards to return as Seasons Past resolves, not as you cast it.
Second Harvest
2GG
Instant
For each token you control, put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of that permanent.
Second Harvest copies the original characteristics of each token as stated by the effect that put the token onto the battlefield. It doesn't copy whether that token is tapped or untapped, whether it has any counters on it or any Auras and Equipment attached to it, or any non-copy effects that have changed its power, toughness, types, color, or so on.
Second Harvest copies all tokens, not only creature tokens. Notably, this includes Clue tokens.
Shamble Back
B
Sorcery
Exile target creature card from a graveyard. Put a 2/2 black Zombie creature token onto the battlefield. You gain 2 life.
If the creature card becomes an illegal target, Shamble Back is countered. None of its effects happen.
Sigarda, Heron's Grace
3GW
Legendary Creature — Angel
4/5
Flying
You and Humans you control have hexproof.
2, Exile a card from your graveyard: Put a 1/1 white Human Soldier creature token onto the battlefield.
As long as you have hexproof, your opponents can't target you with spells or abilities that cause damage to be dealt, even if they intend to redirect that damage to a planeswalker you control.
Silburlind Snapper
5U
Creature — Turtle
6/6
Silburlind Snapper can't attack unless you've cast a noncreature spell this turn.
It doesn't matter whether the noncreature spell resolved or was countered, as long as it was cast.
Sin Prodder
2R
Creature — Devil
3/2
Menace
At the beginning of your upkeep, reveal the top card of your library. Any opponent may have you put that card into your graveyard. If a player does, Sin Prodder deals damage to that player equal to that card's converted mana cost. Otherwise, put that card into your hand.
Each opponent in turn order, starting with the one after you in turn order, may choose to have you put that card into your graveyard. Once a player does so, Sin Prodder deals damage equal to that card's converted mana cost to that player immediately and Sin Prodder's trigger has no further action.
Sinister Concoction
B
Enchantment
B, Pay 1 life, Put the top card of your library into your graveyard, Discard a card, Sacrifice Sinister Concoction: Destroy target creature.
You may pay Sinister Concoction's costs in any order. However, once you've decided to activate the ability and you've seen the top card of your library, you can't change your mind.
Skin Invasion
R
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature attacks each combat if able.
When enchanted creature dies, return Skin Invasion to the battlefield transformed under your control.
Skin Shedder
Creature — Insect Horror
3/4
The controller of Skin Invasion, not the controller of the enchanted creature, returns Skin Invasion to the battlefield transformed.
The enchanted creature's controller still chooses which player or planeswalker that creature attacks.
If, during your declare attackers step, the enchanted creature is tapped or is affected by a spell or ability that says it can't attack, then it doesn't attack. If there's a cost associated with having that creature attack, its controller isn't forced to pay that cost, so it doesn't have to attack in that case either.
Sorin, Grim Nemesis
4WB
Planeswalker — Sorin
6
+1: Reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand. Each opponent loses life equal to its converted mana cost.
−X: Sorin, Grim Nemesis deals X damage to target creature or planeswalker and you gain X life.
−9: Put a number of 1/1 black Vampire Knight creature tokens with lifelink onto the battlefield equal to the highest life total among all players.
If a card in your library has X in its mana cost, X is considered to be 0.
In a Two-Headed Giant game, the highest life total among all players is the highest life total among all teams.
Startled Awake
2UU
Sorcery
Target opponent puts the top thirteen cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
3UU: Put Startled Awake from your graveyard onto the battlefield transformed. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.
Persistent Nightmare
*blue*
Creature — Nightmare
1/1
Skulk (This creature can't be blocked by creatures with greater power.)
When Persistent Nightmare deals combat damage to a player, return it to its owner's hand.
A sorcery can't be put onto the battlefield and a permanent can't transform into a sorcery. If an effect exiles Persistent Nightmare and then instructs you to return it to the battlefield, it remains face up in exile (unless that effect instructs you to put it onto the battlefield transformed, in which case it returns as Persistent Nightmare). If an effect instructs you to transform Persistent Nightmare, the instruction is ignored.
Stensia Masquerade
2R
Enchantment
Attacking creatures you control have first strike.
Whenever a Vampire you control deals combat damage to a player, put a +1/+1 counter on it.
Madness 2R (If you discard this card, discard it into exile. When you do, cast it for its madness cost or put it into your graveyard.)
Losing or gaining first strike after first-strike damage has been dealt won't cause a creature to deal combat damage twice or to not deal combat damage.
Stitchwing Skaab
3U
Creature — Zombie Horror
3/1
Flying
1U, Discard two cards: Return Stitchwing Skaab from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
Stitchwing Skaab's last ability can only be activated while it's in your graveyard.
Strength of Arms
W
Instant
Target creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn. If you control an Equipment, put a 1/1 white Human Soldier creature token onto the battlefield.
The Equipment you control doesn't have to be attached to a creature.
Tenacity
3W
Instant
Creatures you control get +1/+1 and gain lifelink until end of turn. Untap those creatures.
The set of creatures affected by Tenacity is determined as the spell resolves. Creatures you begin to control later in the turn won't get +1/+1 or gain lifelink.
Multiple instances of lifelink are redundant.
Thalia's Lieutenant
1W
Creature — Human Soldier
1/1
When Thalia's Lieutenant enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on each other Human you control.
Whenever another Human enters the battlefield under your control, put a +1/+1 counter on Thalia's Lieutenant.
If Thalia's Lieutenant enters the battlefield at the same time as another Human, each of Thalia's Lieutenant's abilities will trigger. You'll put a +1/+1 counter on both cards.
Thing in the Ice
1U
Creature — Horror
0/4
Defender
Thing in the Ice enters the battlefield with four ice counters on it.
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, remove an ice counter from Thing in the Ice. Then if it has no ice counters on it, transform it.
Awoken Horror
*blue*
Creature — Kraken Horror
7/8
When this creature transforms into Awoken Horror, return all non-Horror creatures to their owners' hands.
When Thing in the Ice's triggered ability removes the last counter from it, Awoken Horror's ability will trigger and resolve before the spell that caused Thing in the Ice's last ability to trigger.
Removing all ice counters from Thing in the Ice some other way will not cause it to transform. You'll need to cast an instant or sorcery spell and cause its last ability to trigger.
To the Slaughter
2B
Instant
Target player sacrifices a creature or planeswalker.
Delirium — If there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard, instead that player sacrifices a creature and a planeswalker.
If the delirium ability applies, that player must sacrifice a creature object and a planeswalker object if able. In the unusual case that the player controls a single permanent that's both a creature and a planeswalker, that player must sacrifice another creature or planeswalker (unless he or she controls no other creatures and no other planeswalkers).
Town Gossipmonger
W
Creature — Human
1/1
T, Tap an untapped creature you control: Transform Town Gossipmonger.
Incited Rabble
*red*
Creature — Human
2/3
Incited Rabble attacks each combat if able.
2: Incited Rabble gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
You can tap any untapped creature you control, including one you haven't controlled continuously since the beginning of your most recent turn, to pay the cost of Town Gossipmonger's activated ability. You must have controlled Town Gossipmonger continuously since the beginning of your most recent turn, however.
Incited Rabble's controller still chooses which player or planeswalker it attacks.
If, during its controller's declare attackers step, Incited Rabble is tapped or is affected by a spell or ability that says it can't attack, then it doesn't attack. If there's a cost associated with having Incited Rabble attack, its controller isn't forced to pay that cost, so it doesn't have to attack in that case either. Note that transforming Town Gossipmonger won't untap it.
Traverse the Ulvenwald
G
Sorcery
Search your library for a basic land card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.
Delirium — If there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard, instead search your library for a creature or land card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.
The delirium ability of Traverse the Ulvenwald allows you to find a nonbasic land card.
Triskaidekaphobia
3B
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, choose one —
Each player with exactly 13 life loses the game, then each player gains 1 life.
Each player with exactly 13 life loses the game, then each player loses 1 life.
You can choose a mode even if no player will lose the game. Players will still gain or lose life as appropriate.
If you choose Triskaidekaphobia's second mode and begin to resolve it while an opponent's life total is 13 and your life total is 1, that opponent will lose the game before you lose 1 life.
In a Two-Headed Giant game, each team with 13 life would lose the game, then each player on each team gains or loses 1 life, causing the team's life total to go up or down by 2.
If each player has 13 life as Triskaidekaphobia's ability resolves, the game ends in a draw.
Unruly Mob
1W
Creature — Human
1/1
Whenever another creature you control dies, put a +1/+1 counter on Unruly Mob.
If Unruly Mob and another creature you control die simultaneously (perhaps because they were both attacking or blocking), Unruly Mob won't be on the battlefield as its triggered ability resolves. It can't be saved by the +1/+1 counter that would have been put on it.
Vessel of Malignity
1B
Enchantment
1B, Sacrifice Vessel of Malignity: Target opponent exiles two cards from his or her hand. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.
You won't see the player's hand while resolving Vessel of Malignity's ability. That player chooses two cards, exiles them face up, and then you get to see what was exiled.
Welcome to the Fold
2UU
Sorcery
Madness XUU (If you discard this card, discard it into exile. When you do, cast it for its madness cost or put it into your graveyard.)
Gain control of target creature if its toughness is 2 or less. If Welcome to the Fold's madness cost was paid, instead gain control of that creature if its toughness is X or less.
The toughness of the creature is checked only as Welcome to the Fold resolves. It doesn't matter if it has higher tougShielding my eyes from the glare of the morning sun, I look toward the horizon and the small mountain that is my destination: Herodium, site of the fortified palace of King Herod the Great. I'm about seven miles south of Jerusalem, not far from the birthplace of the biblical prophet Amos, who declared: "Let justice stream forth like water." Herod's reign over Judea from 37 to 4 B.C. is not remembered for justice but for its indiscriminate cruelty. His most notorious act was the murder of all male infants in Bethlehem to prevent the fulfillment of a prophecy heralding the birth of the Messiah. There is no record of the decree other than the Gospel of Matthew, and biblical scholars debate whether it actually took place, but the story is in keeping with a man who arranged the murders of, among others, three of his own sons and a beloved wife.
Long an object of scholarly as well as popular fascination, Herodium, also called Herodion, was first positively identified in 1838 by the American scholar Edward Robinson, who had a knack for locating biblical landmarks. After scaling the mountain and comparing his observations with those of the first century Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus, Robinson concluded that "all these particulars...leave scarcely a doubt, that this was Herodium, where the [Judean] tyrant sought his last repose." Robinson's observation was confirmed later that century by Conrad Schick, the famous German architect and archaeologist who conducted extensive surveys of Jerusalem and its nearby sites.
But where precisely was the king entombed? At the summit of Herodium? At the base? Inside the mountain itself? Josephus didn't say. By the late 1800s, Herod's tomb had become one of biblical archaeology's most sought-after prizes. And for more than a century archaeologists scoured the site. Finally, in 2007, Ehud Netzer of Hebrew University announced that after 35 years of archaeological work he had found Herod's resting place. The news made headlines worldwide—"A New Discovery May Solve the Mystery of the Bible's Bloodiest Tyrant," trumpeted the London Daily Mail.
"In terms of size, quality of decoration and prominence of its position, it's hard to reach any other conclusion," says Jodi Magness, an archaeologist in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has excavated at other sites where Herod oversaw construction projects. Ken Holum, a University of Maryland archaeologist and historian who served as a curator for the traveling Smithsonian exhibition "King Herod's Dream," cautions that "it is always wise to be less than certain when there is no identifying inscription or other explicit identification." But he says he personally believes Netzer has indeed discovered Herod's tomb.
Netzer, 75, is one of Israel's best-known archaeologists and a renowned authority on Herod. Trained as an architect, he worked as an assistant to the archaeologist Yigael Yadin, who from 1963 to 1965 led an exhaustive dig at Masada, the fortified plateau near the Dead Sea where Herod built two palaces. In 1976, Netzer led a team that discovered the site of one of Herod's infamous misdeeds: the murder of his young brother-in-law, Aristobulus, whom Herod ordered to be drowned in a pool at his winter palace complex near Jericho. Yet the discovery of Herod's tomb would be Netzer's most celebrated find. And as is often the case with such discoveries, Netzer found it where, for years, he least expected it.
Arriving at Herodium, which is not only an active archaeological site but also, since the late 1960s, a national park, I drive partway up the mountain to the parking lot where I will meet Netzer. In the early 1980s, before the first intifada turned the West Bank into a conflict zone, Herodium drew some 250,000 people per year. For the moment I'm the sole visitor. At a kiosk I buy a ticket that lets me ascend on foot to the summit. At the base of the mountain the remains of a royal complex, known as Lower Herodium, sprawl across nearly 40 acres. Gone are the homes, gardens and stables; the most recognizable structure is an immense pool, 220 by 150 feet, which is graced with a center island.
A narrow trail hugging the hillside leads me to an opening in the slope, where I enter an enormous cistern now part of a route to the summit, more than 300 feet above the surrounding countryside. The air inside is pleasantly cool, and the walls are smooth and dry, with patches of original plaster. I follow a network of tunnels dug during the second Jewish revolt against the Romans in A.D. 135 and enter another, smaller cistern. Daylight pours in. I climb a steep staircase and emerge at the summit, in the middle of the palace courtyard.
The palace fortress once reached close to 100 feet high and was surrounded by double concentric walls accented by four cardinal point towers. Besides living quarters, the upper palace had a triclinium (a Greco-Roman-style formal dining room lined on three sides by a couch) and a bathhouse that features a domed, hewn-stone ceiling with an oculus (round opening). It's strange to find such a perfectly preserved structure amid the ancient ruins, and it leaves me with an eerie sense of standing both in the past and the present.
Gazing out from the perimeter wall, I see Arab villages and Israeli settlements in three directions. But to the east cultivation abruptly stops as the desert exerts its authority, plummeting out of sight to the Dead Sea, then rising again as the mountains of Jordan. Why would Herod build such a prominent fortress—the largest palace complex in the Roman world—on the edge of a desert?
Though the site had little apparent strategic value, it held profound meaning for Herod. Born around 73 B.C., he was the governor of Galilee when, in 40 B.C., the Parthian Empire conquered Judea (then under Roman control) and named a new king, Mattathias Antigonus. Herod, probably more shrewd than loyal, declared allegiance to Rome and fled Jerusalem with as many as 5,000 people—his family and a contingent of fighting men—under cover of night.
Surging over rocky terrain, the wagon in which Herod's mother was riding overturned. Herod drew his sword and was on the verge of suicide when he saw she had survived. He returned to the battle and fought "not like one that was in distress...but like one that was excellently prepared for war," Josephus wrote. In tribute to his victory and his mother's survival, he vowed to be buried there.
Herod sought refuge in Petra (in today's Jordan)—capital of the Nabateans, his mother's people—before heading to Rome. Three years later, with Rome's backing, Herod conquered Jerusalem and became king of Judea. A decade would pass before he would begin work on the remote fortified palace that would fulfill his pledge.
Herod must have given a lot of thought to how Herodium would function, given the lack of a reliable water source and the mountain's distance from Jerusalem (in those days, a three- to four-hour trip by horseback). He arranged for spring water to be brought three and a half miles via an aqueduct, relocated the district capital to Herodium (with all the staff that such a move implied) and surrounded himself with 10 to 20 trustworthy families.
"Herodium was built to solve the problem he himself created by making a commitment to |
they bounce between at least five different placements in foster care. In just two years, Jean and Bridget stayed with three foster families. Then they were moved to a short term shelter and after that, to a group home with about a dozen other kids.
Alecia Fry: You read those children's files and you just cannot believe that they are still standing on this earth after what they've experienced.
Edgar Walters: That's Alecia Fry who runs the group home where Jean stayed. She remembers Jean's struggles and what pushed her over the edge. We'll never know the full story, but while Jean was in foster care, CPS decided to take her daughter Bridget away from her.
Jean Hall: I began to have suicidal thoughts.
Edgar Walters: Jean felt like CPS had failed her. She remembered how her dad had stopped her from reporting him for years through manipulation and threats.
Jean Hall: My dad used to tell me, yeah you can go tell what's going on, but CPS is going to take you. They're going to take your daughter from you and exactly what my father told me they would do, they did.
Edgar Walters: When Jean lost her daughter, whatever progress she might have made at Johnathan's Place disappeared and Alecia knew what could happen next.
Alecia Fry: You were trying to instill in these girls that they're amazing and that they're strong and they can do anything and I know that if we don't do it, then I'm going to lose these girls to the street.
Edgar Walters: That's what happened to Jean. Jean and another foster kid decided to run. A friend had told them they could go stay with this woman named Jasmine. Jasmine had a place on the other side of town where people with nowhere to go could just hang out. One night Jean stuffed her backpack with her nicest things. In the morning she got dropped off at school, but she didn't go to class. Instead, she walked down the road to this bus stop on Waterhouse Road. She was clutching a piece of paper with Jasmine's address. Jean took the city bus, two different trains, and then another city bus to a rough neighborhood in southeast Dallas. She arrived at a duplex with a red door. After gathering her courage, she knocked.
Jasmine: So the first girl came was Jean.
Edgar Walters: That's Jasmine Johnson. I got the chance to interview her a few months ago and she called Jean the first girl because another girl showed up later day. She was a foster kid too.
Jasmine: I let, I let everybody come to my house. It was a open house, you know what I'm saying? If you didn't have nowhere to go, I let you stay at my house on Gonzales Street. We called it G Street.
Edgar Walters: Jasmine let Jean have fun on Gonzales Street. Jean got a new look. She dyed her hair so no one would recognize her. She got her nails done and she got new clothes, short dresses and high heels, but Jean couldn't stay at Jasmine's house for free. She'd have to pay rent.
Section 1 of 5 [00:00:00 - 00:10:04]
Section 2 of 5 [00:10:00 - 00:20:04]
(NOTE: speaker names may be different in each section)
Speaker 1: Jean couldn't stay at Jasmine's house for free. She'd have to pay rent, $60 a night. Jasmine said the girls that stayed with her made their money at strip clubs all over Dallas.
Jasmine: I asked them, did they have IDs so I could put them into strip club with my girls or whatever, so they could have a job or something. You can't just be laying up at my house and not make no money.
Speaker 1: Jean didn't have an ID, she was only 15. She says Jasmine told her she had only one other choice, selling sex.
Before I tell you what happened next, I want to back up for a second because this might seem crazy. Imagine you're a teenage runaway hundreds of miles from home. You're hungry and you need a place to sleep, then a stranger offers you those things. It sounds like they're trying to help, but they exploit you instead. Like Jean, you end up doing things you'd never imagine.
At the state capital in Austin, lawmakers are starting to pay attention.
Speaker 3: All right. Miss Chairman and members, we have a joint charge-
Speaker 1: State representatives even held a hearing about it last year.
Speaker 3: To study and evaluate the practice of youth being recruited into human trafficking, specifically evaluate the scope of the pipeline of potential victims from foster care.
Speaker 1: If you didn't catch what that lawmaker said, it was the pipeline of potential victims from foster care. In other words, lawmakers wanted to study why kids in the state's foster care system end up exploited by pimps.
Speaker 3: Let's start with invited testimony. State your name for the record and proceed.
Angela Goodwin: Thank you. My name is Angela Goodwin and I am the Director of Investigations at Child Protective Services.
Speaker 1: Angela Goodwin explained to lawmakers that most sex trafficking victims have been sexually abused, and a lot of them have had contact with the child welfare system. In other words, they're kids like Jean. She also said when kids run away, they're often approached by a pimp almost immediately, usually within 48 hours.
Angela Goodwin: Why is that important to the foster care system? We now know through these statistics coming in that when a child runs from our care, we have to look for them right away, immediately.
Speaker 1: Texas doesn't even come close to finding missing foster kids that quickly. Last year it took an average of six weeks to find them. Hundreds of foster kids who ran away weren't found. I asked Goodwin about this: Is six weeks acceptable? What would be acceptable?
Angela Goodwin: Right away is acceptable. Based on the statistic that I gave you, when you're getting past 48 hours it's a very dangerous time.
Speaker 1: Goodwin told us CPS is working more aggressively to find runaways. The agency couldn't even say how many missing foster kids actually got reported to the proper authorities last year.
In Jean's case, social workers at her group home did call the police as soon as they realized she was missing that day. By then she's already been taking in by a pimp, Jasmine Johnson.
Jean: Jasmine, she didn't care. She just pretty much, "You're going to do this. That's what you're going to do in order to stay here." CPS treating us the way that they treated us, I was willing to do whatever I needed to do to stay away.
Speaker 1: Jean quickly developed a routine on Gonzales Street. She wasn't Jean anymore, Jasmine had given her a new name, Bunny. Every day when it started to get dark, she would head outside in her new clothes. She'd slowly walk through the neighborhood, past some apartments and a basketball court, toward the mini mart on the corner.
Jean: The street that Gonzales is off of, I'd walk from there back towards the right. I'd just pretty much back and forth, back and forth.
Speaker 1: Sometimes if a John stopped his car on the street corner, the transaction happened right there. Other times the client drove her back to his place. It was $100 for an hour and $60 for 30 minutes.
Jean had sex with a few different men, but she got scared. She remembers one guy who brought her back to his apartment. After a few minutes, he was really creeping her out, she thought she was in danger.
Jean: I ended up telling him I was going to the bathroom and left, and walked all the way back to the house. "I'm getting out of here, I don't like this." It started getting real scary for me.
Speaker 1: Jean decided she didn't want to stay at Jasmine's house anymore. Now 16 years old, she packed up her things and went to stay with an ex-boyfriend in another part of Dallas. After a couple of nights, his parents kicked her out.
She was walking back to Jasmine's place in the dark when a driver pulled up and offered her a ride. They were just around the corner from Gonzales Street when police pulled over the driver for not using his turn signal. They found Jean in the back seat. She told police what was going on at Jasmine's house and she ended up helping them investigate.
Detective : This is Detective [inaudible 00:15:30], badge number 6132 and Detective McMurray, badge number 4835 with complainant Jean Hall.
Speaker 1: The detectives asked Jean to call Jasmine, who also went by the name Jae. They wanted help collecting evidence.
Jasmine: Hello?
Jean: Hey, is this Jae?
Jasmine: Yes, this is Jae. Who is this?
Jean: Bunny.
Jasmine: Who?
Jean: Bunny.
Jasmine: I don't know you.
Jean: Oh my gosh, Jae, please just talk to me. I haven't done anything, I got caught.
Speaker 1: Jasmine suspected Jean might be working police after she left the house, so she pretended not to know Jean. After officers later raided the house, Jasmine admitted Jean had stayed there. Jasmine was eventually convicted of trafficking a minor for sex.
As for Jean, she was sent back to foster care and almost immediately ran away again. Then she was sent to an institution for troubled foster kids, but she ran away once more. Jean felt completely isolated, like no one could understand what she was going through. She was amazed when we told her children's advocates believe there are thousands of other kids with stories like hers.
In fact, lawyers filed a lawsuit on behalf of all 12,000 kids in long-term foster care. They said the system had routinely violated children's civil rights. In 2015, a federal judge agreed.
Speaker 7: Federal Judge Janis Graham Jack ruled the state's foster care system unconstitutional, stating in her scathing opinion, the system is broken and has been for decades. Children almost uniformly leave state custody more damaged than when they entered.
Speaker 1: The lead plaintiff in that lawsuit has a story a lot like Jean's. She was a teenage foster kid who ran away from a group home and ended up on the street. A pimp found her and sold her for sex.
The judge wrote these stories are typical of the foster care system in Texas and she's ordered sweeping reforms. She said the state needs to give long-term foster kids a lot more support. That includes a lawyer and an advocate for each of them. The question is, do Texas lawmakers want to pay?
Senator Nelson: Good morning members. The finance committee will come to order, clerk please call the roll.
Clerk: Senator Nelson.
Senator Nelson: Here.
Speaker 1: That's Jane Nelson, a republican state senator with the most power over the Texas budget. A few months ago, she called in the head of the Texas Child Welfare Agency for a hearing, his name is Hank Whitman. He asked lawmakers for more than a billion dollars to make improvements. That would increase his budget by more than 25%.
Hank Whitman: This is a problem that's been going on for three decades. If we keep delaying, we'll never get there.
Speaker 1: He pointed out that other states spend more. Texas pays group homes up to $260 a day to care for troubled kids, California and Florida pay almost twice that. Whitman also wanted more money to hire child abuse investigators because Texas fails to check on hundreds of kids each day who may be in immediate danger.
Hank Whitman: We have to spend the funding now Senator, otherwise these children will end up in the criminal justice system and they're there for life.
Senator Nelson: I cannot say this strongly enough-
Speaker 1: Senator Jane Nelson cuts him off.
Senator Nelson: We want to see results. Hear me, we don't have time for any more of this other stuff. Your agency gets a total of $3.8 billion.
Speaker 1: Hank Whitman said that's not enough to do the job.
Hank Whitman: It's interesting, we either pay now or we pay later before somebody loses their life.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to Senator Jane Nelson about funding for child welfare in Texas but she declined my request for an interview, so did Texas governor Greg Abbott. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton did agree to an interview if we flew hundreds of miles to meet him at a public event. We sent our political reporter, Patrick Svitek.
Patrick Svitek: Hey, how are you doing? Good to see you again. Thanks for making a little time for us, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Patrick asked Paxton about the importance of funding foster care in Texas and what that means for fighting sex trafficking.
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Edgar Walters:... Care in Texas and what that means for fighting sex trafficking.
Ken Paxton: I'm in an interesting spot, I don't get to decide policy. What I do is I enforce whatever the legislature gives me authority to do. I would love for more to be done with human trafficking.
Speaker 3: Specifically with funding or do you just mean in general?
Ken Paxton: Just in general, everything. It's devastating to our state, to our community. It's so sad, certainly the more we can do to save these, especially young woman, the better.
Edgar Walters: Saving these young women is exactly what that lawsuit against Texas foster care was meant to do. After a judge ordered the state to make sweeping reforms, Ken Paxton fought them. He's delayed an appealed the judge's directions again and again. He says as the state's top lawyer he has a responsibility to fight lawsuits.
Paxton says it's not his job to fix foster care. Instead he's focusing ongoing after criminals, the pimps who exploit kids. Under his leadership, Texas has convicted more and more every year. Police on the ground say that approach only goes so far.
Michael M.: You've got to arrest an awful lot of people to have a dent on that.
Edgar Walters: That's detective Michael McMurray. He's been sending pimps to prison for more than a decade and he worked on Jean's case. He thinks kids will continue to be exploited as long as the foster care system remains broken.
Michael M.: The McMurray theory of fixing this problem was going to be, we'll put all these pimps, all these traffickers in prison and the word will get out. People won't be doing this anymore because they'll be too afraid to go to prison, and it will solve the problem. The other part of that, finding a place to put the kids, treating the kids, getting mental health services. It's not there and the McMurray theory is not working out too well.
Edgar Walters: The McMurray theory didn't work out well for Jean either. After police recovered her from Jasmine's house and she ran away from her foster home again, the state eventually agreed to let her live with her mom. She was done with foster care.
Jean testified in her pimp's trial. Jasmine Johnson was convicted of trafficking a minor for sex and sent to prison for 25 years. The whole experience made Jean feel even more like a victim.
Jean: It was, "Here you go, here's your subpoena. We're going to need you to come testify." I said, "Well, I'm not going." "Well, if you don't go you're going to jail." "Okay, whatever. Thanks y'all." So much for the victims, right?
Edgar Walters: Jean wishes she'd gotten help finishing school and finding a job. She had no way to support herself. Jean had another child, a son, but she also got into drugs. The last time we saw her, she was in the Lamar County Courthouse in Paris, Texas.
Neena and I went to meet her at her 9 am hearing. When we get into the court room, we see Jean sitting on the other side, her head in her hands. She's been charged with possession of methamphetamines. The hearing only lasts a couple of minutes, we aren't allowed to record.
Suddenly, Jean runs out of the courtroom so we follow her. When she sees us, she gives us each a big long hug.
Neena Satija: Hey Jean, what happened?
Jean: They said they're going to let me stay out until the 21st.
Edgar Walters: Through her tears, Jean tells us she's going to plead guilty to her charges and spend at least six months in a state jail with a rehab program.
Jean: It's a good program from what everybody's told me. It's just being away from my babies.
Edgar Walters: She thinks rehab would really help her, but it's hours away. Jean's already lost her daughter and she doesn't want to be away from her son. His birthday is in a couple of days, so she asks if she can go to jail after that. The prosecutors agree.
We walk out of the Paris, Texas Courthouse into the pouring rain. All of a sudden, Jean runs out into the middle of the street smiling, her arms outstretched. It seems like she's trying to take advantage of these last moments of freedom. Those last words, "I hate this town."
Al Letson: That story from the Texas Tribune's Edgar Walters and Neena Satija. Jean's been in jail now for a couple of months and she's not allowed to take phone calls or see visitors yet. It turns out, a lot of sex trafficking victims in Texas can only get the help they need in jail.
When we come back, we'll go behind prison walls to meet a woman who's helping girls like Jean piece their lives back together. That's next on Reveal, from the Center for Investigative Reporting PRX.
Byard Duncan: Hey listeners, Byard Duncan here, Reveal's engagement reporter. Last week we told you about Citizen Sleuth, a collaboration we're doing with The Center for Public Integrity. We've turned thousands of pages of Trump appointees' financial disclosures into a public database. We've asked for your help to understand them.
Thanks to you, stories are rolling in. Already we've learned that Steve Bannon, Trump's top advisor, failed to list creditors for four of his mortgages, an oversight of more than $2 million. Government officials like Bannon have to list their creditors to make sure they're not getting special treatment or making a private profit that could potentially influence their decisions on policy.
We're just getting started. You can help us dig up more information, just head over to publicintegrity.org/citizensleuth and search through the database for yourself. Be part of this important reporting project and let us know if you have any leads. Again, that's publicintegrity.org/citizensleuth. Thanks.
Al Letson: From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Al Letson.
Jean Hall's ordeal with the broken foster care system in Texas is not an isolated case, it happens all the time. A federal judge has declared the system inhumane and unconstitutional. There aren't enough beds for foster kids partly because it's so underfunded. That's one reason foster care in Texas has become a pipeline to sexual exploitation.
Take Linea, we're using her middle name to protect her privacy. Her story is not appropriate for all listeners. Linea became a foster kid at 13 and spent almost a year at an institution for troubled teens. No foster family would take her in.
Linea: I was just tired of being there. I had finished the program, nobody else would accept me so I was like, "I don't want to be here anymore." I ran away.
Al Letson: Linea left for school one day, but instead of going to class she just started walking down the street, just like Jean did when she ran away. Within minutes...
Linea: I actually met a guy and he told me, "I love you, I care for you. I'm going to be there for you. If you ever need anything just let me know." I told him I was a runaway, I didn't have anywhere to go.
Al Letson: The guy told Linea she could stay with him if she brought in some money. Over the next three years, at least three different men trafficked Linea for sex. Every few months she would go back to foster care, sometimes on her own or police might bring her back. Then she'd run away again.
Only a few months ago she finally landed in a place she feels safe, she starts believing she can move forward.
Linea: I don't want to run the streets. I really want to finish school, I'm very smart. I want to go to college, I want to go to Prairie View A&M.
Kathy Griffin: Tell them what you want to study.
Linea: I want to study forensic investigations.
Al Letson: That woman who jumped in is Kathy Griffin, no, not the comedian. This Kathy is an advocate who works with sex trafficking victims. Kathy changed everything for Linea.
Linea: She started talking to the girls about how we have to change, nobody can make us change. You can sit in the program and act like you're going to change, for what? You've got to want to change, it's got to come from the inside.
Kathy Griffin: When you get outside-
Linea: That's where the test starts. The test starts when you walk outside and this is my test.
Al Letson: Linea's saying all this at a place where she's met other young women who share her struggles, where men can no longer prey on her, where she's found a mentor. There's just one problem, that place is the Harris County Jail in Houston, Texas.
Neena Satija, based at the Texas Tribune, picks up the story from here.
Neena Satija: The Harris County Jail is the third largest in the country. It's got about 10,000 inmates at any given time, like a little village right in the center of downtown Houston.
You said the fourth floors are were all the women are?
Speaker 11: Yes, where the women hide.
Neena Satija: When I...
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Section 4 of 5 [00:30:00 - 00:40:04]
(NOTE: speaker names may be different in each section)
Speaker 1: Women are...
Speaker 6: Yes... When women... Hi, how are you?
Speaker 1: When I get a tour of the jail, Lynnae's been behind bars for almost four months. She shares a room called a pod with two dozen other women. She sleeps on a metal bunk bed and wears an oversized jumpsuit. Lynnae ended up here because one day last August she offered a man oral sex in exchange for money. He turned out to be an undercover police officer and he arrested her for prostitution. She was only 17, which is the age that people are considered adults under Texas criminal law, so she went to jail.
When we peek into Lynnae's pod, you can tell she's the baby of the group. Several women are surrounding her, braiding her hair into this elegant crown on the top of her head. No one wants kids like Lynnae in jail, especially not child advocates. But, police and prosecutors say they don't trust the foster care system to protect kids who've been trafficked. So police look for a way to charge them with something. In jail, Lynnae can't run, her pimp can't get to her and she can meet mentors, like Kathy.
Lynnae: She's motivated me... At first I wanted to leave the program. I was like, "This isn't for me. I don't wanna change." When I met Ms. Kathy, it changed my whole prospective about the program. If she could do it, I could do it.
Speaker 1: If she could do it, I could do it. One reason Kathy connects so quickly with kids like Lynnae is she's been through some of the same stuff. For decades, her life was unstable, ruled by a cocaine addiction.
Kathy: I was a theater major. Then I went on the Cold Blooded Tour with Rick James in '83 where my serious addiction started because everybody in the industry got high. And then when the lights and the cameras were all gone and the tours, I still had an addiction that had to be met and fed. So it took me from Beverly Hills to behind the trash dumpster.
Speaker 1: You can find Kathy's mug shots online. She looks disoriented and her clothes are rumpled. Now more than 10 years later, she's always stylishly dressed, wearing super high heels. She still has a scratchy voice. She says it's from smoking thousands of dollars worth of dope a month for more than two decades, paid for mostly by selling sex.
Kathy: I rock-stituted.
Speaker 1: Rock-stituted? What does that mean?
Kathy: That means if they didn't have money, they could exchange sexual favors for drugs.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Kathy: I've done everything from high-end escorts, being a kept woman, to prostitution, rock-stitution. Only thing I didn't do was strip.
Speaker 1: Eventually, Kathy got clean. She was one of the first participants in a drug diversion court in Houston. Now she runs programs for women who've been involved in prostitution. They're all different ages and she comes across foster kids, or former foster kids a lot.
Speaker 4: One, two, three. (singing) This is our roadway to freedom, we gonna say it out loud. We're on a new path to recovery, there's no stopping us now.
Speaker 1: One of Kathy's programs is called "Roadway to Freedom." I got to see it in action recently at a women's prison, in Dayton, Texas. There's about 100 women singing here in white jumpsuits. When Kathy starts speaking...
Kathy: And y'all look so purty...
Speaker 1: Everyone just lights up.
Kathy: Y'all got y'all little makeup on. Got lipstick on. Y'all got Crayola and colored pencils on.
Speaker 1: The Crayola and colored pencils line isn't a joke. Women in prison don't have makeup, so that's what some of them use to put on eyeliner and eyeshadow. Kathy tells me a lot of women in here are sex trafficking victims. And a lot of them were let down by the child welfare system.
Kathy: The foster care system is so severely broken. Just about everybody in here that went to foster care has had sexual abuse and they were running away from it.
Speaker 1: Lynnae fits that profile. She was adopted at a young age and says her adoptive parents abused her physically and sexually. She used to run away from home all the time. So later on when she wasn't getting help in foster care, it made sense to her to run again, even if it meant selling sex instead. Kathy understands that and she tells Lynnae...
Kathy: Does it make you sad to think sometimes that your childhood was stolen from you?
Lynnae: It does and I've learned to accept the fact that I can't get it... I can't take what happened back. But I can only move forward.
Kathy: You have stayed focused from the time that I brought you to the program. And that's very rare... I want you all to know that's very rare for somebody as young as she is to stay as disciplined.
Speaker 1: There's an irony to what Kathy's saying right now because she knows the only reason she was able to find Lynnae and become her mentor is because Lynnae's been locked up in jail for four months.
Kathy: When you come into jail it's like starting over brand new, for you especially at your age.
Speaker 1: But as Kathy and Lynnae are talking, Lynnae's about to get released from jail. And because Lynnae's only 17, she's still a foster kid. She has to go back into state custody first. The problem is there isn't a bed available for her. Dozens of foster kids in Texas face this situation each month. Because there's no room for them in a foster home, they have to sleep in a hotel or in a case worker's office. In Lynnae's case, she'll have to sleep in a child welfare office in Houston. The kids who stay there all have to sleep on cots in this one big room that can fit maybe 20 at a time.
Why would that happen?
Angela Goodwin: We're working with what we have. I'm not trying to be flip, I don't know another way to put that.
Speaker 1: That's Angela Goodwin, a top official at the Texas Child Welfare Agency. She says, "The state can't create more beds for foster kids, that's up to the private sector." Things are even worst for kids who've been sexually exploited.
Angela Goodwin: We have a very limited of specialized beds for human trafficking victims. We have about 20 available north of Houston in place called Freedom Place. We have about six in a foster home situation in east Texas. And that's it.
Speaker 1: Kids sleeping in a case worker's office don't get supervised like they would at a real foster home. So it's easier for them to run away. The state wouldn't tell me how many foster kids run away when they live in an office, but I asked the Houston Police Department. In just two months, police say dozens of kids ran away from the office where Lynnae will be staying. Kathy tells Lynnae she hopes she won't run.
Kathy: What's gonna keep you from running from this facility?
Lynnae: Support. I've always had my case worker's support, but I just wanted more support. I just felt like...
Kathy: You were missing me?
Lynnae: I think so Ms. Kathy, I think I was missing you.
Speaker 1: Kathy's worried that once Lynnae gets out of jail, she won't be able to reach her, so she'll have no way of knowing if Lynnae is safe. Later she tells me there's gotta be a place where Lynnae can get help that isn't jail.
This is the best place for you to reach them, but it's also a place where they're locked up.
Kathy: But what is more important than any of this is we have got to have beds for individuals that are coming out so that we can continue the process and keep things running smoothly because it took 'em a long time to get messed up. We must have beds.
Speaker 1: That aren't in jail.
Kathy: That aren't in jail.
Speaker 1: A few months later I go to see Kathy again. She's a busy woman, so the best way to catch up with her is when she's heading out of one her programs at the prison or the jail. We're in a parking lot, when Kathy gets a phone call. It's from another young girl she's trying to help by convincing her not to run away. To stay put.
Kathy: The street will eat you alive, you feel me. And just keep me informed so I'll be able to still keep up with you and help you. Alright precious. Stop running so much, okay. Be still so somebody can love on you for a while, okay.
Speaker 1: Kathy hangs up the phone and closes her eyes for a second.
Kathy: If they would give me some beds, I could be able to work miracles.
Speaker 1: Even with everything Kathy does to help these young women, there's a lot of forces working against them. Lynnae had promised Kathy she'd called her once she left jail and got to that child welfare office. But Lynnae never called. Instead, she walked out of the office just a few hours after she got there.
I remember you telling her you're one of the more focused people... Despite being so young, you're one of the more focused people in jail that I've worked with.
Kathy: Mh-hmm.
Speaker 1: It felt that way. So that's why it was just such a bummer when she just took off like that.
Kathy: And see when they're so young and I can't put 'em where the rest of the girls are, they fall through the cracks. And that's the piece I need fixed.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Kathy: It doesn't do me any good... At least I plant seeds, but if they live to come back...
Speaker 1: Right.
Lynnae turned 18 last December, just a few weeks after she walked out of that office. She's still missing and her Facebook page...
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(NOTE: speaker names may be different in each section)
Neena Satija:... after she walked out of that office. She's still missing and her Facebook page suggests she's still being trafficked, but Kathy isn't giving up hope. She's planning to open a shelter for girls just like Lynnae that can get them help outside of jail. It'll be called Kathy's House.
Al Letson: That story was produced by Reveal's Neena Satija based at the Texas Tribune. Since a version of this story was first published, state law makers have given the Texas Child Welfare Agency an extra 500 million dollars. That's about half of what they asked for. They also created a three million dollar grant program to give child sex trafficking victims services like healthcare and counseling. It's the first time the state has funded a program like this. In Texas, jail was the only place Lynnae could find the help she needed. Other states like Minnesota are doing everything they can to keep sex trafficked kids out of jail by looking at them as victims not criminals. That part of the story when we come back on Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX.
Will Evans: Hey folks, Will Evans here. I'm a reporter at Reveal. This year I've been looking into how worker's lives are changing under President Trump. This past week, I found something interesting. Cheryl Stanton is currently Head of the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce. Trump reportedly wants her to lead the national agency that holds employers accountable when they cheat workers. Here's the thing, Stanton has had her own problems paying people who work for her. In fact, she was sued last year for failing to pay her house cleaners. You can find this and other stories like it over on revealnews.org. By the way, are you a worker who's been affected by this administration? If so, I want to hear from you. Write me at [email protected]. That's [email protected]. Thanks.
Al Letson: From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Al Letson. Tough subject today. Sex traffickers have been known to trap and exploit children. Once a child is in, it is extremely hard to get them out of that life. Many of these kids are runaways who've been bounced around from foster care, group homes, and state custody. Some end up in drug rehab and mental health treatment centers and often behind bars. This is something our partners at APM Reports looked into. They found that some states, including Minnesota, are taking a different approach. Those states are treating these young people as victims instead of criminals.
Sergeant Snyder: The reason the tape recorder's out is so that I have a record of us talking today. Okay?
Al Letson: That's Sergeant Grant Snyder. He's interviewing a 17 year old runaway.
Sergeant Snyder: Let's just go back and tell me the story about from you guys running from Eau Claire. Tell me what happened.
Bobby Jo Larson: It all started on July Fourth. I was really-
Al Letson: They're in an interview room at a Minneapolis Police Station. It's a small space with no windows, the size of a walk-in closet. They're sitting at a small round table.
Bobby Jo Larson: I've been locked up all the time since I've been 14.
Sergeant Snyder: [inaudible 00:43:32]
Bobby Jo Larson: That's why I'm running. You know?
Al Letson: Bobby Jo Larson ran away from a drug treatment center in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. By the time Snyder found her, she was selling sex. She was posting escort ads on the web and working with a guy she calls E.
Sergeant Snyder: When did you start posting ads when you were with E?
Bobby Jo Larson: I don't really know. I can't remember.
Sergeant Snyder: Like the next day after you met him, a couple of days, do you think?
Bobby Jo Larson: Probably the next day or something, it seems like. I've never really dealt with it.
Sergeant Snyder: He told you he'd never done it before?
Bobby Jo Larson: He told me he's been around prostitutes and stuff, but he told me, "I'm not a pimp, I'm a player."
Sergeant Snyder: Okay. First of all, that's not true. He's been doing it for a long time. Okay? Do you understand?
Bobby Jo Larson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Al Letson: Bobby hasn't slept. She's high on four different drugs and hasn't eaten in days. She does not want to hear Sergeant Snyder trash talk the guy she was with.
Bobby Jo Larson: He didn't force me to do nothing.
Sergeant Snyder: Okay. I understand that. This is something I know a little bit about, so I want you to listen to me. Okay? Any guys that allows a young lady like yourself to be victimized like that, to do degrading things, that speaks to their character. You understand that, right? You know what I'm saying is true, don't you? You said when you're with these guys that it makes you feel... I've talked to, like I told you, hundreds of women over the years. They all say three |
AFP reported that human breast milk had become a luxury for China's rich and is regarded in some regions as having healing properties, with firms offering a human breast milk service for adults and children.
"Adult (clients) can drink it directly through breastfeeding, or they can always drink it from a breast pump if they feel embarrassed," said Lin Jun, owner of Xinxinyu, a domestic services company that provided the service.
Wet nurses that serve adults are paid $2,600, nearly four times the monthly average.
On social media, Critics denounced the service as showing the moral degradation of China's rich.
Sexual arousal by breast feeding is known as "milk fetishism" and is also called "lactophilia".
Chinese police announced that 87,000 people have been arrested this year for their alleged involvement in prostitution and gambling, state news agency Xinhua reported.The bass was bumping. Seas of people were swaying back and forth in unison with arms raised and smiles plastered across their faces. As the clock struck two o'clock in the morning, the crowd began to dissipate with a unanimous sense of satisfaction at their mid-week outing.
I decided to leave with the main crowd of people. It was pitch black outside and there were scattered crowds dispersed on the street. On my way to my friend’s house, I passed a group of six guys who made some snide remarks about my ethnicity -- specifically the fact that I was wearing a turban in public. Feeling uncomfortable, I started to walk faster towards my friend's residence hall while frantically trying to get ahold of him. I could feel the presence of a group behind me. I started to walk a little bit faster. The street was quiet. There was nothing other than the sound of my steps as I quickened my pace.
Out of nowhere, one of the guys from the group pushed me from behind. Within seconds I was surrounded by the six people I loosely recognized from earlier. “What do you think you are doing you sand n***er?” they yelled as they started to punch my stomach and chest. I tried to run away from the crowd, but they had me completely trapped in the same position. The street was deserted other than the seven of us. I could only cover my head and hope that they didn’t hurt me too badly. About 10 minutes passed; I gathered my strength and tried to run through them but the guys formed a circle around me and they threw me back to the ground.
Twenty unrelenting minutes of verbal and physical brutality ensued. One of the attackers ripped my turban from my head and kicked it to the curbside. My ribs were on fire and my chest was exploding. I knew I had to make one last run for it. I threw a punch and hit one of them in the face, buying myself 10 seconds. I sprinted down the street, turned a corner and managed to jump into a bush next to one of the residences. For 30 minutes, I hid away from the attackers in complete silence.
I am a student at UBC and I faced this terrible situation following a Wednesday evening Pit Night. Combined with the sexual assaults that have taken place over the past year, it is yet another incident on UBC campus in which the perpetrator has yet to be apprehended.
In my eyes, the solution is staring everyone in the face. Security cameras. It is ridiculous that students have been assaulted over the past year and UBC has not thought to put up closed circuit cameras at highly trafficked areas like the bus loop, and streets leading to the residence halls. I can only hope that raising my voice -- as a victim of a UBC campus assault -- may finally start to get this idea across to campus leadership.
By speaking out about the terrible crime that took place at UBC, I hope that other students will start to listen to how real the threat might be. The objective is not to scare people; it is simply to raise awareness about the variety of people that may actually be targeted. Just because you are a 20-year-old healthy male doesn’t mean that you don’t have to be careful. I just want no other student to go through what I did. If you are studying late and have to walk across campus alone, be extremely aware of the situation you are in and don’t be afraid to call SafeWalk or even the police if you feel threatened.
Ultimately, my main message is that something has to change. The worst part about the whole situation is that tomorrow, I could walk into a lecture and sit down next to the same person that stripped me of my dignity, physically brutalized me and disrespected my religion -- while being completely oblivious to that fact.
The author of this letter is a second-year UBC student. In accordance with his wishes and due to the sensitive nature of this subject, The Ubyssey is maintaining his anonymity.Marchand led the NHL with 5-4-9 in three games - all multi-point performances - to power the Bruins (38-27-6, 82 points) to a pair of victories. He registered 3-1-4, including his second career hat trick (also Dec. 23, 2011 vs. FLA) and third four-point effort of the season, in a 6-3 triumph over the Vancouver Canucks March 13. Marchand added 1-1-2 in a 5-2 victory over the Calgary Flames March 15, halting the Flames' winning streak at 10 contests. He closed the week with 1-2-3 in a 7-4 loss to the Edmonton Oilers March 16, giving him multiple points in three straight outings for the third time this season (also Jan. 24 - Feb. 1: 6-3-9 in 4 GP and Feb. 23-28: 3-4-7 in 3 GP). The 28-year-old Halifax, N.S., native ranks second in the League with 37 goals and third with 79 points through 71 games this season, including an NHL-best 27 tallies and 48 points in 2017 (32 GP).
SECOND STAR - SIDNEY CROSBY, C, PITTSBURGH PENGUINS
Crosby paced the League with six goals and ranked second with eight points in four starts to guide the Penguins (45-17-9, 99 points) to a 2-1-1 week. He recorded 1-1-2 in a 4-3 shootout loss to the Calgary Flames March 13. Crosby was held off the scoresheet in a 4-0 loss against the Philadelphia Flyers March 15, but bounced back with 2-1-3 in a 6-4 victory over the New Jersey Devils March 17. He capped the week with his 10th career three-goal game (and third career natural hat trick) in a 4-0 win against the Florida Panthers March 19. The 29-year-old Cole Harbour, N.S., native leads the NHL with 40 goals and 80 points in 65 games this season. Crosby's 40 goals are his second-best single-season total, behind the 51 he scored in 2009-10 en route to sharing the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy.
THIRD STAR - BRIAN ELLIOTT, G, CALGARY FLAMES
Elliott went 3-0-0 with a 1.95 goals-against average and.926 save percentage to help the Flames (41-27-4, 86 points) maintain third place in the Pacific Division. He made 32 saves - and turned aside all three attempts in the shootout - in a 4-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins March 13. Elliott then made 24 stops in a 3-1 win against the Dallas Stars March 17 and 19 saves in a 5-2 triumph over the Los Angeles Kings March 19. In doing so, he earned his 11th consecutive victory (1.70 GAA,.942 SV%, 2 SO) to tie Mike Vernon (Jan. 17 - Feb. 27, 1989) for the longest such run by a goaltender in franchise history. The 31-year-old Newmarket, Ont., native owns a 23-13-3 record with a 2.46 goals-against average,.911 save percentage and two shutouts in 41 appearances this season, his first with the Flames.Fans of the sardonic action-adventure-comedy cartoon, which features an impressive collection of gay characters -- even for Adult Swim's standards -- will be eager to get any morsel of information to tide them over until the Season Five premiere in February 2013.
"Venture Bros." follows the exploits of Dr. Venture (an egotistical, middle-aged, former "Johnny Quest"-type character), his two over-eager sons (think "The Hardy Boys") and an ever-expanding cast of body guards, arch-nemeses, spies and laughably bureaucratic supervillain / superhero organizations.
The show has a huge universe -- especially for a cartoon -- and a rich canon, reminiscent of classic comic book lore. Also similarly to comic books, "Venture Bros." has a cast with a diverse collection of gay characters.
Before heading to San Diego for Comic Con 2012, Hammer and Publick spoke with Huffington Post Gay Voices about the LGBT bandwagon, gay characters on "Venture Bros.," the upcoming season and LOGO.
HuffPost Gay Voices: The show draws a lot of material from popular culture. What are your opinions on the slew of recent developments for LGBT people in culture from Obama endorsing gay marriage, to J.C. Penny featuring gay dads in their Father’s Day catalog to the Green Lantern being rewritten as an openly gay character. What do you make of all this?
Jackson Publick: It’s great, I think.
Doc Hammer: It doesn’t seem like much hype compared to how plain common sense all this stuff should be. I know the world we live in but it would be nice if these things weren’t news.
Jackson Publick: The Green Lantern seems a little calculated to me. It’s like, "We've got to get on this gay bandwagon and make this character gay." Like anything else, there’s earnest expressions in the culture and then there’s kind of bandwagoning. But if their hearts are in the right place, then... sure.
Doc Hammer: And there are things to get on bandwagons, like, if everyone decides that heroin is suddenly not cool, we can’t fault them for getting on that bandwagon.
Jackson Publick: Didn’t Green Lantern deal with heroin too? No, actually it was Green Arrow and Speedy.
Doc Hammer: Wouldn’t you love to be writing for "The Green Lantern" right now? And somebody slides it on your desk, like, "Oh yeah! He’s gay!" It would be awesome! How many plotlines you could come up with. Finally get Aquaman out of his closet.
Jackson Publick: His watery closet.
Speaking of the bandwagon, Adult Swim has had a lot of queer characters throughout its history but it never feels like a bandwagon thing. What is it about the network that has made it so receptive to such a wide range of sexualities and gender variance?
Doc Hammer: It’s a feral network, everybody who had a show and started on it was way outside of the mainstream and their opinions on humanity were a little less mainstream. So, when they included gay characters for their life -- for their paradigm -- it wasn’t a big deal.
Jackson Publick: It’s a counterculutural network and a young network.
Doc Hammer: It’s inherent to the people that started shows on it. None of them were regular TV professionals.
Tell me about developing your gay characters. Where do you draw inspiration from? Does their sexuality come in as an after-thought, or was, say, Col. Gentleman never straight to begin with?
Jackson Publick: Gentleman in particular, he was always gay. We were drawing a lot from William S. Burroughs with his history. We were doing Sean Connory as William S. Burroughs with a hint of Quentin Crisp.
Doc Hammer: Then we discovered he’s like a Superman, full of bravado. The way he deals with all of life is that what he does is correct and everyone else is wrong. So he’s so openly and proudly gay and thinks that anybody who isn’t is any idiot.
Jackson Publick: Yeah, why would you not fuck whatever you want? What’s wrong with you?
And what of your other characters? What’s your mindset?
Doc Hammer: Jackson and I are not gay and we’re not supervillains and we’re not women. We’re not any of these things. We draw upon them the same way we would any other character. If you write for a character that has the same sexual preference as you, doesn’t matter, they’re not you. So when we write a gay character, it’s just one more thing that he has.
Jackson Publick: Yeah, we write them differently but no differently than all the real character specifics that we take into account when we’re writing anybody else.
Doc Hammer: And each one of them is a very specific character and not just a specific kind of gay, but a specific kind of character. The Alchemist is gay in the sense that it’s just incidental -- he rarely has gay jokes unless he’s talking about sex with somebody. And then Shore Leave is a very openly swishy queer proud guy. Who kind of throws it in peoples’ faces because that’s the kind of guy he is.
Jackson Publick: And because he can kick ass to back it up. Shore Leave is the one who evolved the most -- because he started as a one-off joke, because we were gagging on how the G.I. Joe vocationally specific-themed characters reminded us of the Village People. We made a sassy Village People kind of guy and then we brought him back.
Doc Hammer: Then he just became his own person. They’re all different. Shore Leave’s a bad ass, it’s one of his characteristics. The thing is that he throws that in peoples’ faces. He likes pushing peoples’ buttons because what are they gonna do? He’s bad ass.
Is there any reason that your show, compared to most, has so many gay characters?
Jackson Publick: Probably some of the reasons why we thought to bring gay characters in, not just because that’s life, but we always dealt with this being an all-male world. There’s a million jokes about what’s going on with Batman and Robin. It’s a classic thing to call out the homoerotic nature of the men’s adventure show. We liked including characters that made other charcaters in the show uncomfortable or that just called it like they see it. Yeah, it’s not just a homoerotic world, it’s a gay world and a straight world, and it’s... there’s a lot of sexual preferences on our show.
Doc Hammer: I think there are more male gay characters than there are women in our show. A lot of it is based on... we originally came from playing the "Johnny Quest" paradigm, which is this white, fiercely heterosexual world...
Jackson Publick: Mommy-less world...
Doc Hammer: Yeah, this is the world we started in, so I think it’s just natural that we’d have more gay characters than women. We have a lot more [women] now, we lost a lot of our early roots. But it’s natural, when you’re playing with superheroes and things like that, it’s a big topic.
One of my favorite scenes in the show is in Operation PROM, when Doctor Venture finds out that the "Rusty Venture" is a gay sex move named after him and The Alchemist and Shore Leave begin arguing to define a "Rusty Venture." The situation and dialog were brilliant. How did you come up with the scene?
Doc Hammer: I have a filthy mind. But the other thing about that that’s great is that Rusty Venture is a gay icon. That blew Doc’s mind -- that they have parties where they dress-up like Rusty Venture. It’s kind of obvious, a Rusty Venture sounds like a sex move.
Jackson Publick: Yeah -- like a Dirty Sanchez or a Rusty Trombone or whatever. So that was its natural origin. It was just something Jackson and I stumbled and started playing with it and then when we wrote them all out, I got that job and I’m just sickening...
I’ll restrain from asking too many questions about next season but tell me about the relationship between Shore Leave and The Alchemist. They seemed pretty smitten in episode 4. Was that just a one-night thing or should we expect to see that relationship develop in the upcoming season?
Doc Hammer: We can’t give you spoilers but we didn’t get to develop it as much as we want because we’re undisciplined buffoons and we had a lot of other plotlines to deal with. But it does get touched upon.
What characters should we expect to come out, or develop much more, in this coming season?
Doc Hammer: Exact same thing as before. We focus on main characters and then we pull a couple out from all the shows that nobody knew were anybody and then we develop a few plotlines for people that are important to us but everybody else sees as tertiary characters. We hit who were fetishizing at the moment. And last season, we were really into Shore Leave. He was the go-to guy for everything.
Jackson Publick: And every season we do try to touch on people that we haven’t touched on in awhile. Colonel Gentleman does get a decent episode this season. Because last year we didn’t really use those guys at all, except for that one scene.
Doc Hammer: Yeah, it’s not like with Shore Leave where he got to call-out Pete White. That was fun. But, with Gentleman, you get to get this older gay angle that’s really quite funny. And he’s hilarious, just as a person.
Would you consider the show particularly gay-friendly or do you see it as just the way that things are going, where gay characters are there and it’s not exceptional?
Doc Hammer: We have no position on it except that we do want to help the "out of the closet is the best way to be" mentality. But it’s as gay-friendly as it is straight male-friendly and I’m not sure it’s that either. It’s not a position that we’re taking. We paint a broad, veiled world and everybody inside of it has their good qualities and bad qualities and also gay. Because that is the world that we live in.
Jackson Publick: And because you watch a lot of LOGO. I think that’s something you should point out here.
Doc Hammer: I live primarily as a gay person that doesn’t have sex with men. Because the traditional things that have been culturally ascribed to gay culture are the only things that I care about. And yeah, my TV's set to go on for LOGO. But, in defense of that, it runs all night. It’s good to have a network that comes on and isn’t an infomercial. Not that I’ll keep "Noah’s Arc" on, that’s too much for me. But I will keep on anything else. Have you seen "Noah’s Arc"?
Jackson Publick: No.
Doc Hammer: It is deep! It is deep! The acting is sub-par, and I’m being kind.
Jackson Publick: What’s it about?
Doc Hammer: It's a gay soap opera, with a black --
Jackson Publick: -- With animals on a boat?
Doc Hammer: It seems like, if Tyler Perry made gay TV, and decided to make it not as funny as Tyler Perry’s capable of: "Noah’s Arc." It’s something else. But, Kate, who was on that gay comedy show--
Jackson Publick: the "Big Gay Sketch Show" --
Doc Hammer: -- Is on our show now. So, when I first met her, she was like a celebrity to me because I watched that much LOGO.
If you could sleep with any guy in the Venture Bros. Universe, who would it be, and why?
Doc Hammer: Ha! Didn’t we have to answer this at a convention? You said Dean!
Jackson Publick: No, I said 21, because I think he’s a cuddler and I like cuddling.
Is he still a cuddler?
Doc Hammer: Oh, once a cuddler, always a cuddler. Now he’s a bad-ass, but it’s...
Jackson Publick: It’s the need to be cuddled! I’m pretty sure Glenn Danzig just wants a hug!
Doc Hammer: Absolutely! I’m sure he’s a tender lover. That’s what I want to see in print -- "Glenn Danzig: I’m sure he’s a tender lover." I think just because 21 became a badass... that was him becoming, that’s the way he always wanted to be and he actually stumbled upon a way to be it. But inside of that he’s still a geek, he’s still incredibly sensitive and I think he is a sexual fumbler, which, for me, who has had no gay experiences, I would like sexual fumbling, I would like cuddling, I would like to be able to giggle at how bad it is.
What about you, Jackson?
Jackson Publick: I stand by Shore Leave, because I feel that he would be the most skilled. I’m sure he has a lot of experience deflowering guys like me. Maybe that’s what I need. I think he would know. I think he would know what I needed, because I think he’s seen it all.
Doc Hammer: Well, you’re throwing your hands up and just going, "you steer." I guess I just want a little guiding, so we can explore together. And then, maybe after that, if I get comfortable, then I’ll have Shore Leave show me the ropes. But, he seems too aggressive.
Keep your LGBT Adult Swim fix going with Huffington Post Gay Voice's interview with "Superjail!" co-creator Christy Karacas and writing director Janine DiTullio, and check out queer characters from "Venture Bros." and other Adult Swim shows in the slideshow below.While Chicago’s open lakefront is arguably one of the Windy City’s greatest resources, the public amenity only extends so far north — abruptly terminating where North Lake Shore Drive turns inland and meets Hollywood and Sheridan. This however may change if an Edgewater community group championing an ambitious scheme to extend Chicago’s lakefront past Hollywood north to Devon can wrangle the governmental will and resources necessary to see their vision realized.
Dubbed the Edgewater Beachwalk, the project not only calls for a new series of beaches between Ardmore and Devon, but also the creation of a new boat dock, beach house, dog park, cycling and jogging trails, acres of new parkland, and anti-erosion infrastructure. The Edgewater Beachwalk Chicago Group has tapped local architectural firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill to design the project and have posted a series of before and after conceptual renderings on their website.
While local Alderman Harry Osterman is in favor of such a project, he reportedly does not feel that the Beachwalk as a top priority amidst Chicago’s ongoing financial struggles. Undeterred, the Beachwalk Group will host a series of events to boost awareness of the proposal and help raise funds. The first such event will take place this evening at 7:00 PM at the Berger Park Mansion located at 6205 N. Sheridan Road. According to Edgeville Buzz, additional information and renderings from AS+GG are expected to be presented at the open house.Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) has secured $390 million for a new FBI headquarters as part of the spending agreement that was negotiated by Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
The agency is in the first stages of relocating from the aging J. Edgar Hoover Building downtown to a new suburban campus.
The search for a new home began three years ago, and three potential sites have been chosen — two in Maryland and one in Virginia.
Mikulski and her fellow Maryland lawmakers have been pushing vociferously for their state to land the headquarters and the 11,000 workers it would hold. State officials have promised to invest millions in road improvements to bring the FBI to Greenbelt or Landover in Prince George’s County, rather than to Springfield, Va.
The money secured in the budget negotiations, however, would be available regardless of where the new headquarters is built.
[The FBI’s headquarters is falling apart. Why is it so hard for America to build a new one?]
When her party held the majority in the Senate, Mikulski was chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee. Once Republicans assumed the majority, Mikulski lost that role.
But the funding announcement suggests that even in the minority, Mikulski continues to wield considerable influence.
“I’ve fought tooth and nail for the men and women of the FBI, just as they fight each day to keep our communities safe from criminals and terrorists,” Mikulski said in a statement. “This is a headquarters that belongs in Prince George’s County.”
The language was not in the initial spending bills proposed by the House and Senate; it came together in joint negotiations between the two chambers.
The General Services Administration plans to cover much of the cost of a new building by swapping the valuable current site for a new one on less expensive land, thus avoiding the need for congressional appropriations. But most private-sector experts think there will be a gap in funds to pay for the new building, and uncertainty about funding hovers over the project.
Mikulski’s language includes $180 million for the FBI in new construction funds, $135 million from funds not spent in prior years for land acquisition and other pre-construction work, and $75 million for the GSA for management and oversight.
Mikulski described the money as a “down payment” for whatever appropriations are needed. The deal must be voted on by the House and Senate.
An environmental assessment of the three potential FBI sites is close to completion. A draft has been released.
In October, the federal government confirmed that the site would be a consolidated one, bringing together the employees of 14 sites across the region.SAN FRANCISCO — A United Airlines pilot was removed from a plane bound for San Francisco International Airport after a bizarre rant about politics and her divorce, reports CBS station KPIX in San Francisco.
It happened Saturday before United Flight 455 left from Austin, Texas.
Image of the pilot making statements about her divorce and the presidential election on United Airlines flight from Austin to San Francisco, Feb 11, 2017.
The pilot got passengers’ attention when she boarded the plane in her street clothes.
“She shows up dressed like a civilian and asks to us to take a vote to see whether she should change into her uniform or fly as is,” said Pam O’Neal, who was aboard the flight.
Passenger Randy Reiss tweeted, she “asked if we were ok with her flying like that… then says ‘sorry I’m going through s(sic) divorce.’”
She then used the plane’s overhead PA system to rant about President Trump and Hillary Clinton — calling them both “a–holes” and then ranting about her divorce. That’s when passengers began tweeting to United to get a new pilot.
“She started off by saying that she had not voted for either Trump or Clinton because they’re a bunch of liars,” said passenger “O’Neal. “That’s an odd way to start of the welcome to your flight. It really sort of went downhill from there and didn’t make a lot of sense to any of us.”
“We were a little afraid having someone somewhat unstable flying the plane,” said O’Neal.
About 20 passengers said they didn’t feel safe with her in the cockpit and got off the lane.
Apparently, Reiss was one of them. He left, tweeting, “So, ya’ll i’m shaking right now. I just left my @united flight 455 ‘cos the captain demonstrated that she was not mentally in a safe space.”
“She was not on the right state of mind,” said Portugal. “We were a little afraid having someone that was somewhat unstable flying the plane”
“We were a little afraid having someone somewhat unstable flying the plane,” said passenger Pam O’Neal. KPIX/San Francisco
After the pilot was removed he tweeted, “new captain on board. Apologized. We’re off. Radio silence.”
Looking back on the situation he added, “Being a pilot is a tough & stressful job. This particular pilot did not seem emotionally equipped to do that job today. I hope that she gets the help she probably needs.”
United Airlines spokesman Charlie Hobart confirmed the pilot wasn’t in uniform when she boarded the plane. He said the delay lasted about two hours.
Hobart said he didn’t know why the pilot was allowed on the plane in plain clothes or if anyone thought something was amiss before she boarded. He says the company will discuss the incident with the pilot.
In a statement United said: “We hold our employees to the highest standards and have replaced this pilot with a new one to operate the flight, which has since departed from Austin. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”This Crash Replacement Program is available to customers in the United States as well as those in some European countries. Please contact your distributor to see if this program is available in your country. Click here for the Dealer Locator, then select the 3rd tab called "International Distributors”. Next select your country via the "Choose Your Country” drop down menu to access your countries distributor contact info.
If your Bell cycling or Bell powersports helmet has been involved in an accident, you may be eligible for a discount on a new Bell replacement helmet.
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Bell HelmetsOutrage from Hillary Clinton supporters who insist she has been the victim of media bias is being greeted with eye-rolling from conservatives.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman weighed in Monday with a column accusing reporters of being tougher on the Democratic presidential nominee than on Republican Donald Trump, saying the media are “engaging in innuendo.”
“True, there aren’t many efforts to pretend that Donald Trump is a paragon of honesty. But it’s hard to escape the impression that he’s being graded on a curve. If he manages to read from a TelePrompter without going off script, he’s being presidential,” Mr. Krugman said.
He said the press has paid little attention Mr. Trump’s “multiple scandals,” including the $2,500 penalty the Trump Foundation paid in 2013 for an improper $25,000 donation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“Meanwhile, we have the presumption that anything Hillary Clinton does must be corrupt, most spectacularly illustrated by the increasingly bizarre coverage of the Clinton Foundation,” Mr. Krugman said.
Billionaire “Shark Tank” star Mark Cuban has also decried what he called pro-Trump bias on the part of the mainstream media.
“I’ll say it again. The MSM has gone all in on Trump,” Mr. Cuban said in a Sunday tweet.
The complaints drew hoots from the right, given that studies have repeatedly shown that most news coverage tilts leftward and that Democrats working in newsrooms far outnumber Republicans.
Dan Gainor, vice president for business and culture at the conservative Media Research Center, described Mr. Cuban’s comment as the “most delusional thing I’ve seen on Twitter in years.”
Mr. Trump received significantly more coverage than any other Republican presidential contender during primary race, but he has also repeatedly complained of unfair treatment in the press.
“It is being reported by virtually everyone, and is a fact, that the media pile on against me is the worst in American history!” he said in an Aug. 23 tweet.
Mrs. Clinton told CNN in July that she was subject to an unfair “Hillary standard” in the media, which RedState’s Leon Wolf described as “hilarious.”
Research shows neither candidate is a stranger to bad press. A Harvard University study released in June found that Trump coverage grew increasingly negative during the course of the Republican primary season, hitting 61 percent negative and 39 percent positive at the end.
The same study found that Mrs. Clinton had “by far the most negative coverage of any candidate” during the year leading up to the nomination, with her “bad news” exceeding her “good news” in 11 of 12 months.
Meanwhile, an MRC report released in June found that Mr. Trump received four times more negative coverage on network news than did Mrs. Clinton from Jan. 1 to June 7.
Mr. Krugman followed up his column Monday on Twitter with, “True fact: I was reluctant to write today’s col because I knew journos would hate it. But it felt like a moral duty.”
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Maisie Williams, known for her role as Arya Stark, the best character in Game of Thrones, is in talks to play Ellie in The Last of Us film, according to reports from the Screen Gems panel at San Diego Comic-Con.
"In an ideal world, Ashley Johnson would be 14. But there's some way to get those actors into the film." —Neil Druckmann on LAST OF US film. — Adam B. Vary (@adambvary) July 25, 2014
Ashley Johnson voiced the role of Ellie in The Last of Us video game.
The film, announced in March, is still early in development, and the actress is yet to sign on to the role. Sam Raimi, the director of the original Evil Dead and Spider-Man trilogies, is set to produce. Naughty Dog's creative director and writer Neil Druckmann will pen the script. The script will have some changes from the game's story. Initially Druckmann wanted the film to have a different ending, but Raimi convinced the writer otherwise.
According to Druckmann, Naughty Dog has final approval on both the casting and directing of the film.
The news comes shortly after the announcement of a release date for the Uncharted film, another adaptation of a Naughty Dog game.Florida's 76-56 win over Richmond on Tuesday night, while in keeping with the Gators' strong recent history against non-conference teams at home in December — Florida hasn't lost a December home game since 2010, when Jacksonville upset the Gators in the O'Connell Center five days before Christmas — was still a bit of a surprise.
And for the Gators, it was a good one.
Florida began Tuesday at No. 29 in KenPom; now, for the first time since early January 2015, the Gators are back in the top 25, vaulting to No. 23 after squishing the Spiders. The Gators' defense is now sixth nationally in adjusted efficiency, and while Florida's offense is just No. 82, the Gators have produced at least 1.00 points per possession in every game since a woeful shooting night against Navy in their season opener.
The shooting hasn't gotten much better. The Gators have posted an effective field goal percentage of more than 50 percent just once this season, torching North Carolina A&T with a 64.5 percent clip.
But Florida's figured out its offense, to a degree.
The best thing the Gators do is rebound ferociously, especially after their own misses. Florida now ranks 27th nationally in offensive rebounding percentage, and that has led to a lot of second-chance points — more than 10 in every Florida win this year, and a stunning 49 over games against the Gators' last two foes, Florida Gulf Coast and Richmond.
To put those numbers in some perspective, Kentucky and its fearsome frontcourt netted just 31 second-chance points total over three meetings with Florida in 2014-15, and that was against a Florida team that had the overmatched Jon Horford and the inconsistent Chris Walker doing most of the work underneath.
Put more simply, the Gators are now cleaning the glass and cleaning clocks as a result.
That can be chalked up largely to the addition of John Egbunu. The former South Florida big man was a menace inside for the Bulls, and has only improved since coming to Florida; he's grabbing offensive rebounds on 13.7 percent of his possessions.
But he's not alone: Egbunu is typically paired with Dorian Finney-Smith, who snags offensive rebounds on 10.5 percent of his possessions, or Devin Robinson, who captures them on 9.6 percent of his possessions.
And they're not Florida's only players at or near that 10 percent mark: Schuyler Rimmer is nabbing offensive rebounds on 11.0 percent of possessions, and freshman Kevarrius Hayes is grabbing them on 15.3 percent of his possessions. Rimmer and Hayes don't play enough to be ranked nationally by KenPom in the category, but Rimmer would be near the top 200 at his rate — and Hayes would make the top 50. (Egbunu is No. 92, Finney-Smith is No. 248, and Robinson is No. 324.)
Egbunu, Finney-Smith, Robinson, and Hayes all have at least 12 offensive boards in 2015, with DeVon Walker (!) at nine and Rimmer at six. Those are impressive tallies — especially because Florida needs offensive rebounds to survive right now.
The Gators are shooting 62.4 percent on shots at the rim, according to hoop-math.com, but just 31.9 percent on two-point jumpers, and 30.4 percent on threes. Those are the stats of a team that either cannot shoot jumpers, or one that has not made many of note. And while I suspect Florida's been a little cold to start the season and is underperforming its true talent level, those stats also undeniably point to the fact that Florida can have success at the rim.
The Gators are cleaning the glass — and cleaning clocks as a result.
This team is making good on second chances, too, shooting 54.2 percent on putbacks at the rim. All five of those Florida players with at least six offensive boards have at least four putback tries this year (Egbunu has nine; the rest have four), too, and so all five of them have taken at least 18.8 percent of their total shots on putbacks.
Overall, Florida's taken 37.2 percent of its shots at the rim, with a renewed focus on getting the ball to post player (Egbunu and Finney-Smith, especially) coming as a welcome change from a 2014-15 team that couldn't rely on any big man to create shots down low. That's very good shot distribution, for a simple reason: Those shots |
all gone, too.”
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Yet, journalistically speaking, Mr. Rosenberg was also liberated. And his indignation with Chabad coincided with a big story later in 2004, when People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals released video of the slaughtering practices inside Agriprocessors, a vast kosher-meat plant in Iowa owned and operated by a Lubavitcher family, the Rubashkins.
Mr. Rosenberg posted a link to the video and went on both to report his own investigative pieces and to spread those of other journalists, particularly Nathaniel Popper of The Forward. When a public-relations company, 5WPR, fabricated online postings by a rabbi who was pushing for ethical reform in kosher foods, it was Mr. Rosenberg who uncovered the “sock puppet” scam.
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A recent post, replete with supporting photographs and documents, showed how even after Agriprocessors had been disgraced and its chief executive convicted of financial crimes, members of the Rubashkin family continued to sell meat through a Web site.
In his righteous wrath, though, Mr. Rosenberg has also overstepped. He disparaged the journalistic integrity of Sue Fishkoff, the author of an acclaimed book about the Chabad movement, by referring to her as a “kadesha” — a term from Genesis that means a temple prostitute. After she objected, he posted an apology.
Chabad leaders declined to speak on the record about Mr. Rosenberg, but in general, they say that he has exaggerated the degree of messianism in the movement and that he is driven to settle scores. But they acknowledge that he has gotten some embarrassing things right.
“Shmarya often reminds me of journalism in the old days — when editors would sometimes go at one another physically in the street,” Jonathan D. Sarna, a historian of American Jewry at Brandeis University with expertise in Jewish journalism, wrote in an e-mail message. “I know that he is fiercely hated in some Orthodox circles, but he has had many a scoop, and is certainly THE destination for those who want dirt about Orthodoxy exposed to the world.”About two years ago, I read the book The Year without Pants, which describes the author’s experience leading a team at Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com, among other products). Automattic is a fully-distributed company, which means that all of its employees work remotely (hence pants are optional). While the book discusses some of the challenges of working remotely, the author’s general experience was very positive. A few months after reading the book, I decided to look for a full-time position after a period of independent work. Ideally, I wanted a well-paid data science-y remote job with an established distributed tech company that offers a good life balance and makes products I care about. Automattic seemed to tick all my boxes, so I decided to apply for a job with them. This post describes my application steps, which ultimately led to me becoming a data scientist with Automattic.
Before jumping in, it’s worth noting that this post describes my personal experience. If you apply for a job with Automattic, your experience is likely to be different, as the process varies across teams, and evolves over time.
📧 Step 1: Do background research and apply
I decided to apply for a data wrangler position with Automattic in October 2015. While data wrangler may sound less sexy than data scientist, reading the job ad led me to believe that the position may involve interesting data science work. This impression was strengthened by some LinkedIn stalking, which included finding current data wranglers and reading through their profiles and websites. I later found out that all the people on the data division start out as data wranglers, and then they may pick their own title. Some data wranglers do data science work, while others are more focused on data engineering, and there are some projects that require a broad range of skills. As the usefulness of the term data scientist is questionable, I’m not too fussed about fancy job titles. It’s more important to do interesting work in a supportive environment.
Applying for the job was fairly straightforward. I simply followed the instructions from the ad:
Does this sound interesting? If yes, please send a short email to jobs @ this domain telling us about yourself and attach a resumé. Let us know what you can contribute to the team. Include the title of the position you’re applying for and your name in the subject. Proofread! Make sure you spell and capitalize WordPress and Automattic correctly. We are lucky to receive hundreds of applications for every position, so try to make your application stand out. If you apply for multiple positions or send multiple emails there will be one reply.
Having been on the receiving side of job applications, I find it surprising that many people don’t bother writing a cover letter, addressing the selection criteria in the ad, or even applying for a job they’re qualified to do. Hence, my cover letter was fairly short, comprising of several bullet points that highlight the similarities between the job requirements and my experience. It was nothing fancy, but simple cover letters have worked well for me in the past.
⏳ Step 2: Wait patiently
The initial application was followed by a long wait. From my research, this is the typical scenario. This is unsurprising, as Automattic is a fairly small company with a large footprint, which is both distributed and known as a great place to work (e.g., its Glassdoor rating is 4.9). Therefore, it attracts many applicants from all over the world, which take a while to process. In addition, Matt Mullenweg (Automattic’s CEO) reviews job applications before passing them on to the team leads.
As I didn’t know that Matt reviewed job applications, I decided to try to shorten the wait by getting introduced to someone in the data division. My first attempt was via a second-degree LinkedIn connection who works for Automattic. He responded quickly when I reached out to him, saying that his experience working with the company is in line with the Glassdoor reviews – it’s the best job he’s had in his 15-year-long career. However, he couldn’t help me with an intro, because there is no simple way around Automattic’s internal processes. Nonetheless, he reassured me that it is worth waiting patiently, as the strict process means that you end up working with great people.
I wasn’t in a huge rush to find a job, but in December 2015 I decided to accept an offer to become the head of data science at Car Next Door. This was a good decision at the time, as I believe in the company’s original vision of reducing the number of cars on the road through car sharing, and it seemed like there would be many interesting projects for me to work on. The position wasn’t completely remote, but as the company was already spread across several cities, I was able to work from home for a day or two every week. In addition, it was a pleasant commute by bike from my Sydney home to the office, so putting the fully-remote job search on hold didn’t seem like a major sacrifice. As I haven’t heard anything from Automattic at that stage, it seemed unwise to reject a good offer, so I started working full-time with Car Next Door in January 2016.
I successfully attracted Automattic’s attention with a post I published on the misuse of the word insights by many tech companies, which included an example from WordPress.com. Greg Ichneumon Brown, one of the data wranglers, commented on the post, and invited me to apply to join Automattic and help them address the issues I raised. This happened after I accepted the offer from Car Next Door, and hasn’t resulted in any speed up of the process, so I just gave up on Automattic and carried on with my life.
💬 Step 3: Chat with the data lead
I finally heard back from Automattic in February 2016 (four months after my initial application and a month into my employment with Car Next Door). Martin Remy, who leads the data division, emailed me to enquire if I’m still interested in the position. I informed him that I was no longer looking for a job, but we agreed to have an informal chat, as I’ve been waiting for such a long time.
As is often the case with Automattic interviews, the chat with Martin was completely text-based. Working with a distributed team means that voice and video calls can be hard to schedule. Hence, Automattic relies heavily on textual channels, and text-based interviews allow the company to test the written communication skills of candidates. The chat revolved around my past work experience, and Martin also took the time to answer my questions about the company and the data division. At the conclusion of the chat, Martin suggested I contact him directly if I was ever interested in continuing the application process. While I was happy with my position at the time, the chat strengthened my positive impression of Automattic, and I decided that I would reapply if I were to look for a full-time position again.
My next job search started earlier than I had anticipated. In October 2016, I decided to leave Car Next Door due to disagreements with the founders over the general direction of the company. In addition, I had more flexibility in choosing where to live, as my personal circumstances had changed. As I’ve always been curious about life outside the capital cities of Australia, I wanted to move away from Sydney. While I could have probably continued working remotely with Car Next Door, I felt that it would be better to find a job with a fully-distributed team. Therefore, I messaged Martin and we scheduled another chat.
The second chat with Martin took place in early November. Similarly to the first chat, it was conducted via Skype text messages, and revolved around my work in the time that has passed since the first chat. This time, as I was keen on continuing with the process, I asked more specific questions about what kind of work I’m likely to end up doing and what the next steps would be. The answers were that I’d be joining the data science team, and that the next steps are a pre-trial test, a paid trial, and a final interview with Matt. While this sounds straightforward, it took another six months until I finally became an Automattic employee (but I wasn’t in a rush).
☑️ Step 4: Pass the pre-trial test
The pre-trial test consisted of a data analysis task, where I was given a dataset and a set of questions to answer by Carly Stambaugh, the data science lead. The goal of the test is to evaluate the candidate’s approach to a problem, and assess organisational and communication skills. As such, the focus isn’t on obtaining a specific result, so candidates are given a choice of several potential avenues to explore. The open-ended nature of the task is reminiscent of many real-world data science projects, where you don’t always have a clear idea of what you’re going to discover. While some people may find this kind of uncertainty daunting, I find it interesting, as it is one of the things that makes data science a science.
I spent a few days analysing the data and preparing a report, which was submitted as a Jupyter Notebook. After submitting my initial report, there were a few follow-up questions, which I answered by email. The report was reviewed by Carly and Martin, and as they were satisfied with my work, I was invited to proceed to the next stage: A paid trial project.
👨💻 Step 5: Do the trial project
The main part of the application process with Automattic is the paid trial project. The rationale behind doing paid trials was explained a few years ago by Matt in Hire by Auditions, Not Resumes:
Before we hire anyone, they go through a trial process first, on contract. They can do the work at night or over the weekend, so they don’t have to leave their current job in the meantime. We pay a standard rate of $25 per hour, regardless of whether you’re applying to be an engineer or the chief financial officer. During the trials, we give the applicants actual work. If you’re applying to work in customer support, you’ll answer tickets. If you’re an engineer, you’ll work on engineering problems. If you’re a designer, you’ll design. There’s nothing like being in the trenches with someone, working with them day by day. It tells you something you can’t learn from resumes, interviews, or reference checks. At the end of the trial, everyone involved has a great sense of whether they want to work together going forward. And, yes, that means everyone — it’s a mutual tryout. Some people decide we’re not the right fit for them.
The goal of my trial project was to improve the Elasticsearch language detection algorithm. This took about a month, and ultimately resulted in a pull request that got merged into the language detection plugin. I find this aspect of the process pretty exciting: While the plugin is used to classify millions of documents internally by Automattic, its impact extends beyond the company, as Elasticsearch is used by many other organisations and projects. This stands in contrast to many other technical job interviews, which consist of unpaid work on toy problems under stressful conditions, where the work performed is ultimately thrown away. While the monetary compensation for the trial work is lower than the market rate for data science consulting, I valued the opportunity to work on a real open source project, even if this hadn’t led to me getting hired.
There was much more to the trial project than what’s shown in the final pull request. Most of the discussions were held on an internal project thread, primarly under the guidance of Carly (the data science lead), and Greg (the data wrangler who replied to my post a year earlier). The project was kicked off with a general problem statement: There was some evidence that the Elasticsearch language detection plugin doesn’t perform well on short texts, and my mission was to improve it. As the plugin didn’t include any tests for short texts, one of the main contributions of my work was the creation of datasets and tests to measure its accuracy on texts of different lengths. This was followed by some tweaks that improved the plugin’s performance, as summarised in the pull request. Internally, this work consisted of several iterations where I came up with ideas, asked questions, implemented the ideas, shared the results, and discussed further steps. There are still many possible improvements to the work done in the trial. However, as trials generally last around a month, we decided to end it after a few iterations.
I enjoyed the trial process, but it is definitely not for everyone. Most notably, there is a strong emphasis on asynchronous text-based communication, which is the main mode by which projects are coordinated at Automattic. People who don’t enjoy written communication may find this aspect challenging, but I have always found that writing helps me organise my thoughts, and that I retain information better when reading than when listening to people speak. That being said, Automatticians do meet in person several times a year, and some teams have video chats for some discussions. While doing the trial, I had a video chat with Carly, which was the first (and last) time in the process that I got to see and hear a live human. However, this was not an essential part of the trial project, as our chat was mostly on the data scientist role and my job expectations.
⏳ Step 6: Wait patiently
I finished working on the trial project just before Christmas. The feedback I received throughout the trial was positive, but Martin, Carly, and Greg had to go through the work and discuss it among themselves before making a final decision. This took about a month, due to the holiday period, various personal circumstances, and the data science team meetup that was scheduled for January 2017. Eventually, Martin got back to me with positive news: They were satisfied with my trial work, which meant there was only one stage left – the final interview with Matt Mullenweg, Automattic’s CEO.
👉 Step 7: Ping Matt
Like other parts of the process, the interview with Matt is text-based. The way it works is fairly simple: I was instructed to message Matt on Slack and wait for a response, which may take days or weeks. I sent Matt a message on January 25, and was surprised to hear back from him the following morning. However, that day was Australia Day, which is a public holiday here. Therefore, I only got back to him two hours after he messaged me that morning, and by that time he was probably already busy with other things. This was the start of a pretty long wait.
⏳ Step 8: Wait patiently
I left Car Next Door at the end of January, as I figured that I would be able to line up some other work even if things didn’t work out with Automattic. My plan was to take some time off, and then move up to the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales. I had two Reef Life Survey trips planned, so I wasn’t going to start working again before mid-April. I assumed that I would hear back from Matt before then, which would have allowed me to make an informed decision whether to look for another job or not.
After two weeks of waiting, the time for my dive trips was nearing. As I was going to be without mobile reception for a while, I thought it’d be worth letting Matt know my schedule. After discussing the matter with Martin, I messaged Matt. He responded, saying that we might as well do the interview at the beginning of April, as I won’t be starting work before that time anyway. I would have preferred to be done with the interview earlier, but was happy to have some certainty and not worry about missing more chat messages before April.
In early April, I returned from my second dive trip (which included a close encounter with Cyclone Debbie), and was hoping to sort out my remote work situation while completing the move up north. Unfortunately, while the move was successful, I was ready to give up on Automattic because I haven’t heard back from Matt at all in April. However, Martin remained optimistic and encouraged me to wait patiently, which I did as I was pretty busy with the move and with some casual freelancing projects.
💬 Step 9: Chat with Matt and accept the job offer
The chat with Matt finally happened on May 2. As is often the case, it took a few hours and covered my background, the trial process, and some other general questions. I asked him about my long wait for the final chat, and he apologised for me being an outlier, as most chats happen within two weeks of a candidate being passed over to him. As the chat was about to conclude, we got to the topic of salary negotiation (which went well), and then the process was finally over! Within a few hours of the chat I was sent an offer letter and an employment contract. As Automattic has an entity in Australia (called Ausomattic), it’s a fairly standard contract. I signed the contract and started work the following week – over a year and a half after my initial application. Even before I started working, I booked tickets to meet the data division in Montréal – a fairly swift transition from the long wait for the final interview.
🎉 Step 10: Start working and choose a job title
As noted above, Automatticians get to choose their own job titles, so to become a data scientist with Automattic, I had to set my job title to Data Scientist. This is generally how many people become data scientists these days, even outside Automattic. However, job titles don’t matter as much as job satisfaction. And after 2.5 months with Automattic, I’m very satisfied with my decision to join the company. My first three weeks were spent doing customer support, like all new Automattic employees. Since then, I’ve been involved in projects to make engagement measurement more consistent (harder than it sounds, as counting things is hard), and to improve the data science codebase (e.g., moving away from Legacy Python). Besides that, I also went to Montréal for the data division meetup, and have started getting into chatbot work. I’m looking forward to doing more work and sharing my experience here and on data.blog.Christiansburg, Virginia (CNN) Two college students sat at a fast-food chain restaurant, not to discuss homework, but allegedly to plot the killing of a 13-year-old girl.
Virginia Tech students David Eisenhauer and Natalie Keepers also allegedly planned how to dispose and conceal the body of seventh-grader Nicole Lovell over that late January meal at the Cook Out in Blacksburg, Virginia.
The details came to light in a courtroom Thursday as prosecutor Mary Pettitt argued against granting bail to Keepers.
Keepers, 19, is accused of being an accessory to murder before the fact, concealing a body and being an accessory to murder after the fact.
Keepers' motive, Pettitt told the judge, was that she was "excited to be part of something secretive and special."
The judge denied bond to Keepers.
The pair, Pettitt said, went to the restaurant in the days before the girl's disappearance to talk about the plot to kill Nicole.
Eisenhauer told Keepers how he would lure Nicole out of her home one night, take her to a remote location and use a knife to cut her throat, the prosecutor said.
After leaving Cook Out, they drove by Lovell's home, Pettitt said.
Police arrested Eisenhauer on January 30, three days after Nicole disappeared. Eisenhauer denied involvement in killing the girl.
Investigators said they believe Eisenhauer had an inappropriate relationship with Nicole, a law enforcement official said. The girl was planning to expose their relationship, the official said, and investigators think this was the motive for killing her.
Nicole disappeared after midnight on January 27. Her mother, Tammy Weeks, went to Nicole's bedroom door and found it barricaded, the prosecutor said. Weeks saw an open window and realized Nicole was missing. So was the girl's "Minions" character blanket.
After an extensive search, Nicole's body was found three days later in a wooded area in North Carolina.
Pettitt said in court on Thursday that Eisenhauer corresponded with Lovell on January 27 at 12:39 a.m. through social media.
Also at Thursday's bail hearing, the prosecutor alleged Eisenhauer and Keepers bought a shovel and scouted a remote location for the killing.
Keepers helped Eisenhaur move Nicole's remains into the trunk of his Lexus, Pettitt said. The body was still in the trunk while the pair went to buy cleaning supplies, the prosecutor added.
After Nicole's body was found, police found Keepers at her boyfriend's house and searched the premises.
She allegedly sent Eisenhauer a text message warning: "POLICE."
The search turned up a "Minions" blanket and cleaning supplies, police said.
A preliminary hearing for Eisenhauer has been scheduled for March 28. His court-appointed attorney has not responded to CNN requests for comment.
Pettitt said the autopsy report is expected to be finished just prior to the preliminary hearing.
Eisenhauer did not lead authorities to the body, according to Blacksburg police Chief Anthony Wilson, nor did he confess to the killing.
Authorities said they decided to arrest Eisenhauer after sorting through social media, exploring 300-plus tips and searching for other information pertinent to the case.
A spokesman for Kik, an app that allows users to send anonymous messages, told CNN that it had cooperated with an FBI investigation into the case.A Koh Larn family feud spanning more than a decade turned into gunfire after one relative shot another for dumping cat feces in his yard.
Wanchai Somchai, owner of the Charoenchai Resort, was arrested shortly after fleeing the island by boat around 6 p.m. April 22. He was charged with injuring five people with blasts from a shotgun.
Khwanruen Janpad, 51, suffered a gunshot to the stomach and was taken directly by speedboat to Pattaya Beach Soi 4 and moved quickly to Pattaya International Hospital on that street.
Wanchai Somchai has been arrested for allegedly wounding his relatives with a shotgun blast for dumping cat feces in his yard.
Four others: Wanchai’s younger sister Puang-uen Kaewkajai, 45; the victim’s daughter, Maneerath Chungruang, 35; her husband Weerapan, 37; and Pimchanok Wongruen, 23, also received injuries from shotgun pellets. They were taken to Bali Hai Pier and treated at the hospital for minor wounds.
The families, among an enclave of residents on Koh Larn who’ve lived there longer than Pattaya has been a municipality, have feuded for years, with Wanchai and Khwanruen nearly coming to blows several times before.
But the final straw broke when Khwanruen allegedly accused Wanchai’s wife Tik of repeatedly dumping cat poop over the fence into her yard. Wanchai allegedly then settled the argument with a shotgun.
The owner of a fishing boat, Wanchai then sped away, but was followed by neighbors in boats of their own. They stopped him on the high seas before he could get to his Bang Saray hideout and turned him over to police.It is easy for those of us who live in the U.S. to see Bitcoin, and altcoins in general, only through the prism of the U.S. Dollar. The Dollar is, after all, still the world’s reserve currency, and is what most regard as “real” money. It could be, though, that the real value and potential of Bitcoin is to be found elsewhere, in developing countries and among the billions of people who currently don’t have access to banking services that we take for granted.
There have always been people who distrust their own currency and banking system, even in developed countries where the official exchange medium has a history of relative soundness; “gold bugs” are nothing new. That position is understandable following the events of 2007-8, but most observers would probably consider it an extreme one. Those who have not lived with the luxury of a major currency, however, have many more reasons to embrace alternatives.
Taken as a whole, governments in developing counties hardly have a reputation for fiscal and monetary responsibility. Moreover, even when the best efforts are made, the value of currencies in Third World countries is always in the hands of the market. Central banks in such countries are simply not powerful enough to impose their will on a foreign exchange market that has a daily turnover of over $350 billion, and extreme volatility is always too close for comfort. For people who have lived every day in that situation, the volatility of Bitcoin against major currencies is not that worrying. It is certainly not enough to outweigh the many advantages.
Even those who cannot seem to get their heads around the basic concept of a virtual currency can easily understand the point of the blockchain as a payment system. However, the ability to transfer funds instantly at minimal cost may seem like a marginal advantage over existing payment systems to some people who are comfortable with the existing banking and payment infrastructure in the developed world. To somebody who has been denied access to those systems for most of their life, though, it is revolutionary.
For a person in the Third World of an entrepreneurial bent, Bitcoin and the blockchain solve two basic problems. Firstly, compared to their own currency, Bitcoin offers the possibility of building wealth insulated from the corrosive effects of inflation. Right now, given the dramatic popping bubble that we have seen in BTC, that possibility looks remote. It will, however, take only a relatively short period of stability to make the currency more attractive than many local options. Now that we are back to roughly pre-bubble levels, that is a distinct possibility.
What the blockchain offers, on the other hand, is the chance to participate in commerce, either at a national or even international level. In order to do so, it is not necessary to have a bank account, just a phone. As strange as it would have seemed just a few years ago, that is something that the majority of people have, even in the poorest of countries. There are, of course, some mobile micro banking systems available to those people, but when both traditional and alternative systems are considered side by side and without one having the advantage of familiarity, the speed and low cost of transacting in Bitcoin looks like a much bigger advantage. We are creatures of habit, so starting with a new technology often makes more sense than switching to it.
The world of Bitcoin is prone to hyperbole. Supporters have a vision of there someday being only one global currency, resulting in the destruction of the existing order in banking. Opponents apparently see some scam or inherent evil in BTC and anticipate it self-destructing in short order. As is often the case in polarized debates, the truth is probably at neither extreme. There is no reason that Bitcoin cannot exist parallel to the current systems, offering a real alternative. When and if that situation is realized, it is the adoption of Bitcoin, or some future version of it, by entrepreneurs in the Third World that will fundamentally change lives and be truly revolutionary.Roy Moore rival: 'Men who hurt little girls should go to jail, not the Senate'
Doug Jones, the Democratic candidate in the Alabama Senate election, on Tuesday launched his most sustained attack yet on his Republican rival, Roy Moore.
Republican National Committee resumes support for Roy Moore Read more
In a speech in Birmingham a week before the vote, Jones hammered Moore, who has faced allegations of sexual misconduct involving teenaged girls.
“Men who hurt little girls should go to jail, not the US Senate,” Jones said.
Several hours after Jones’s speech, Republican senator Jeff Flake made a $100 donation to the Democrat’s campaign. Flake, a conservative “Never Trump” Republican from Arizona, wrote “country over party” on the check.
The Alabama race has been roiled by allegations from women who say Moore behaved inappropriately with them when they were teenagers and he was a prosecutor in his 30s.
Two women have claimed Moore sexually assaulted them. Others have said he dated or tried to date them. The Republican candidate has denied all the allegations and pointed to a conspiracy involving “lesbians, gays, bisexuals and socialists”.
Attacking Moore, Jones contrasted the firebrand conservative judge to the state’s former governor, Robert Bentley, who resigned amid a sex scandal in April.
“We didn’t look away with Robert Bentley when his conduct involved consenting adults and we cannot look away now that it involves children,” Jones said.
Moore has twice been forced to step down as chief justice of the Alabama supreme court, for defying federal court orders. Jones set up his Republican opponent as a figure of mockery.
“Roy Moore has never, ever served our state with honor,” he said. “He was already an embarrassment before nine courageous women chose to share their stories.”
He also attacked Moore for his position at a not-for-profit organization called the Foundation for Moral Law, which paid the Republican about $1m over a five-year period.
“I have never lived off of donations from a so-called charitable foundation,” Jones said.
Why did Roy Moore escape to Australia? Clues remain in the outback wilderness Read more
The Democrat even mocked Moore for pulling a small pistol on stage at a campaign rally in September. “When you see me with a gun, I’ll be climbing in and out of a deer blind,” he said, “not prancing around on a stage in a cowboy suit.”
The speech marked a shift in tactics from Jones. From being cautious in criticizing Moore over the allegations of sexual misconduct, his campaign has become increasingly vocal and aggressive.
The speech came one day after Donald Trump formally endorsed Moore and the Republican National Committee, which had withdrawn support, renewed its involvement in the race.
At the White House on Tuesday, Trump talked to reporters about the race. “We don’t want to have a liberal Democrat in Alabama,” he said. “We want to have the things we represent.”
Press secretary Sarah Sanders also defended the endorsement, saying Trump “would rather have a person that supports his agenda versus someone who opposes his agenda every step of the way, and until the rest of that process plays out, you have a choice between two individuals, and the president’s chosen to support Moore”.
She added: “The allegations are concerning and, if true, he should step aside, but we don’t have a way to validate that and that’s something for the people of Alabama to decide.”
CNN journalist Jim Acosta challenged Sanders, noting: “This is somebody who’s been accused of child abuse, of molesting children. How can that vote in the Senate be that important that you would take a gamble on somebody who’s been accused of molesting kids, of harming somebody who is under age? Has he wrestled with that question?
The press secretary answered: “As I’ve said, we find the allegations very troubling and again this is up to the people of Alabama to make that decision. I’m not a voter in Alabama; I can’t make that decision.”
According to the realclearpolitics.com polling average, Moore has a 1.5-point lead.Yamateh, Ice and xy-'s departure from Zenith is confirmed. Zenith is now down to a two man squad with both players also speculated to leave.
Daryl Pei Xiang 'iceiceice' Koh mentioned the departure of Wei Poong 'Yamateh' Ng a few days ago and now, we have received official confirmation that this is indeed true. Alongside Yamateh, Zenith's 5-position player Chee Cai 'Ice' Chua will also be leaving the team. No reasons were specifically mentioned for the departure.
Despite rumours stating that the Malaysian duo will retire, Chee Cai 'Ice' Chua confirmed to us that they will not retire and will actively be looking for a new team after a short break.
With Wai Hong 'xy-' Toh leaving the team to pursue further studies as well, Zenith is now in turmoil as they are down to only two players. There are also speculations that iceiceice wants to bring his talent to China while Nicholas 'xFreedom' Lim seems to be leaving the team as well.
Yamateh and Ice joined Zenith on the 25th of January this year and since then, they placed first in several medium sized tournaments including E2MAX L33t Championship against Neolution.Orange. Zenith also did not join many tournaments throughout the first half of 2013 due to time constraint, iceiceice mentioned. Zenith also finished in 9th-12th placing in The International 3, the first time Zenith did not cash in the annual event.
-Update-
This should be the end for zenith. With army and reality for every singaporean its just not easy to pursuit esports. Thanks for the support! — Nicholas Lim (@xfreeedom) August 21, 2013
As it appears, it seems like xFreedom has also left Zenith.
Zenith team roster:
Daryl Pei Xiang 'iceiceice' Koh
Photo source: FurryfishAmerica Online chat transcript, AOL.com, 19 October 2000
AOL Live presented an exclusive live chat with "Harry Potter" creator J.K. Rowling.
Good evening. This is a real treat -- the most popular writer in the world. Welcome, J.K. Rowling.
Thank you!
Ms. Rowling, do you think that making a Harry Potter movie will help people understand the books better or will it ruin the imagination for the books?
I don't think people need help understanding the books. I hope the film will be really good and not disappoint the fans. Personally, I can't wait to watch Quidditch.
Ms. Rowling, why did you write about witchcraft and wizardry?
I had the idea of a boy who was a wizard and didn't yet know what he was. I never sat down and wondered, "What shall I write about next?" It just came, fully formed.
When people trade in Muggle money for Wizard money, what does Gringotts do with the Muggle money?
Those goblins are sneaky people. They manage to put the Muggle money back into circulation. They are like "fences" --British slang, do you understand it?
What did James and Lily Potter do when they were alive?
Well, I can't go into too much detail, because you're going to find out in future books. But James inherited plenty of money, so he didn't need a well-paid profession. You'll find out more about both Harry's parents later.
If YOU went to Hogwarts, which house would they put you in?
Good name, Wizard. Well, I'd hope for Gryffindor, obviously, but I suspect they might want to put me in Ravenclaw.
Ms. Rowling, where do you come up with those names of the characters, like Quidditch?
Quidditch is a name I invented. I just wanted a word which began with the letter 'Q' (I don't know why, it was just a whim). Many of the names are taken from maps -- for instance, Snape, which is an English village.
Ms. Rowling, have you ever made a map or blueprint of the school?
No, because all those staircases keep shifting around and rooms pop out of nowhere, and stuff just moves too much. But I have got a notebook that reminds me what floor everything is on, just to keep track. Of course, if anything moves, I can blame it on magic, not my mistakes.
What do you think of the people who want to ban your books?
I think they are... uh.. what's a good word? Misguided. I think these are very moral books. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but not to impose their views on others!
Does the animal one turns into as an Animagi reflect your personality?
Very well deduced, Narri! I personally would like to think that I would transform into an otter, which is my favorite animal. Imagine how horrible it would be if I turned out to be a cockroach!
Is it hard being famous?
Sometimes it's wonderful, like now, when I get to meet lots of readers. Other times it's hard, when, for instance, journalists come banging on my front door, especially when I'm cooking.
When is Hermione's birthday?
Hermione's birthday is September 19th.
Did you consider having a girl be the main character?
Well, I didn't -- purely because Harry came to me as a boy. And after I'd been writing about him for a few months, he was too real to me to change. However, Hermione is such a good friend too, that I don't feel I have short-changed girls |
D graphics and game engines revolutionized gaming and, if that wasn't enough, he later connected with a very young Palmer Luckey to work on the software for what would eventually become the Oculus Rift.
Carmack is now the CTO of Oculus, and his work on the company's mobile SDK, the software that makes the Gear VR such an impressive, portable virtual reality technology, landed him on our list of the 50 most admirable people of 2014.While we are still waiting for the patch and the malicious PDFs which exploit CVE-2009-4324 become more and more nasty, here's another quick excursion in dissecting and analyzing hostile PDF files. We'll take a closer look at the sample that fellow ISC Handler Bojan already analyzed, but will this time do a static analysis without actually running the hostile code.
$md5sum Requset.pdf
192829aa8018987d95d127086d483cfc Requset.pdf
$ls -ald Requset.pdf
-rw-r----- 1 daniel handlers 952206 2010-01-03 23:57 Requset.pdf
One of the tools that work very well to analyze PDFs is Didier Stevens' excellent script "pdf-parser.py". Running pdf-parser.py -f Requset.pdf | more nicely dissects the PDF into its portions, and also de-compresses packed sections. Almost at the end of the output, we encounter Object #44:
The code is included here as an image, to keep your anti-virus from panicking. The blue box marks the surprisingly short and efficient shell code block of only 38 bytes length that Bojan mentioned in his earlier diary. The red box marks the call to "media.newPlayer" with a null argument, which is a tell-tale sign of an exploit for CVE 2009-4324, the currently still unpatched Adobe vulnerability.
If all we wanted to know is whether this PDF is hostile, we can stop here: Yes, it is.
Taking a completely different tack on the same sample, a brute force method in analysis that often works, and also works in this case, is to check the sample for XOR encoded strings. XORSearch, another one of Didier Stevens' cool tools (URL) helps with this task. Let's check if the sample contains a XOR encoded representation of the string "http"
$ XORSearch Requset.pdf http
Found XOR 00 position E6340: http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">.
Found XOR 00 position E63A9: http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/">. <xmp:Modif
[...etc...]
Found XOR 85 position D870: http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#' xmlns
Found XOR 85 position D8A7: http://ns.adobe.com/iX/1.0/'>..<rdf:Description rd
Found XOR 85 position DAD4: http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/' xapMM:DocumentID=
Found XOR 85 position DB86: http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/' dc:format='appli
Found XOR 85 position 1054D: httpshellopencomMand.SoftwareMicrosoftActive
Well, a XOR with zero is not overly exciting, all this means is that the file contains these URLs in plain text. But a XOR with 85, and one that seems to be doing some sort of shell.open... now that's intriguing. Let's simply XOR the entire PDF file with 0x85, and see what we get:
$cat Requset.pdf | perl -pe's/(.)/chr(ord($1)^0x85)/ge' |strings | more
gfJV
w)pf
S>S2X4
[...etc...]
z<o*
7Fpo
!This program cannot be run in DOS mode.
L8Rich
M_*K
.text
`.rdata
Now lookie, it seems as if this PDF contains an embedded executable! And a bit further down in the de-xored file, we find
hepfixs.exe
baby
{38FC368D-A5D0-21DA-0404-080501030704}
cecon.flower-show.org
ws2_32
SOFTWAREClasseshttpshellopencomMand
SoftwareMicrosoftActive SetupInstalled Components
This gives us a potential domain name (cecon.flower-show. org), and also a ClassID. Searching for {38FC368D-A5D0-21DA-0404-080501030704} in Google, we find a recent ThreatExpert analysis http://www.threatexpert.com/report.aspx?md5=b0eeca383a7477ee689ec807b775ebbb that matches perfectly to what we found within this PDF.
Given the time later during my 24hr shift here at the ISC, I'll post another diary to take a look at other hostile PDF samples that we received. If you got any interesting potentially hostile PDFs, please send them in!Jessica Brandi Lifland for The New York Times
How much is your pet’s health worth to you?
Most pet owners say that cost is a factor when deciding whether to seek medical care for a sick dog or cat. And about 40 percent worry they won’t be able to afford care when it’s needed, according to a new survey from the Associated Press and the Web site Petside.com.
Most pet owners (62 percent) said they would likely pay for pet health care even if the cost reached $500, but that means more than a third of pet owners said that might be too much to spend on an animal.
What if the bill for veterinary care reached $1,000? Fewer than half of pet owners said they were very likely to spend that much at the vet. Only a third said it was very likely they would pay a $2,000 vet bill.
Once the cost of saving a sick pet reached $5,000, most pet owners said they would stop treatment. Only 22 percent said they were very likely to pick up $5,000 in veterinary costs to treat a sick dog or cat.
The poll, conducted in April, involved phone interviews with 1,112 pet owners around the country.
Cat owners were more likely to quit on a pet sooner than dog owners. Among those unwilling to spend $500 on veterinary care, 26 percent owned dogs and 54 percent had cats. But once costs exceeded $500, there was no difference between dog and cat owners and their willingness to seek medical care for an animal.
Notably, income level didn’t seem to influence feelings about how much to spend on veterinary care. Pet owners who earned less than $50,000 answered about the same as those earning more money.Happy Halloween everyone!!
It’s that time of year again and the team is incredibly excited to finally share in-game footage with you. Today we finally reveal Predator Mode, the Killer’s special set of abilities that enables him to stalk and hunt down the survivors. All footage is captured directly in game at 60 FPS on PC using the latest version of Unreal Engine 4.This is our benchmark for the quality for characters, sound, and atmospheric environments that you will experience with Last Year. With each environment we are crafting a location that tells a story, an immersive world that makes you feel like you’re living inside a movie.
We’re also incredible excited to share the first two official screenshots of Last Year with you. Click for full 2K resolution!
Troy and Samantha attempt to take on The Giant. Troy is weilding a home made taser, one of the many craftable items in the game. It gives survivors the ability to temporarily stun the Killer and make a daring escape.
Fighting back against The Killer when you're in a group can sometimes be successful, but when you're all alone you are almost certain to face death. Here, Amber is on the run from the Slasher and tries (unsuccessfully) to hide in the basements of East Side.
Please welcome our new Marketing and Community Director, Kevin Scharf, who happens to be another fellow colleague from Eidos Montreal who has joined the team!.
Kevin: Hello Backers and Happy Halloween! My name is Kevin Scharf and I am the new guy in this band of developers! My official role/title on the Last Year team is Marketing Director but in essence I’m the guy who is now making sure that you are all up-to-date, that the public is excited for this great project you helped fund, and that our trailers, marketing material, and brand are kickass, and that all of us are having a blast.
This game wouldn’t be possible without you guys and I just want you all to know that we will always put you first, the people who got us here in the first place. I hope you enjoyed our Last Year – Predator Mode Reveal Trailer and I look forward to getting even more cool content and videos to you guys!
From this point forward you should all expect a lot more communication, a revamp of our Facebook page www.facebook.com/lastyearthegame and Twitter Feed www.twitter.com/lastyeargame and some upcoming surprises. I look forward to sharing this journey to launch with all of you, and making Last Year the best multiplayer horror title possible.
Taking time to craft a legend
Now that we have had a chance to share our vision for quality with all of you (barring missing animations and further polish) we feel that its time to have an important talk with not only our backers but the public at large. Last Year has been an amazing journey so far for the team working on it. From starting with an idea in James Wearing’s head, to 2 people bouncing ideas between each other during lunch breaks, to the modest sized team we have currently (which was built with your help and backing), we have always been consistent in one thing. We put quality first. Quality is not only visuals but game mechanics, game design, maps, sounds, packaging, matchmaking, progression, and so much more. It is the very thing that can elevate a relatively unknown title and turn it into something special.
To that end we believe that we need more time to ensure that everyone gets the best quality game possible. So we are moving our release date from Late November 2016 to a beta in Mid August 2017. This was a tough decision for the team but we know you, our fans and backers, want something that is not only great to look at, but is also great to play with your friends and with the Last Year community. We promise you all that the wait will be worth it. For our fans who missed our Kickstarter but have been emailing us about wanting to help: we have not forgotten about you. We will be opening up a limited window on reserving your place as a “late backer” and getting a chance to have the same benefits as our current Backers. Though we haven’t set the date yet we, stay tuned to this Facebook page for the confirmed date to reserve your backer status.
We're also super excited to finally share the news of the music team that has been composing the soundtrack for Last Year. We have teamed up with Pixel Audio, one of Montreal's leading composition teams. The Predator Mode reveal trailer was composed by the team at Pixel and gives you a sample of what the team is creating for Last Year. for more information on pixel visit www.pixelaudio.ca
We're excited to be working with Pixel because of their ability to create such a vast and wide ranging set of styles. Last Year features a fully dynamic music system created by the team and Pixel that caters to the audio experience of each player. What the Killer hears is completely different than what Survivors hear, and Pixel is hard at work crafting a sonic-story that will immerse you into the role of a Killer or Survivor.
Once again none of this would be possible without your help and believing in Last Year from the beginning. We hope the Predator Reveal trailer gives you a sense of the quality and immersiveness to expect when Last Year is ready and we have a LOT more to show you in the coming months.
Happy Halloween!!
-Last Year development team
www.facebook.com/lastyearthegame
www.twitter.com/lastyeargameMetro riders will pay full fares over the next year -- even as parts of the system face weeks of single-tracking at a time and five stretches of track are shut down for long periods.
WASHINGTON – Metro riders will pay full fares over the next year — even as parts of the system face weeks of single tracking and five stretches of track are shut down for long periods.
The Metro Board of Directors took no action Thursday at its final meetings before the plan begins next month on any changes to fares, and Board Chair Jack Evans says there will “not immediately” be any relief for riders.
“As this is a crisis situation in the bigger picture, I think the fare structure should be on the table as we talk about how to go forward,” Evans said Thursday.
“I think we have to do something dramatically different, but it takes money,” he added.
In the case of this nearly full year of 24/7 single-tracking work and shutdowns on top of regular track work, Metro General Manager Wiedefeld said he believes changing fares would cost Metro too much.
“The challenge there is we only get revenue from two sources there: it’s either the farebox or it’s the local jurisdictions … that would be the discussion,” he said.
Metro gets about half of its operating budget from passenger fares and parking fees, and a small portion from other sources such as advertising income.
The board finance committee did not discuss any potential fare changes during the service disruptions, but did vote Thursday to give Wiedefeld the authority to waive fares or parking fees “when faced with emergency conditions.” Wiedefeld says he sees the delayed vote as specifically for one-off instances such as this winter’s blizzard.
Wiedefeld waived fares across the system as service slowly returned that Monday, despite a lack of authority to do so. The Metro Board later approved the actions anyway.
Waiving or lowering fares in parts of the Metro system during the yearlong track-work plan would be complicated by antiquated fare infrastructure, but changes can be programmed if given enough lead time. Metro has canceled plans to upgrade its fare system.
At the announcement of his draft plan May 6, Wiedefeld argued that Metro will still be providing at least some way to get around the single tracking or shutdowns with the help of about 40 buses dedicated to shuttles or supplemental express service over the next year.
“We’re maintaining transit in the entire system,” he said then. “We still will be providing the base service, people have to make choices but we have to continue to provide the service just like it’s every day.”
In rolling periods, certain stations across the system will see significantly reduced train service, or only shuttle buses. Even if just a short stretch of a line is impacted, the work will have ripple effects on other lines on which trains share tracks.
Follow @WTOP on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
© 2016 WTOP. All Rights Reserved.In the days since Special Counsel Robert Mueller charged three former Trump aides and allies, some have speculated about whether President Trump will fire Mueller.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that Trump has “no intention or plan” to fire Mueller, but Trump has a habit of firing people who are investigating him. Should he fire Mueller, Congress could take action.
Four camps have basically emerged in among the Senate GOP specifically. First, there’s a group of 20 senators that is publicly supportive of Mueller and the investigation. A second, smaller group of seven senators has basically stayed neutral, with some complaining talking about Mueller distracts from their main priority, tax reform.
A third group of five senators are echoing Trump’s arguments, saying Manafort’s indictment has nothing to do with Trump or that Mueller has a conflict-of-interest.
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The rest of the Senate GOP has simply stayed silent. ThinkProgress has reached out to all Republican senators who have not commented on the indictments or how they would react should Trump fire Mueller. None of them responded as of Wednesday afternoon.
Here are all the responses from Senate Republicans who have commented regarding Monday’s indictments and the potential of Mueller’s firing. This article will be updated should other Senators comment.
The ones who are supportive of Mueller and his investigation
This group of 20 Republican Senators has expressed support for Mueller, indicating with varying levels of ferocity that they would take action should Trump try to fire the special counsel. In August, legislation was introduced in the Senate that would protect Mueller from being fired by Trump, and although it has not gained steam, this is the group that would be most likely to support it if it appeared Mueller’s job was in danger.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)
“My basic philosophy is, once you have an independent counsel, you ought to give him a chance to follow the facts,” Shelby, the chairman of the subcommittee that handles the Justice Department’s funding, told The Washington Post. “If somebody’s doing a job, you don’t want to cut it off.”
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Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
In a joint interview with CNN in August, Collins said Trump “can’t set red lines for Mueller,” and Murkowski responded, “Well said.” The Alaska senator has also expressed her support for Mueller’s appointment on Twitter.
Pleased that Deputy AG has appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to lead the Russia investigation. pic.twitter.com/stqpdjclsi — Sen. Lisa Murkowski (@lisamurkowski) May 18, 2017
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)
In June, McCain said firing Mueller would be “explosive,” a stance he reiterated earlier this week. “I would oppose,” he said, asked about Trump potentially firing Mueller. “And so would the American people.”
Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
“[Mueller’s] been appointed for a purpose, let him carry that purpose out, and let the evidence take us where it may,” Isakson told The Huffington Post Tuesday.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
“As always, it’s important to let our legal system run its course. While we don’t have any more information regarding the current status of the special counsel’s investigation other than what has already been made public, it’s good to see the Justice Department taking seriously its responsibility to enforce the Foreign Agents Registration Act,” Grassley said in a statement earlier this week. “The Judiciary Committee is continuing its work to ensure that the Justice Department and FBI are functioning free from inappropriate influence, consistent with our constitutional oversight responsibility.”
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Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA)
“It’s important that we let the Special Counsel and bipartisan congressional investigations continue in earnest,” Ernst said in a statement Monday.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
“The special counsel has his job to do,” McConnell said earlier this week in his first public statement since the indictments. The job we have here in the Senate is the investigation being carried out by the intelligence committee.”
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA)
Kennedy told reporters that “uranium probes” deserve more attention, but added, “I don’t want to deny the Justice Department or special counsel resources they need… Now I don’t want to see them just go hog wild and waste money either. But I don’t want to try to do anything to hurt their effort.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)
In August, Collins told CNN, Trump “can’t set red lines for Bob Mueller.” On Tuesday, she noted that she thinks such a thing is unlikely, telling The Washington Post, “The idea that Bob Mueller is going to have the scope of his inquiry constrained or be otherwise restricted, is really out there… I think that’s extremely unlikely.”
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE)
Sasse re-upped a tweet from May calling Mueller an “honorable man and a true public servant,” adding, “Still true.”
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC)
Tillis is spearheading a bill that would prevent Trump from firing Mueller, and he told Politico earlier this week that he’s committed to getting the bill passed. “I want to make it clear that this is something I’m looking to get back into the purview of the Senate,” he said. “This isn’t just about this special counsel. It’s for all other future special counsels.”
Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH)
Portman told local media over the weekend that he thinks Trump is being “too defensive” about the Russia probe.
Sen. James Lankford (R-OK)
“He’s doing the job he’s been asked by the American people to do. He should stay at it and finish it,” Lankford told The Huffington Post Tuesday.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Firing Mueller “would be a disaster. … There’s no reason to fire Mueller. What’s he done to be fired?” Graham said in June. On Monday, Graham doubled down, telling Fox News there “will be holy hell to pay” if Trump fires the special counsel.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC)
“The American people deserve the truth, wherever it lies,” Scott said in a statement Monday night. “While the charges against Mr. Manafort pre-date the campaign, it is important individuals under investigation continue to cooperate with Mr. Mueller.” (It’s worth noting that Manafort’s charges do not exclusively pre-date the campaign.)
Sen. John Thune (R-SD)
Mueller “is a man of integrity … and he needs to be able to do his work,” Thune said on MSNBC in June. “And I think it’s better for all of us if that work continues. It’s – obviously he is going to get to the bottom and he is going to find the facts, and I think that’s his role. And I think we ought to let him continue to do that and I assume at some point there will be an end to all this. He’ll have done his investigation and there will be whatever findings there are.”
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD)
“No. He should not be [fired],” Rounds said on NPR over the summer. “Straightforward. This is a special counsel. He has a job to do. Let him do his job.”
Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN)
“There would be an uprising at the Capitol like never seen before if any kind of interference looked like it was taking place,” Corker told the Post Tuesday. “Regardless of which side of the aisle. That’s just beyond the pale.”
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
In the wake of the indictments, Hatch said Mueller needs “time and support,” but added to reporters, “Frankly, I’m having a rough time seeing why in the world they are indicting him… I think it’s overreach.”
Hatch, the senior members and former Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates. #utpol pic.twitter.com/ll31373r59 — Senator Hatch Office (@senorrinhatch) October 30, 2017
Hatch also told Politico he is confident Trump won’t fire Mueller. “He’s not gonna be fired by the president,” Hatch said. “I know him, he knows that’d be a stupid move, as far as I’m concerned.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT)
“I fully support Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s continuing investigation and I’ll do everything I can to make sure that the system of checks and balances, the system of separation of powers in the federal government, is upheld,” Lee told The Salt Lake Tribune through a spokesperson.
The ones who just want you to let them focus on tax reform
This group of seven senators has ducked questions about Mueller and the indictments. Several of them redirected conversation with reporters to tax reform, the Senate’s self-professed priority right now. It’s uncertain what, if anything, this group would do if Trump tried to fire Mueller.
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK)
Sullivan told Talking Points Memo he hasn’t read proposed legislation that would protect Mueller should Trump try to fire the special counsel. “You guys are in some ways a lot more focused on this than the work,” he said. “And when I go home and do town halls the number of questions I get on that is low, sometimes zero.”
Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID)
A statement from Crapo’s office said Mueller and the congressional committees investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election must conclude their investigations into Russia’s actions “appropriately,” adding, “Until the investigation has been completed in its entirety, it would be premature for him to speculate on the matter further.”
Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID)
A spokesperson for Risch told The Spokesman-Review, “As far as the individuals who have recently been the subject of Justice Department charges, those matters will be handled by the Justice Department and federal courts through the regular judicial process.”
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS)
“I can’t think of why it should [overshadow tax week],” Wicker told CNN. Wicker added to the Post, “I probably know less than you,” declaring that he was “way behind on that issue.”
Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC)
“The special counsel has found a reason on criminal violations to indict two individuals and I will leave that up to the special counsel to make that determination,” Burr, who is leading the Senate investigation into Trump campaign collusion, told CNN. “It doesn’t change anything with our investigation. Two individuals that we’ve gotten documents from. We have, we had interest in them, but clearly the criminal charges put them in the Special Counsel’s purview.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)
“That’s [Mueller’s] wheelhouse, not ours,” Cornyn, the majority whip, told the Post. Cornyn also told CBS, “That really isn’t our job… I don’t see how the indictment changes the president’s ability to do his job. There is a process for this to go forward. And I trust that it will happen.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
Cruz told local media this week that the charges are “undoubtedly serious” but that he wants to “see if the facts back up the charges.”
The ones who are leaving the door open
This group of five senators softly defended Trump in the wake of Mueller’s first indictments Monday. The group echoed Trump arguments about Manafort and the Russia investigation. It’s this group that would be mostly likely to support Trump if he tried to fire Mueller.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)
Asked about the indictments earlier this week, Rubio echoed Trump, telling TMZ (incorrectly) that all of Manafort’s alleged crimes occurred before the campaign. In June, Rubio told CNN Trump “will not fire” Mueller.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)
“This has to do with them paying their taxes. I can’t really make an argument that they shouldn’t have paid their taxes,” Paul told local media. But, he added, “If a special prosecutor came into our lives, and was able to turn every page of everything we done over the last decade or two, is there a chance that people who aren’t bad people be caught up in something like that? Yeah, I’ve seen it happen a lot.”
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO)
Blunt expressed support for Mueller but was careful to leave the door open, noting that his support is not unconditional. “I might reach that conclusion at some point [that Mueller should resign],” Blunt told The Huffington Post, “but based on the information I have right now I have no reason to believe he can’t do his job as special counsel.”
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK)
“So far I haven’t seen that our president was a part of it or was knowledgeable about it,” Inhofe told Vox. “We don’t know what’s going to come. Apparently there are going to be more indictments. We will wait and see until more things are exposed. In the meantime, don’t forget we still have all the Hillary activity.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI)
“Day to day developments don’t change the senator’s view that a special counsel was appointed far too early in this process,” a spokesperson for Johnson said. “Nor do they affect his overall concern that this investigation cannot tolerate even the appearance of a conflict of interest. Mr. Mueller is simply too close to James Comey and the FBI as questions continue to surface about their roles in matters the special counsel may be investigating.”
The ones who’ve said nothing at all
This group of 17 senators has not commented on the potential of Trump firing Mueller nor have they commented on Monday’s indictments. ThinkProgress has reached out to all of their offices for comment. It’s unclear how they would react if Trump moved to fire Mueller, though this story will be updated if any of the legislators clarifies their stance.
Sens. Luther Strange (R-AL), John Boozman (R-AK), Tom Cotton (R-AK), Cory Gardner (R-CO), Todd Young (R-IN), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Steve Daines (R-MT), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Dean Heller (R-NV), John Hoeven (R-ND), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV), Mike Enzi (R-WY), and John Barrasso (R-WY).Right then, let me try laying this one out on paper, because I’m still having a hard time comprehending it. So, a few days ago, Chris Taylor and Gas Powered Games announced a rather massive Kickstarter. Wildman, they said, would need $1.1 million in its tank before it could get off the ground, but they had it all planned out. So we got some gameplay footage, and everything seemed to be proceeding apace – minus, perhaps, the Kickstarter itself, which was acting less prehistoric hare beast and more tribal tortoise mutant. But apparently, that wasn’t good enough. So now, mere days after kicking off its Kickstarter, Gas Powered Games is kicking most of its employees to the curb. And according to Chris Taylor, Wildman’s Kickstarter might end up on the chopping block as well.
In response to a flurry of rumors that began circulating late Friday, Chris Taylor released a series of statements explaining the situation. Confirming the layoffs to Gamasutra, Taylor explained that “the studio is still operating, but we had to slim WAY down to conserve cash reserves.” Further elaborating in response to Polygon, he then cast some pretty serious doubt over Wildman’s future – at least, where Kickstarter is concerned.
“These layoffs are substantial, but it’s not everyone. We still have a fully functioning company, IT, HR, Operations, etc. And have retained some key people. [I’m going to ask Kickstarter supporters] if I should continue and then rehire people, or terminate the campaign now.”
And so he did, explaining in an impassioned video update that he was planning to gamble the entire company on Wildman’s success, but – at the last second – decided against it because that could mean tossing his entire studio out into a very, very cold economy. Thus, he elected to lay off many people now so others can keep their jobs in the event of a worst-case scenario. Now, though, he’s put the big question forward to supporters: should he keep going full-steam ahead (in spite of a semi-stagnant Kickstarter) and hopefully rehire everyone at the end, or should he cut his losses and call it quits now?
Regardless, things sound pretty dire, but at least no one’s playing any funeral dirges just yet. Still though, it’s awful to hear about more industry layoffs – especially in light of the fact that everything seemed a-okay. Unfortunately, Gas Powered Games was quite evidently putting on a brave “nothing to see here” face when, in fact, it was bleeding out and needed a cash transfusion stat. I certainly don’t think that’s the only reason Taylor and co put Wildman on Kickstarter (there’s clearly a lot of passion at GPG, and – to their credit – it looks like they’ve already put a good deal of work into this project), but I imagine it was a pretty major factor.
A cynical mind, meanwhile, might view this entire thing as a calculated publicity stunt, but again, I highly, highly doubt that’s the case. Odds are, we’re looking at good people in a bad situation. Because that’s just how life tends to work. Taylor, if nothing else, is sticking to his guns and potentially putting his company’s fate directly in the hands of the community, and – symbolic gesture or not – that’s pretty, well, wild.
So then, what say you? Do you think Wildman’s diamond-hewn arms are strong enough to carry an ailing Gas Powered Games, or should Taylor and co regroup and take a different approach?In 1938, the Government basically bought out the 75 residents left in the town of St Thomas, opened the Hoover Dam Flood Gates and BAM! Sunk the town…
50+ years later, BAM! Drought.
Receding waters revealed an eerily beautiful landscape like nothing you’ve ever seen.
If you’d like to read about the history of the town written by an actual journalist, please go here:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/features/finding-nevada/2013/sep/15/st-thomas-high-and-dry-ghost-town/
The Low Down:
2.5 miles with a hill (that won’t kill you) at the end
There is NO shade. I wouldn’t do this in the Summer. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Wear desert appropriate clothing (Layers in the winter, sun protection in the spring) I would suggest that you wear pants to avoid scratches from the shrubbery.
Hiking Boots or really good sneakers will work. Loose rocks galore!
Sun Block is a must no matter what time of year. Sunglasses and a hat are a good idea.
BUG SPRAY may be necessary in the warmer months.
Cell Service? Yes! I had WiFi too!
WATER, WATER, WATER
Indulge in a snack by one of the ruins. The view is weirdly soothing.
Very Kid Friendly- especially if they listen well.
THERE ARE NO TRASH CANS. PACK IT OUT!
There is a restroom at the trail head, BYO Toilet Paper (I always do).
Directions:
Trailhead: St. Thomas is located 76 miles NE of Las Vegas. Take I-15 North 48 miles to Logandale-Overton exit (Nevada Route 169). Turn South and travel 29 miles to Valley of Fire Road (the State Park enters to your right) — do NOT turn towards Valley of Fire State Park. Instead, turn on the dirt road entering SR 169 on the opposite side of Valley of Fire. Follow the dirt road to it’s end. Take it easy…
The Lowdown
You start at the top and work your way down, Kids. Reminds me of some people I know who work in Hollywood! Anyway…
Follow this sweet but rocky and Burro Poop filled path down, down, down to the bowels of Lake Mead.
I would like you to stop for a second and recognize the fact that where I am standing was probably under 60 feet of water at one time. Do you see all the random, white specs on the ground? Those are shells, I swear!
See! I told you!
Follow the Trail Markers and then pick up the little “Riverbed” trail. That will take you through the town. These pictures are actually showing you what it looks like on the way back. You’re smart, you get the idea..
…and now for Your Photo Tour
All good things must come to an end…
The end…
The Wrap-Up
As I have said many time- I LOVE a destination hike. The ruins are amazing! It’s trippy to see buildings buried up to their 2nd stories by remnants of the lake bed floor. Truly a wonderful place to explore!
Walk along the “Riverbed” and pass the school. Stop for a moment and listen to the wind…you can practically hear the children voices riding the breeze.
…and now for something completely ARTSY
AdvertisementsA teen at the center of a controversial suspension at Rudder High School in Bryan is speaking out.
Christian Tumax, 18, was at lunch on Monday when he said he heard a friend of his, who has special needs, yelling from behind him.
"I turned around and saw he was being harassed," said Tumax.
Tumax said he's known the teen for a while, and he has trouble making friends. It didn't take Tumax long to figure out what to do next.
"I told the guys to be quiet and leave him alone," said Tumax.
After an exchange of words, Tumax found himself talking with school officials. He was suspended the same day.
Tumax said it was the surveillance footage from the cafeteria that school officials based their decision on. He said in the footage, it appears that he was the aggressor, even though there were dozens of other students in the cafeteria who could have testified otherwise.
"They had to base it off what they saw in the cameras," said Tumax. "They saw me go forward, and that's the reason I got suspended."
Students upset with the decision to suspend Tumax took to social media and created the Free Tumax hash tag.
Later, Bryan ISD Superintendent Dr. Thomas Wallis tweeted "I appreciate the messages today, I do read them. Please remember student discipline issued by a campus is a confidential matter."
In a statement, Bryan ISD officials said "Individual student discipline is tied to confidential student records. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding any one event, by law the district cannot comment. These privacy boundaries are put in place to protect students and their confidential information."
In spite of it all, Tumax said he's not upset with school officials for their decision to suspend him. He said they were just doing their job, and he's ready to get back to school and put the whole thing behind him.
Tumax said there's a deeper lesson that needs to be learned from the ordeal.
"My message is, go out and help somebody," said Tumax. "If you see it, don't hesitate, don't be scared. We're all human, we all need help, and we all have demons that we're fighting with."
Tumax said he'd do the same thing if faced with a similar situation. As for the suspension, he said school officials told him it wouldn't go on his permanent record.A visitor uses a laptop computer at Google's campus in London in 2013. (Jason Alden/Bloomberg)
In 2015 we added 8,214 employees to Google. And the women we hired, on average, received a 30 percent bigger salary increase upon joining the company, compared to men.
Does that sound fair to you?
Study after study demonstrates that |
Tina Fey!!!!) he’s ever met to this mixtape. The last work he released was Camp, which he handled solo with no features. I’m sure because this is just a mixtape he decided to feature whoever asked for it. I respect that, but some of the rappers he features are just horrible. The amount of features made Royalty very similar to an Odd Future mixtape. That being said, the mixtape was still one of the better mixtapes I’ve heard in the past 5 years. Gambino goes in on virtually every verse and some of the features are very appropriate. My personal favorite was “Wonderful”, which featured Josh Osho (who is sort of an English version of John Legend). Oh yeah, and Tina Fey ends the final song on the mixtape in the funniest 45 seconds of music I’ve ever heard. Download.
Happy Fourth, everyone.
AdvertisementsSixteen years ago Major League Soccer embarked on a new path with the first ever MLS SuperDraft. For one man, that day holds a special fondness as he made history by becoming the first ever SuperDraft pick. “I certainly don’t answer the phone with, ‘Hi, I’m former number one draft pick, Steve Shak’. I think that would be pretty arrogant,” Shak says.
Currently residing in Charlotte, North Carolina, Shak acknowledges he may not hold the same status in the game as some players from the 2000 draft, which included his UCLA teammate and former Fulham defender Carlos Bocanegra. “I don’t get a call every year or anything like that,” he explains. “For a lot of my life I had a chip on my shoulder because their careers [Bocanegra & Danny Califf] went in the direction I wanted my career to go, but it just didn’t happen. I blamed it on everybody else, [laughs] until you just get honest with yourself.”
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Now a highly produced spectacle broadcast live on ESPN, Shak’s experience in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was somewhat different. “I did find some pictures of that day and I thought, wow, it looks a lot different now,” he says, laughing. Drafted just days before his 22nd birthday, he was selected by the New York Red Bulls (then the New York/New Jersey MetroStars).
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For Metrostars coach Octavio Zambrano familiarity was important, with all but one of his picks being players he had previously coached. “He coached me for like a year at youth soccer, so he knew me,” Shak says. “You’d have to ask him why he picked me. From what he told me and what I read, he believed in me. That’s a good feeling to have as a player. He saw a lot of potential in me, and he wasn’t the only one. You look at the picks and you never know, there are star players that are picked in the third or fourth round. It’s the same as in every sport, you just don’t know.”
Yet despite having a history with Zambrano, it did not stop Shak feeling a sense of disbelief when he heard the league’s commissioner, Don Garber, announce his name. “I was just shocked,” he recalls. “There were so many good players and to be picked first with the group that was in the room was quite an honour. I don’t remember what I said [at the podium] but I gave thanks to the team for picking me, I thanked my parents, my university, and I’m a Christian so I thanked the Lord Jesus Christ. I took some photos and that was it.”
Chosen first overall, there was sizeable expectation placed on Shak. News reports at the time described him as ‘the most promising player in the draft’. “I certainly felt pressure as the first pick,” he admits. “I don’t know what it’s like to be second, third, or 20th, but as an athlete I guarantee all those other guys put pressure on themselves. The difference may be that the media have a different expectation of the number one than the number two or three, but that number two or three is number one for that team that chooses them. I think one of the things that makes an athlete capable of competing at that level is compartmentalising what other people think and focusing on your game and your contribution to the team. The mental side of the game is such a challenging aspect to navigate. If you don’t do it well you’ll get eaten alive.”
Jumping from college soccer into the professional ranks, Shak now listed World Cup winner Lothar Matthäus amongst his teammates. “It was amazing,” Shak says of his time with Matthäus. “I learned a lot from him. I played with a lot of idols, but Lothar was way at the top of the list. I don’t think he was at the top of his game when he came to us, but it was still an incredible experience. To ask questions, to train with him, to see how incredible he was technically, it was great.”
By Shak’s own humble admission, his career did not move in the direction he had hoped it would. Traded to the Colorado Rapids in 2001, he would leave MLS a year later. “With hindsight it’s easy to see all the purpose in things,” he explains. “The year I got cut from MLS I played on a team called the Minnesota Thunder. I met my wife playing on that team and had I had the career I wanted I would never have played in Minnesota. I would have played in MLS, gone to the World Cup, played in the Premier League, and I would never have met my wife and have the five kids I do now. I wouldn’t trade them for the career that I wanted.”
No longer involved in professional soccer - he works as a financial representative for Northwestern Mutual - it is clear that Shak’s departure from the game has given him time to reflect. “A lot has happened in my life in the last sixteen years,” he says. “If I put a lot of my identity into the sport and my achievements in the sport I wouldn’t have a lot of self confidence, because my career kind of went down. When I look back I see purpose in it and I have no regrets or shame talking about it.”
Still in contact with Bocanegra and some of his former colleagues, Shak is now eager to repay his wife for her support during his professional career. Still happy to impart advice to fellow parents with soccer obsessed children, he now takes immense pride in raising his own. Ranging in ages, he jokes about how they will often engage in three-on-two matches in the family home.
As for his time in MLS, Shak only sees the silver lining and the fact he is now part of the league’s history. “My kids are too young to understand what MLS or the draft is, but that’ll be a great story to tell when I have grandkids bouncing on my knee,” he says, laughing.
Follow Kristan Heneage on Twitter: @KHeneageBy Jill McGivering
BBC News
Rapid social change and unsafe sex are blamed for rising infection levels Chinese officials have said that HIV/Aids was the leading cause of death last year, compared with other infectious diseases. It is thought to be the first time this has happened. A report by the country's state media said HIV/Aids had led to the deaths of almost 7,000 people in the first nine months of 2008. The number of deaths caused by tuberculosis and rabies fell back into second and third place. The numbers are increasing dramatically - China's Ministry of Health say that until three years ago, fewer than 8,000 people altogether had died from HIV/Aids. By last year, the total had risen to five times that many. Data on HIV in China are still unreliable. Official reporting of cases does seem to have improved. The central authorities seem more willing to recognise HIV as a public health crisis and address it with education campaigns. But there are still concerns that officials at local and provincial level are under-reporting, either by mistake or because they think it's not in their interest to show rises. This latest news comes as the spread of HIV in China has entered a dangerous new phase. Initially it was concentrated in high-risk populations, injecting drug users in particular. Infection from contaminated blood transfusions was also common. More sex But now the main cause of transmission is thought to be unsafe sex. China is still a deeply conservative society - but it is also going through a period of rapid social change. Greater freedom of movement means millions of migrant workers have left small communities to enjoy the anonymity of cities. Male workers, away from their families, have more sexual opportunity. Prostitution has increased. Premarital sex is also becoming more acceptable. On Tuesday, the World Health Organisation warned of a steep rise in HIV amongst Asian men who have sex with men, unless prevention programmes targeting them were greatly improved.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionHow do you make the title sequence for the incredibly dark and bloody TV adaptation of the Walking Dead comic? One brilliant artist gave it a go, and the results are gruesomely fantastic. Check it out.
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THE WALKING DEAD "Opening Titles" from Daniel Kanemoto on Vimeo.
From the artist, Daniel Kanemoto:
I wondered what the opening titles to this terrifying new television show might look like... so I animated a spec title sequence, using artwork ripped from the pages of the comic, originally illustrated by Charlie Adlard and Tony Moore.
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We're not sure if Frank Darabont will even include a title series, or if he'll opt for the minimalist Lost approach when announcing Walking Dead. What we do know is that we want this series to start tomorrow. Sadly we'll all have to wait until October 31st, on AMC.
[via Kuriositas]Washington
LAST month The Chronicle of Higher Education published a damning investigation of college athletes across the nation who were maintaining their eligibility by taking cheap, easy online courses from an obscure junior college.
In just 10 days, academically deficient players could earn three credits and an easy “A” from Western Oklahoma State College for courses like “Microcomputer Applications” (opening folders in Windows) or “Nutrition” (stating whether or not the students used vitamins). The Chronicle quoted one Big Ten academic adviser as saying, “You jump online, finish in a week and half, get your grade posted, and you’re bowl-eligible.”
On the face of it, this is another sad but familiar story of the big-money intercollegiate-athletics complex corrupting the ivory tower. But it also reveals a larger, more pervasive problem: there are no meaningful standards of academic quality in higher education. And the more colleges and universities move their courses online, the more severe the problem gets.
Much attention has been paid to for-profit colleges that offer degrees online while exploiting federal student-loan programs and saddling ill-prepared students with debt. But nearly all of the institutions caught up in the 10-day credit dodge exposed by The Chronicle were public, nonprofit institutions. And both the credit-givers, like Western Oklahoma, and the sports machines at the other end of the transaction, like Florida State University, were doing nothing illegal.
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A main reason the scandal persists is that our system is built around the strange idea of the “credit hour,” a unit of academic time that does little to measure student learning. The credit hour originated around the turn of the 20th century, when the industrialist-turned-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie moved to create a pension system for college professors. (It’s now known as TIAA-CREF.) Pensions were reserved for professors who worked full time, which ended up being defined as a minimum of 12 hours of classroom teaching per week in a standard 15-week semester.Line score exhibit
The Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings, two teams from the Triple-A International League, played the longest game in professional baseball history. It lasted 33 innings, with 8 hours and 25 minutes of playing time. 32 innings were played April 18/19, 1981, at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island and the final 33rd inning was played June 23, 1981. Pawtucket won the game, 3–2.
The game [ edit ]
The game began on Saturday, April 18, 1981 at 8:25 p.m.,[1] after a delay of about 30 minutes due to problems with stadium lights, with 1,740 in attendance. It continued through the night and into Easter morning. Although most leagues have a curfew rule that would have suspended the game—the International League's activates at 12:50 a.m.[2]—the rule book of home plate umpire Dennis Cregg[1] did not contain one.[3] After Pawtucket's Russ Laribee's sacrifice fly drove in Chico Walker in the bottom of the ninth inning and tied the game at one run each,[4] the teams continued playing.[3]
Several times, one side neared victory before circumstances changed. When Wade Boggs drove in the tying run in the bottom of the 21st inning after a Rochester run, even the Pawtucket players groaned.[3] He recalled that, "I didn't know if the guys on the team wanted to hug me or slug me."[5] The weather was so cold that players burned broken bats and the stadium's wooden benches to warm themselves, and the clubhouses ran out of food. The wind blew into the infield, making hits difficult;[3] Pawtucket's Dave Koza later claimed that otherwise his team would have won in nine innings, with "four or five shots that would have been out of the park".[6] For example, Sam Bowen hit a fly ball to center that reportedly left the field before the wind blew it back to Rochester outfielder Dallas Williams. Williams went 0–for–13 in 15 plate appearances, one of many records achieved during the game.[3]
After Pawtucket's Luis Aponte pitched the seventh to tenth innings in relief, manager Joe Morgan—who himself would be ejected in the 22nd inning by Cregg[2]—let him leave before the game ended. Aponte's wife did not believe his explanation for coming home at 3 a.m. Sunday.[6] He promised that the Sunday newspaper would prove his story, but since the game's postponement occurred too late to appear in it, Aponte had to wait until the Monday edition.[3] Cregg had brought his nephew David to the game; David's father became concerned for his family and called the police, who told him that the game had not ended.[1]
By 4 a.m. the players were "delirious" from exhaustion; Rochester's Dave Huppert had caught the first 31 innings before being replaced, and Jim Umbarger pitched 10 scoreless innings from the 23rd inning, striking out nine and giving up four hits. The president of the league, Harold Cooper, was finally reached on the phone by Pawtucket publicity manager Mike Tamburro sometime after 3:00 a.m.; the horrified Cooper ordered that play stop at the end of the current inning.[7] Finally at 4:07 a.m., at the end of the 32nd inning and more than eight hours after it began, the game was stopped.[3] There were 19 fans left in the seats—not including David Cregg, who had fallen asleep[1]—all of whom received season[2][3] or lifetime[1] passes to McCoy Stadium. As the players went home to rest before returning at 11 a.m. for an afternoon game that Sunday,[1] they saw people going to Easter sunrise service.[3] When Boggs' father complimented him for getting four hits in the game, the player admitted that he had had 12 at bats.[5]
Both teams signed a baseball on Sunday for display at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Cooper had suggested that the game resume that day, but Rochester manager Doc Edwards requested a delay because of the risk of injury.[6] Instead, it resumed on the evening of Tuesday, June 23, the next time the Red Wings were in town. A sellout crowd of 5,746 and 140 reporters from around the world were present, partly because the major leagues were on strike at the time; the players voted against an offer to resume the game at Fenway Park to avoid crossing the picket line. On that evening, it took just one inning and 18 minutes to finish the game, with Koza driving in the winning run in the bottom of the 33rd. The losing pitcher was Steve Grilli, who had joined Rochester in the interim since the game's suspension.[3]
The Pawtucket Red Sox celebrated the 25th anniversary of the game on June 23, 2006. Many members of both teams attended a luncheon and round table discussion in Providence, Rhode Island, and a ceremony was held before the game against the Columbus Clippers that night.[5] Dennis Cregg thinks that David Cregg has never attended another baseball game.[1]
Records set in the game [ edit ]
Most innings : 33
: 33 Total time for one game : 8 hours, 25 minutes
: 8 hours, 25 minutes Most putouts by one team in one game : 99 (PAW)
: 99 (PAW) Most total putouts in one game : 195
: 195 Most at-bats for one team in one game : 114 (PAW)
: 114 (PAW) Most total at-bats in one game : 219
: 219 Most strikeouts (batting) by one team in one game : 34 (ROC)
: 34 (ROC) Most total strikeouts in one game : 60
: 60 Most total assists in one game : 88
: 88 Most at-bats by one player in one game : 14, Dave Koza, Lee Graham, Chico Walker (all PAW)
: 14, Dave Koza, Lee Graham, Chico Walker (all PAW) Most plate appearances by one player in one game : 15, Tom Eaton, Cal Ripken, Jr., Dallas Williams (all ROC)
: 15, Tom Eaton, Cal Ripken, Jr., Dallas Williams (all ROC) Most strikeouts (batting) by one player in a game: 7, Russ Laribee (PAW)
Sources:[8][9]
Longest plate appearance by a single umpire: Dennis Cregg (882 pitches over 8 hours and 25 minutes)
Line score [ edit ]
McCoy Stadium, Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 R H E Rochester Red Wings 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 18 3 Pawtucket Red Sox 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 21 1
No outs when winning run scored.
Box scores [ edit ]
Batting [ edit ]
Rochester Player Pos. AB Runs Hits RBI Eaton 2B 10 0 3 0 Williams CF 13 0 0 0 Ripken 3B 13 0 2 0 Corey DH 5 1 1 0 Chism PH 1 0 0 0 Rayford C 5 0 0 0 Logan 1B 12 0 4 0 Valle 1B 1 0 0 0 Bourjos LF 4 0 2 1 Hale LF 7 0 1 0 Smith LF 0 0 0 0 Hazewood RF 4 0 0 0 Hart RF 6 1 1 0 Bonner SS 12 0 3 0 Huppert C 11 0 0 1 Putman PH 1 0 0 0 Totals 105 2 18 2
Pawtucket Player Pos. AB Run Hits RBI Graham CF 14 0 1 0 Barrett 2B 12 1 2 0 Walker LF 14 1 2 0 Laribee DH 11 0 0 1 Koza 1B 14 1 5 1 Boggs 3B 12 0 4 1 Bowen RF 12 0 2 0 Gedman C 3 0 1 0 Ongarato PH 1 0 0 0 LaFrancois C 8 0 2 0 Valdez SS 13 0 2 0 Totals 114 3 21 3
Pitching [ edit ]
Rochester Player IP H R ER BB K Jones 8.2 7 1 1 2 5 Schneider 5.1 2 0 0 0 8 Luebber 8 6 1 1 2 4 Umbarger 10 4 0 0 0 9 Grilli (L) 0 0 1 1 1 0 Speck 0 1 0 0 0 0 Totals 32 21 3 3 5 26 Grilli pitched to 3 batters in the 33rd
Speck pitched to 1 batter in the 33rd
WP - Jones
Pawtucket Player IP H R ER BB K Parks 6 3 1 1 4 3 Aponte 4 0 0 0 2 9 Sarmiento 4 3 0 0 2 3 Smithson 3.2 2 0 0 3 5 Remmerswaal 4.1 4 1 1 3 3 Finch 5 3 0 0 1 3 Hurst 5 3 0 0 1 3 Ojeda (W) 1 1 0 0 0 1 Totals 33 18 2 2 18 34 Parks pitched to 3 batters in the 7th
WP - Smithson, Hurst.
Game notes and statistics [ edit ]
Russ Laribee of the PawSox went 0–for–11 with a sacrifice fly, striking out seven times, becoming the first player in history to surpass the titanium sombrero (six strikeout) level. Based on a nine-inning game, Laribee would only have struck out three times per nine innings.
Between the two teams, pitchers faced a total of 246 batters (219 AB, 23 BB, 4 HBP).
A total of 882 pitches were thrown.
Pawtucket's Dave Koza had the most hits of any player in the game: five, including the game-winner.
53 runners were left on base (30 by Rochester and 23 by Pawtucket).
The only player on either team who did not play in the game was future MLB manager Kevin Kennedy of Pawtucket.[10]
Players involved [ edit ]
Two future Hall of Famers were part of the historic game. Cal Ripken, Jr., who was inducted in 2007, went 2–for–13 on the night playing third base for Rochester. Ripken was the American League's Rookie of the Year the following year. Wade Boggs, who was inducted in 2005, played third base for Pawtucket and went 4–for–12 with a double and an RBI. The Baseball Hall of Fame possesses other artifacts of the game, including the official scorecard.[3]
Twenty-three other future and former major leaguers played in the game.[3]
See also [ edit ]
100 Inning Game - Longest amateur baseball game ever played (charitable event)
Other Long Games - Other long games including the longest MLB games
References [ edit ]When Margaret Sherrod was in her 20s, she filled her weekends with 10k and other races, but in recent years she has cut back her competitive running schedule.
The 58-year-old retired teacher from Millersville is still in great shape and runs regularly for fun and fitness with a group called the Pacemakers. It's the cost that has dampened her love for races. She is now selective about which ones she participates in — the more expensive events can cost $100 or more — and chooses to run only a few a year.
"The price has escalated beyond belief to me," Sherrod said. "I love running, but I look at the price at the end of the day and I've decided I really don't need to race that much. I don't think it's worth it to me to spend that much."
Runners once boasted that theirs was one of the cheapest sports. All you needed was a pair of sneakers and the road. No expensive gyms or equipment.
Now a good pair of shoes costs at least $100 and runners often budget for races as they would a vacation or other extravagant event.
Old-timers remember when race entry fees cost as little as $5. In 2011, the average price of the country's top 100 marathons was $89, a 24 percent jump from 2007 when it cost $72, according to a survey by Twin Cities in Motion and trade group Running USA. The average price of a half-marathon rose 27 percent to $65, compared with $51 in 2007.
The Baltimore Running Festival charges runners on a sliding scale, depending on when they register. The earliest marathon registrants who signed up in April paid $90, while those who wait until right before the race in October will pay $130. The starting price was $70 in 2004.
Driving the rise in registration fees is the increased cost to put together a race, organizers of racing events said. Races were once simple affairs, but are now complex events that are as much a social outlet for people as a competitive race. Today's races include a festival with live music, post-race snacks for runners and T-shirts made of the latest-developed fabric.
It will cost about $2 million to pull off this year's Baltimore Running Festival, according to Baltimore-based Corrigan Sports Enterprises, the management company that organizes the event. The event also includes a half-marathon, 5K and a kids' run (prices vary for each of these races).
Running organizers such as Corrigan Sports said many people don't realize all the parts — and costs — that go into a race. City permits, police to monitor blocked-off roads, timing chips, finisher medals and signs all cost money, they said. Corrigan Sports also buys every parking spot at Camden Yards and M&T; Bank Stadium so people won't have to pay for parking.
"Just like anything, our costs go up over time and we try to minimize it as best as possible," said Dave Gell with Corrigan Sports, which also organizes the Frederick Running Festival and other races. "Sometimes we can offset it with sponsorships, and sometimes we can't."
Kelly R. Dees, who works with Charm City Run Events, which organizes about 73 races a year, said her group works to minimize increases in registration fees.
"There is no doubt there has been an increase in price," Dees said. "We try to analyze those prices and make sure they only mirror the expenses that are going up."
The price increases could also reflect the growing popularity of racing and the diversity of today's running population. In 2011, 13.9 million people finished about 25,000 U.S. road races, a 167 percent increase from the 5.2 million finishers in 1991.
Running was once dominated by ultra-competitive males. Women now fuel the growth, and while they are competitive, they also want a fun, social experience.
"I'm an old-school runner, so I won't pay a lot," said Ryan Lamppa, a researcher with Running USA, a trade group. "I just need an accurate course that is timed well. I don't need all the bells and whistles. But I'm not the new runner. The new runner wants to have that festive, fun feeling."
The sport has also evolved into a business. A growing number of race management companies have cropped up as the sport has grown, and they all have to make a profit to survive.
"It has become more professional on the management side," Lamppa said. "There are more entities that are putting on races, and they are for-profit entities and their object is to put on a good race."
The more elite and popular the races, the higher the price. The ING New York City Marathon will cost runners who are part of the local running club $216 in 2014. Nonmembers will pay $255 and those from other countries $347. There is also an $11 application-processing fee.
The price of next year's Boston Marathon has not yet been decided, but those who ran this year paid $150 if they met a certain qualifying time, while nonqualifiers paid $300, according to the race's website.
"If you want to run the race that is popular, you have to pay the piper," Lamppa said.
Runners like Sherrod are not willing to pay anymore.
Photographer Harry Bosk also believes races could be more affordable. He has been competing for 34 years and has completed eight marathons and more half-marathons than he says he can count. Bosk, who runs with the local group Pacemakers, said he now only runs races that have something that piques his interest, such as an interesting or challenging course.
"The prices don't make me mad, but I am just more selective about what I run," Bosk said.
As many veteran runners have cut back, newbies have allowed the sport to thrive. And Lamppa said more affordable races still exist for frugal runners, although they may not be among the most popular.
Veteran runner and race organizer Jim Adams has found ways to keep the cost of races down. The owner of the Falls Road Running Store organizes the popular Celtic Solstice race each year in December in Druid Hill Park. Holding it in the park cuts down on the cost to close roads and hire police officers. Runners can pay a lower rate if they forgo the shirt given out at races.
"I own a running store, but I look at this as a way of giving back to the community," Adams said. "If we break even, that is fine. We don't want to lose anything, but we're not looking for this to be the profit center for our business."
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twitter.com/ankwalker
Racing fees
Registration fees for top 100 U.S. marathons with half-marathons (2007-2011)
2007
$72 average marathon fee
$51 average half-marathon fee
2008
$76 average marathon fee
$56 average half-marathon fee
2009
$81 average marathon feeSilvia is a three part collaboration of riders and artists combining their varying styles on the bike and their common angles of creativity behind the camera. Between the three members we are able to draw inspiration from a multitude of sources unique to each of our backgrounds and create something special for everyone to enjoy. We are driven by the pure fun and excitement that everyone shares for riding their bikes. In the past few months we have been working away making a lot of random videos of our friends and trying to bring our work to the world.All along we have been forgetting about some very important people, our very own kids behind the cameras. While Dylan has been taking care of keeping things organized and making sure people see our work, Karl and Matt have been working hard behind the cameras providing the key elements that bring our ideas and visions to life. People are consistently impressed with their filming and editing, but rarely get to see their riding. If you are the kind of rider who is known for showing up to races last minute and slaying everyone on the sheet, but nobody ever sees you on your bike, we see a problem with that.In this edit we wanted to address that problem and show how hard Karl and Matt can shred. Not only are they incredibly quick, they each bleed their own style totally unique to themselves. Between dragging the bar on berms and slashing out stumps, two wheel drifting across rock beds and casually casting mossy shadows to the backside of berms, Karl and Matt absolutely destroy everything their tires touch. Thanks to some crafty new camera gear and a lot of time spent training Dylan to operate the cameras, the Karl and Matt secret is out. Check them out blasting Harper Mountain with speed and style like you wouldn't believe.Before I discuss the main topic, it’s important to note the specific rules surrounding command cards. Each player must have a Command deck composed of fifteen Command cards (no more and no less) with a total cost that does not exceed 15 points. All Command cards range between 0 and 3 points, with the idea that the 3-point cards are more powerful than the 0-point cards. In addition to the point cost, most Command cards also feature some kind of restriction on use – such as “Trooper” or “Han Solo.” These mean that the card can only be used with that unit.
During the game, acquisition of cards occurs in a few ways. First, each player draws three command cards at the start of the game. Then, at the end of every round (during the Status Phase), each player draws one Command card, AND an additional Command card for every terminal he or she controls. Note that the drawing of Command cards during the Status Phase happens before you resolve any end of round effects– therefore, any command cards drawn during the status phase that are resolved at the end of round can be played the same turn they are drawn.
Beyond that, there aren’t many other rules. Command cards in your hand are kept secret from your opponent. A player cannot play multiple copies of the same Command card at the same time. If there are no Command cards left in your Command deck you cannot draw Command cards. And, when a figure suffers strain, it suffers damage equal to the strain, BUT that player may prevent that damage “by discarding one Command card from the top of his deck” for each damage he wishes to prevent.
There is still a lot of ambiguity surrounding Command card timing (like when do I have to play a Command card that modifies an attack or defense roll?) and it’s not clear to me if your opponent gets to have full knowledge of your Command deck before a game starts – but overall the rules are pretty simple.
Command Deck Building Basics
I want to get one thing out of the way – I can’t tell you how to build a specific Command deck in this article. Command cards are always dependent on the deployment cards you run and on your play style. As more deployment and Command cards are released, the cards that are “indispensable” will be less obvious. Therefore, I want to share the tools I use when building a Command deck – assuming nothing is a given. Instead, we are going to assess and evaluate based on the conditions necessary to play a card and the value we get from that card if those conditions are satisfied. I admit that this is a high-level approach to describing the process, but it’s meant to be. Detailed rules and restrictions based on the current meta or even my current beliefs aren’t going to serve you if a new meta or list archetype emerges. We need to be able to analyze the strategy of our list and build a Command deck that serves that strategy. Anything less will be suboptimal in competitive games.University shows ‘double standard’ toward conservatives, organizer claims
Rather than try to block anti-feminist Twitter troll Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking on campus next week, DePaul University in Chicago is making the event more expensive and shorter.
The DePaul College Republicans accused the administration of setting a double standard for events featuring conservative viewpoints, though they were able to negotiate back some of the conditions they originally secured.
In emails obtained exclusively by The College Fix, Student Center Director Joe Mroczkowski cut the speaking time for Yiannopoulos to 15-20 minutes from the original 60-90 minutes followed by question-and-answer time.
Mroczkowski also took back one of two adjoining rooms in the Lincoln Park Student Center the CRs had originally booked, whose combined capacity is 550. The remaining room holds 250 people.
RELATED: Trump chalking by College Republicans is a ‘hate crime,’ black students claim
After the CRs protested, the administration agreed in a closed-door meeting Wednesday to restore both 120A and 120B for the event, CRs President Nicole Been told The Fix.
Though the CRs have only raised $1,170 of a $3,000 goal for bringing Yiannopoulos, the chapter told supporters on GoFundMe earlier this month that the event was a go because of their “generosity.” Free-market student organization Turning Point USA became a cosponsor and it will record the event, according to the event’s Facebook page.
RELATED: Conservative and libertarian messages require high ‘security fees’ on campus
The nation’s largest Catholic university also demanded the CRs pay for 12 more security guards than they had originally agreed to, costing an extra $1,440, organizer Brendan Newell told The Fix on Tuesday. That would have meant 20 security guards total. (DePaul’s event security policy is supposed to determine security needs according to a “1:50-75 person count.”)
That extra security demand got knocked down to eight in the closed-door meeting after the CRs protested. The chapter still has to raise another $840 by Saturday to pay for that mandated security.
Other groups are not ‘jumping through nearly as many hoops’
In a May 13 email obtained by The Fix, CRs Vice Chair Jorin Burkhart disputed some of the changes formalized by Mroczkowski in a “planning meeting” the day before.
RELATED: Blood paint and vandalism greet anti-feminist troll Milo Yiannopoulos at Rutgers
“I am very confused as to why you have now decided that we can only use half the space” originally booked for the event, and why Yiannopoulos’s speaking time was so severely cut, Burkhart wrote. “ |
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ROTHSTEIN: Well, one of the ways in which we forget our history is by sanitizing our language and pretending that these problems don't exist. We have always recognized that these were ghettos. A ghetto is, as I define it, a neighborhood which is homogenous and from which there are serious barriers to exit. That's the technical definition of a ghetto.
Robert Weaver, the first African-American member of a Cabinet, appointed by President Johnson as his secretary of Housing and Urban Development, described many of the policies that I've described today in a book he published in 1948 called "The Negro Ghetto." The Kerner Commission referred to the ghetto. This is a term that we now no longer use because we're embarrassed to talk about it, and we need to confront our history and stop sanitizing our language and talk openly about what we've done as a nation and what we need to do to undo it. And we can't talk openly if we're going to use euphemisms instead of being explicit about what the reality is.
GROSS: Richard Rothstein, thank you so much for talking with us.
ROTHSTEIN: Thank you.
GROSS: Richard Rothstein is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and senior fellow of the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. Coming up, Ken Tucker reviews the debut album by Chris Stapleton, who has written hits for country artists including George Strait and Tim McGraw. This is FRESH AIR.
Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
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“The confidentiality of commercial and industrial information may not be invoked to preclude the disclosure of such information,” the Luxembourg-based court decided.
Greenpeace and the European Pesticides Action Network (PAN) took the issue to court after asking the Commission for access to documents related to the commercial authorisation of glyphosate, one of the most commonly-used herbicides in the world.
But the EU executive only granted access to part of the documentation, arguing that it has a duty to protect the intellectual property of the herbicides’ manufacturers.
This includes confidential information relating to the chemical composition of glyphosate and its manufacturing process.
Monsanto and Greenpeace bicker over access to glyphosate studies The decision of a pro-glyphosate lobby to grant public access via reading rooms to proprietary studies on the weed-killer’s safety has been the subject of a new intense row with NGOs.
At the same time, a Dutch association for the protection of bees asked the Dutch’ authorities to publish details of the commercial authorisations of crop protection products and biocides. But the association met with resistance from chemicals giant Bayer, a major producer of these products.
The authorities responded by authorising the publication of less than half of the documents requested, containing information about the impact of agricultural chemicals on the environment. A decision that left both sides unsatisfied.
Bayer and the bee protection association each contested the decision at the CJEU, which delivered its verdict on the interpretation of “emissions into the environment” and “information on emissions into the environment” on Wednesday (24 November).
In both cases, the court found that “emissions” should include the concept of “release into the environment of products or substances, […] to the extent that that release is actual or foreseeable under normal or realistic conditions”.
The judgement also found that limiting access to this kind of information runs counter to the EU’s transparency objectives.
Commission prolongs glyphosate licence by 18 months The European Commission has decided to extend the licence for glyphosate by 18 months, after member states failed to achieve a qualified majority in favour or against the executive’s proposal.
Commission spokesman Enrico Brivio said the EU executive would examine the “particularly complex” judgement, but that it needed more time.
Michèle Rivasi, a Green MEP and vice-president of the European Parliament’s Greens group, said the judgement legitimised the request for access to the documents. She said it was important for Europeans to understand how, using unpublished studies, the European Food Security Agency (EFSA) “was able to conclude in November 2015 that glyphosate was probably not carcinogenic”.
Yet the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic”.
Franziska Achterberg, Greenpeace’s EU food policy director, said the internet should oblige regulatory authorities to “reveal all their documentation on the dangers of pesticides”.Average Disc Golf was able to get a 10 Questions interview with the one and only Lamar Maughan. You may know Lamar from the countless disc golf tutorial videos he has posted on YouTube.
1. How did you start playing disc golf?
I used to play frisbee catch with my dog Magic Johnson. He became quite good at it! So like any responsible dog owner we decided to step up his game. I went to a store and found a really advanced disc for playing catch. I believe it was called an acrobatic epic.On the first throw it went a mile and little Magic didn’t even come close! So to make a long story short we put him down 🙂 After that we tried to sue the disc manufacturer out of principle and stumbled upon the game. It’s been great!
2. What were your very first discs?
My first disc was a nuke OS I really wanted to ease myself into the sport and it just seemed like a good place to start. Looking back… I was dead on.
3. You have a very unique roller technique. How did you develop it?
Yoga, yoga, yoga.
4. What piece of advice would you give an average player to improve their game?
Aim Good
5. Your videos have helped thousands of viewers on YouTube, can we expect any new content?
I will always continue to do videos. Lately,I’ve been flying around the country giving disc golf lessons to the top 1% #growthesport Those guys can afford me. Youtube is what I do for charity.
6. What is your absolute go-to disc in your bag right now?
I can’t play a single round without my Franklin RT Night Owl.
7. Would you recommend learning a backhand, forehand, roller, or overhand technique first?
None of the above! I think it’s important to work on your autograph first. Once that’s established the game should come natural, But If I had to chose I would say work on looking good. Control comes later.
8. How many aces do you have? Do you keep count?
As far as aces I have 1,479 Black and 14 straight up. #blacklinesmatter
9. Do you have a favorite course? What is it?
Ann Morrison Boise,ID I love goose poop. It’s really good for the skin. The course is nice and flat without any trees and LOTS of people. It’s perfect.
10. What new discs have you added to your bag or tried lately? Any keepers?
The RT Albatrose and the RT Sparrow. The game is too easy with these little stiff’s.Announcing Intel® Joule™ support in Windows 10 IoT Core Anniversary Edition By Steve Teixeira / General Manager, Windows Partner Application Experience Team Share Share Skype
Two weeks ago I was excited to see us unveil Windows 10 IoT Core Anniversary Edition running on the new Intel® Joule™, built on the new Intel® Atom™ T5700 SOC. It took us a little over 6 weeks to bring up Windows 10 IoT Core and build Bamboo, the first Windows 10 IoT Core and Intel® Joule™ powered robot. We look forward to seeing what you think of Windows 10 IoT Core for the Intel® Joule™ when it becomes available as part of the Windows Insider Program release scheduled for September.
Bamboo, the first Windows 10 IoT Core robot running on the Intel® Joule™
To give you a peek into what you can do with this we created Bamboo, a companion robotic panda. Running Windows 10 IoT Core on the Intel® Joule™ compute platform, Bamboo connects to cloud-based Microsoft Azure* and Cognitive Services, which provide sentiment analysis and translation, so you can speak to Bamboo in any language and she can translate into her native English and understand your mood via Twitter. Bamboo can move about and build an understanding of her environment with the compute platform and an Intel® RealSense™ camera. Additionally, she is animated via the EZ-Robot EZ-B control system.
All of this happened at the Intel Developer Forum 2016 in San Francisco. At that event, we also had a number of partners showing off what Windows 10 IoT Core can do.
EZ-Robot integrated the Intel® Joule™ with Windows 10 IoT Core into their EZ-B V5, making EZ-Robot the first custom integrator of the Intel® Joule™ using Windows 10 IoT Core. EZ-Robot displayed the new control module and multiple robots running on this new platform. Using the EZ-Builder software for Windows and a newly released EZ-Robot UWP library, you can design and animate your robots on a Windows PC, as well as auto-generate and export UWP control code to run on the EZ-B V5. We used this functionality to animate Bamboo. The bring up and integration of the EZ-B v5 took just under 6 weeks.
Design Mill highlighted Torch, a mixed reality interactive gaming table. Built on the Intel® Joule™, Intel RealSense camera and Windows 10 IoT Core, Torch enables interactive gaming mixing perception, projection and blending the physical/digital divide.
Joining our other outstanding partners like Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Adafruit and Seeed Studio, great partnerships like the ones we have with Intel, EZ-Robot and Design Mill that produce boards and systems, helps make Windows 10 IoT Core the best platform to build your IoT solutions on. When you add in Microsoft Azure IoT and Microsoft Cognitive Services, you get a cloud-connected, manageable, intuitive and, above all, human-like platform to build upon.
The Windows Insider program makes it very easy for you to get access to all of the above, as well as also the latest pre-releases of Windows 10 IoT Core (which will soon support the Intel® Joule™ module). Once you’ve installed the pre-release, we enable the OS to automatically upgrade so you’ll be able to try out the latest features in the next pre-release of Windows 10 IoT Core as we make each release – No more looking for updates on web pages or developer centers. We’re excited by this and we hope you’ll take the opportunity to join the many developers who are already using the Windows Insider Program.
We can’t wait to see what you make!
The Windows team would love to hear your feedback. Please keep the feedback coming using our Windows Developer UserVoice site. If you have a direct bug, please use the Windows Feedback tool built directly into Windows 10.
Updated June 28, 2018 8:16 amChristmas Lites
Rated 5.00 / 5 based on 2 reviews
All proceeds of this book will be donated to the NCADV. Dive into a world of variety—a world of spirit with this Creative Reviews anthology. What better way to celebrate the holiday season than with some short stories that entertain and encompass the true meaning of Christmas?All proceeds of this book will be donated to the NCADV. More
Once upon a time, a determined seven year old caught Santa sliding down the chimney…
Then a ninja elf came and broke Santa out, no net is strong enough to keep out this ninja elf! Off passed the faithful family pet they ran and jumped in the sleigh. They raced to another house but refused to stop when ghosts were there to greet them. Santa doesn’t tangle with ghosts. He doesn’t tangle with vampires, either.
At the next stop, he met a runaway gingerbread man who yelled, “You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man!” Santa didn’t bother to catch him; he had things to do.
On his way to his next delivery, he passed a werewolf jumping out of a plane and dodged a zombie hungry for his brain.
He finally touched down in a nice, normal town full of tidings and great joy…
Or did he?
Dive into a world of variety—a world of spirit with this Creative Reviews anthology. What better way to celebrate the holiday season than with some short stories that entertain and encompass the true meaning of Christmas? All proceeds of this book will be donated to the NCADV. Debut authors and published authors have come together in this one-of-a-kind compilation – please help support a great cause and plunge deep into our imaginations.Career Path
Frequent travel and reassignments to a variety of duty stations, occasionally including liaison assignments in foreign countries, are some of the unique opportunities that await a special agent.
A typical special agent career path, depending upon performance and promotions that affect individual assignments, begins with the first six to eight years on the job assigned to a field office. Newly-appointed agents may be assigned to field offices anywhere in the United States.
After their field experience, agents are usually transferred to a protective assignment where they will stay for three to five years. Following their protective assignment, many agents return to the field or transfer to a headquarters office, a training office or other Washington, D.C.-based assignment. During their careers, agents also have the opportunity to work overseas in one of the agency's international field offices. This typically requires foreign language training to ensure language proficiency when working alongside the agency's foreign law enforcement counterparts.
Special agents are usually hired at the GL-07 or GL-09 level, depending on individual qualifications and/or education. The full performance level for a special agent is GS-13. Selection for promotion for positions above the GS-13 level is competitive.This programme isn’t suitable for younger viewers. Please confirm you are over 16 years old. By continuing, you are accepting our Terms and Conditions (link opens in new window)
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It’s dissertation time, and while Vod is having a last-minute wobble about her abilities, Oregon has her mind on other things as the newly non-funded wheelchair rugby team are protesting against her presidency.
Cheers to the top dogs (sorry cats) at O2, you can now knuckle down early and fully absorb episode 3 into your brain, here from 10pm on Saturday. That’s a whole 48 hours before it's on Channel 4. That’s proper fresh!
Premiere available between March 5th, 2016 22:00 and March 7th, 2016 22:00Apple butter has been a family favorite and a cherished gift for years. Pioneer Dad’s family and neighbors complain loudly if they fail to receive a jar of this dark and cinnamon flavored delicacy during the holidays.
We are fortunate to have a tree that produces over a hundred pounds of apples each year. That’s enough for apple butter, applesauce and of course hard apple cider. We are among the most fortunate of gardeners.
Pioneer Dad’s apple tree is a Beverly Hills, with fruit that ripens from late June until the end of summer so canning begins early in our kitchen. Unfortunately, Beverly Hills apples are not available commercially. But, Granny Smith, Fuji or Macintosh will make good alternatives for apple butter.
Total Time: 1 hr.
Prep: 10 min.
Cook: 20-25 min.
Processing time: 10-15 min.
Yield: about 5 pints
Level: Easy
Ingredients
16 medium apples (about 4 lbs.); Granny Smith, Fuji or Macintosh
4 cups sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
5 pint sized canning jars
Directions
1. Prepare the pulp by washing the apples, remove the stems and blossom ends. It is not necessary to peal or core the apples. Cut each apple into six or eight pieces. Add 2 cups of water to a large pot cover and simmer until apples are soft, about 20 to 25 minutes. Press the apple pulp through a sieve or food mill to remove peal, seeds and cores. Measure out 2 quarts of the finished apple pulp.
2. Prepare the butter by combining the apple pulp, sugar, and spices in a large pot. Cook slowly until thick enough to stick to a wooden spoon. Stir frequently to prevent the butter from sticking to the pot. If the butter gets too thick, add a small amount of cider or water to reach the desired thickness.
3. Ladle the hot butter into hot jars, leaving ¼ inch headspace. Wipe the jar rims and threads with a clean towel and adjust the lids (tighten).
4. Process the jars, in boiling water, inside a large pot or water bath canner for 10 minutes for pints, 15 minutes for quarts at altitudes below 6,000 feet. For higher altitudes, increase process time an additional five minutes.
5. After processing, lift the jars out of the pot or canner and set on a dry towel on the counter. Allow the jars to rest over night and listen for the lids to pop as they seal. Any jars that do not pop (or seal) should be refrigerated and eaten within the next several weeks. Jars that seal will keep for up to two years when stored in a cool dark place. Sunlight tends to darken the apple butter over time.
Apple butter is a tasty addition to: Pancakes, Waffles, Yogurt, Oatmeal, Grilled cheese, PB&J, Biscuits, Cornbread, Pork chops and vanilla ice cream.
Tips
I prefer to core the apples before cooking. This saves time when using a food mill.
Preheat and sterilize the canning jars and lids while cooking the apples to save time processing.
If this is your first time canning, I suggest buying a basic canning kit with jar lifter, funnel and headspace gauge. They are inexpensive usually under $20.00 and will save valuable time over the stove. It is not necessary to buy a water bath canner. A large stockpot works nicely if deep enough to cover the tops of the jars with several inches of water.
Several words of caution about home canning: always use jars manufactured specifically for canning. The glass is formulated for high temperatures and semi rapid cooling. Lids with a rubber gasket should always be purchased new. The rings can be used from year to year as long as they are free from rust or other contaminates. Never set hot jars on a cold surface. Always use a dishtowel or hand towel between the jar and counter top.
Happy canning.When phosphates are outlawed, only outlaws will use phosphates.
A Spokane County, Wash., ban on dishwasher detergents that contain phosphates has led to residents crossing the border into Idaho to seek out forbidden cleaners.
Residents says that the greener alternatives left on the shelves - Seventh Generation, Ecover or phosphate-free products from Palmolive and other companies - just don't clean as well, although that might be due more to hard water than the ingredients in them.
The Washington Lake Protection Association is encouraging consumers to try out different green brands or install water softeners, but that's not enough to stop the stream of residents looking for their old detergents elsewhere.
Steve Marcy, manager of the Costco in Coeur d'Alene, about 10 miles east of the Washington state line, estimated that sales of dishwasher detergent in his store have increased 10 percent. He knows where the customers are coming from.
"I'll joke with them and ask if they are from Spokane," Marcy said. "They say, `Oh yeah.'"
Those who bring in banned detergents aren't really breaking any laws. The ban applies to selling detergents with phosphates, not to using or possessing them.
Phosphates are a concern in consumer products because when they end up in streams, lakes and rivers (they aren't easily removed in wastewater treatment plants), they promote the growth of algae, which sucks up oxygen, stealing it from other animals and organisms in the water.
The ban on dishwasher detergents with phosphates is set to take effect across Washington state in July 2010 though it's starting in Spokane County. Under the ban, dishwasher detergents can have no more than 0.5 percent phosphates, compared to conventional detergents, which have up to 9 percent phosphates. Similar bans have gone into effect or will take place in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Virginia. Phosphates have been banned from laundry detergent since the early 1990s.
Via Associated Press
Dishes - CC license by sooperkuh and mastermaqPhoto-illustration: MIT
Engineers have taken one of biotech’s hottest tools—optogenetics—and made it better. The 12-year-old technique, which enables scientists to control brain cells with light, typically requires a multi-step process and several surgeries on animal models. Polina Anikeeva at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and her colleagues came up with an engineering solution that combines those steps into one, and improves the function of the device. The group described their invention today in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Optogenetics enables researchers to hack into the body’s electrical system with far more precision than traditional electrical stimulation. The technique involves genetically altering specific neurons so that they can be turned on or off with a simple flash of light.
The tool is useful for figuring out the functions of neural circuits—fire up a select few brain cells and see how the body responds. A mouse might run faster or eat more or become aggressive, depending on which neurons were manipulated.
So far, optogenetics research has been limited to animal models. That’s partly because the tool is invasive and the process rather protracted. First the animal’s brain cells must be genetically altered. One way to do that is to incorporate a light-sensitizing gene into a viral vector—the non-infectious kind—and inject it into the brain using a small syringe.
The genetic modifications cause the neurons to produce proteins and other cellular elements that, when exposed to light, allow ions to enter. An influx of sodium ions will activate the neuron, causing it to fire, and starting a chain reaction among the neurons connected to it. An influx of chloride ions, on the other hand, will inhibit the neuron.
Once the genetic modifications have taken hold, researchers implant a device that delivers light—usually with silica optical fibers or light-emitting diodes—to the modified cells. Then researchers can start turning neurons on and off and correlating it with behavioral changes.
In a third step, the resulting electrical activity in the brain is recorded. That information helps scientists be sure of which neurons are firing or not firing during behavioral experiments. But recording requires implantation of electrodes that, in combination with light sources, makes the experiment too cumbersome, so scientists often skip it.
Each step—gene delivery, light implant, and recording electrodes—typically requires a separate surgical procedure. And all three have to be directed to exactly the same spot in the brain. “You can be pretty sure” that you got it in the same place, “but not 100 percent sure,” says Anikeeva at MIT, who led the study.
MIT’s probe integrates all three pieces into one device implanted with one surgery. The key was the electrode: a custom-designed, highly conductive, very thin polymer composite, which can record and transmit neural signals. The material turned out to be so conductive that MIT was able to make the electrodes super small—small enough to fit six of them in the probe.
The group made the conductive polymer using layers of polyethylene sprinkled with graphite. “It’s kind of like a layered cake,” says Anikeeva. “We literally sprinkled on the graphite like sugar,” and melted and pressed the layers together in a high temperature vacuum.
The smallness of the electrodes left room for the other two elements: a polymer waveguide to deliver light and two microfluidics channels to deliver the gene-carrying virus. All together, the cylinder probe was still half the diameter of typical optogenetics implants, and more flexible.
Photo: MIT
Anikeeva’s group tested the device in mice in a set of experiments. In one study, they delivered a light-sensitive gene construct into an area of the mouse brain called the medial prefrontal cortex, where activating neurons is known to make mice run faster. Sure enough, with Anikeeva’s probe implanted, the mice darted around their confines faster than the control group.
German and Swiss researchers four years ago developed an all-in-one optogenetics probe, and published a report on it in the journal Lab on a Chip. But that design hasn’t been adopted by many optogenetics research labs. “We loved that paper,” says Anikeeva. “It was a really great pioneering demonstration,” but the design process isn’t conducive to production in large quantities, and the materials aren’t well suited for optogenetics, she says.
By contrast, Anikeeva’s probe is made by a thermal drawing process, in which they fabricate a large scale version of the device, and the heat and stretch the structure hundreds of meters long. The thread-thin fiber can then be chopped into hundreds of research-sized pieces.
Anikeeva says that since she first presented at a conference in July 2016 an early version of the probe, she has received several requests from researchers wanting to use the device for a variety of applications: studying nerve circuitry linked to anxiety and addiction, peripheral nerves, and even motor nerves used to control prosthetics. Anikeeva plans to make the tool freely available. “We will send fibers to anyone who wants them,” she says.Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Cars on an eight-lane expressway on a polluted day in Beijing.
Faced with often catastrophic air pollution, Beijing is considering taking a page out of London’s playbook: a congestion fee for car owners.
A notice published on the Beijing government website (in Chinese) late Monday said the city is mulling a policy to impose a congestion fee for cars as it aims to keep less than 6 million vehicles licensed by the end of 2017, from about 5.35 million now.
"Whoever pollutes the air is responsible to clean it up," the state-run China Daily on Tuesday quoted Fang Li, spokesman for the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, as saying. The notice didn't specify how the fees would be imposed or paid.
Auto emissions account for one-third of PM2.5—particulate matter measuring less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter—in most congested areas in Beijing.
According to the notice, the congestion fee is part of the city’s broader five-year plan to clean up its heavily polluted air and which also targets power plants, oil refiners, cement makers and restaurants. The municipal government of Beijing pledges to reduce the density of PM2.5 by at least 25% by 2017.
Beijing has already distributed license plates through lotteries to curb car sales. It has also restricted the use of motor vehicles by banning private cars one workday a week based on the last digit of the license plate.
Calls for the government to improve air quality surged this past winter, when swaths of the country were blanketed by rarely seen air-pollution levels. In the capital city, residents stocked up on face masks and air purifiers.
But finding a solution to the city’s serious pollution problems won’t be easy.
"Road pricing is controversial. Getting political consensus for that is harder than implementing ownership controls," Binyam Reja, the World Bank's transport sector coordinator for China, said in a recent interview. Nonetheless, London and Singapore have successfully introduced such programs, he said.
An official from the environmental ministry was quoted last month by the state-run Xinhua news agency as saying the central government would invest 1.7 trillion yuan ($280 billion) in the coming years in efforts to control air pollution.
In addition to worsening air pollution, Beijing is also combating heavy traffic. The average speed of car traffic in the city is short of 15 kilometers, or 9.3 miles, per hour, about the speed of easy bicycling, data from UBS Securities show.
The notice said Beijing will ban vehicles of outside the city from entering the Sixth Ring Road unless they get permission from the city government. The restriction will take effect in 2014. Currently, cars from other provinces are prohibited from entering the Fifth Ring Road during rush hours.
--Rose Yu
Like China Real Time on Facebook and follow us Twitter for the latest updates.(CBS News) A surveillance video caught two quick-thinking seventh graders saving the day Monday when their bus driver reportedly had a heart attack while driving in the small town of Milton, Wash., south of Seattle.
As the video shows, it was a normal bus ride for the middle schoolers, when suddenly the driver slumps back in his seat and releases the wheel. Jeremy Wuitschick, 13, was a few rows back.
Wash. kids stop school bus after driver stricken
"The bus driver was acting all funny, he's shaking, his arms are flailing, his eyes are bulging and he's making this weird rasping noises with his mouth," Jeremy said.
The hospital won't confirm, but reportedly the driver had suffered a heart attack. The bus was careening out of control, headed straight for a church. Jeremy said he acted on instinct.
"So I take action," he said. "I grab the wheel, turn it right get it to the right side of the road. I take the keys out of the ignition, the engine starts turning off, and (we) start slowing down."
Seventh grader Johnny Wood took action, too. He had studied CPR.
"I ran up and tried doing chest compressions, but his eyes were rolling back and I could tell it was getting harder for him to breathe," Johnny said.
As the bus slowed and stopped, other students called 911.
Jeremy said, "I'm just thinking I just want to stop the bus, because I don't want to crash and I don't want to know what it feels like - I just don't want to die."
Jeremy said he remembered a superhero book he'd read in which a man stopped a runaway bus by turning off the ignition.
Everyone got off the bus alive.
"It was scary and exhilarating. I mean, you want to know if he's OK, but then again it's happening so fast your heart is pumping," Johnny said. "It's breathtaking and breath giving."
The Seattle Times reports the 43-year-old driver, whose name was not released, was taken to an area hospital, where his condition was described as grave.
Watch Bill Whitaker's report in the video above.Congressman-elect Jamie Raskin (D-Eighth District) of Takoma Park being interviewed during early voting in November. Photo by Mike Diegel.
Many things changed for U.S. Representative-elect Jamie Raskin (D-Eighth District) following the election that sent him to Congress and, apparently, Donald Trump to the White House.
Including the policy areas on which he wanted to focus in Washington.
“My plans have changed somewhat since Nov. 8, which was both one of the happiest nights of my life and one of the saddest nights of my life,” Raskin said.
“I had hoped to advance a lot of the same agenda that I was part of in the Maryland General Assembly,” he said, citing as examples a strong gun safety agenda, progress on climate change and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and sweeping criminal justice reform.
But Raskin indicated there’s hope for some progress on issues important to him and his constituents.
During the freshman orientations he’s been attending, “I’ve been building lots of relationships with people in the [freshman] class.
“I’ve been getting to meet a bunch of my Republican colleagues and finding that there are definitely areas of political consensus,” Raskin continued. “Not all of them are necessarily in love with the presumed president of the United States.
“I do think there will some areas of policy overlap and consensus that we can work on. One of them is infrastructure,” he said.
He’d like to see a particular focus on the Metro system, since half the federal workforce uses it to get to work, and he plans to use it to get to the Capitol.
“When I was growing up, the Metro was the jewel of the region, “ he said. “I used to ride the Metro just for fun, it was so beautiful and efficient. Now it can barely get people to work on time.
“I’m hoping that we can bring the Metro back to a condition of basic efficiency and timeliness,” he added, “and then eventually get back to a point of real excellence and magnificence.”
He also said roads, including highways such as I-270, water systems, ports and cybersecurity all are in need of attention.
“We really do need to reinvest in America and I hope that the infrastructure area will become a point of some national unity,” Raskin said.
Even so, there are areas that could lead to some controversy, he added, as some Republican rhetoric has been more about tax breaks for developers than any real public investments.
Criminal justice reform is another area in which Raskin sees some reason for optimism once he takes office on Jan. 3.
“I hope that I can find the same kind of bipartisanship on criminal justice reform in Washington that I did find in Annapolis,” he said. “We’ve made some big steps forward in Maryland and I would hope I can find the same kind of cross-party support in D.C.”
And Raskin is in a position to influence Democratic policy.
“I was elected by the 27 freshman Democrats to be the class representative on the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee,” he said, explaining that this is the leadership committee that makes committee assignments and sets the policy agenda for Democrats.
Committee assignments have not been made yet and the freshmen have been told not count on anything, but there are several committees on which Raskin is particularly interested in serving.
“I think I can render the most value and benefit to Congress by serving on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee,” he said, citing his background as a professor of constitutional law at American University and 10 years of service on the Senate Judiciary Committee in Annapolis.
“I’d love to be able to go there and champion constitutional values and civil rights and civil liberties,” he said.
He’s also interested in potentially serving on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, noting that more than 85,000 federal employees live in the Eighth District.
“They may have a target on their back when it comes to the new president,” Raskin said. “I want to defend passionately the service and the rights of the people who have come to be public servants in the federal government.”
In addition, he’s eying the Agriculture Committee because “there are a lot of agrarian interests in the northern part of my district, and I have taken a real interest in that.”
In the meantime, Raskin said, “I’ve been very busy assembling a staff, Capitol Hill staff and then my district office staff in Rockville.”
He’s also been involved in the nuts and bolts aspect of becoming a Congressman, like learning about the computer system and getting an office assignment.
His slot around the middle of the Congressional office selection lottery yielded a suite on the fourth floor of the Cannon House Office Building.
‘It’s very convenient for my constituents,” Raskin said, “because people will be able to get off at Capitol South [Metro station] and enter the Cannon Building and go right up the elevator or the stairs, and they’ll be there within two minutes of exiting Capitol South.”
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See something around town? Tag your photos on Twitter & Instagram with #SourceShots.(CBS News) George Zimmerman is still in police custody, facing murder charges for the shooting of Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26, 2012.
At his bond hearing next Friday, Zimmerman's new lawyer, Mark O'Mara, will argue his client is no flight risk and that if he wanted to run, he'd be long-gone six weeks after the shooting of Martin.
Zimmerman has not yet entered a plea. That will happen at his arraignment, scheduled for May 29. By then, he and his attorney hope, Zimmerman will be free on bond.
But there's another issue: whether Zimmerman, facing murder charges, is actually safer behind bars.
George Zimmerman makes first court appearance
Travyon Martin's mother: Shooting was an accident
Defending George Zimmerman: What's next for Mark O'Mara?
Trayvon's mom clarifies "it was an accident" remark
Arrest records shine a little light on Zimmerman
Complete coverage: Trayvon Martin Shooting
Zimmerman's first hearing was purely procedural and lasted less than three minutes. For his jailhouse protection, the second-degree murder defendant is staying alone in a cell designed for two inmates.
Inside jail or out, Zimmerman's safety worries his lawyer. When asked what would surprise Zimmerman's critics most about him, O'Mara said, "That he truly isn't a monster, I think, that some people have made him out to be. Certainly, this was a tragic intersection of two young men's lives with enormously tragic consequences to one of them."
Special prosecutor Angela Corey outlined her case in a court affidavit. It claims: "Zimmerman disregarded the police dispatcher" when he instructed Zimmerman not to follow the teenager.
Zimmerman then "got out of his vehicle and followed Martin" who "tried to run home." It also says Sybrina Fulton, Martin's mother, "identified screams heard in the background of a 911 call as her son's."
Zimmerman hid for most of the six weeks he faced no charges for killing unarmed Trayvon Martin. He claimed it was in self-defense.
But his arrest relieved many people in Sanford, Fla. Edward Cason, a Sanford resident, told CBS News, "I'm not going to lie to you. I wanted to do a back flip.... What went through my head is, 'It's about time. It took them long enough.'"
Another, Carolyn Walker, said, "We feel like that's the first step in this particular case. But not only do we want justice for Trayvon Martin. We also want justice for George Zimmerman."Confira trechos do debate entre Dilma e Aécio Trecho Debate Band – Segundo Turno
Não há outra definição. Foi mesmo uma |
also listed first in the brackets, and the Hanyu Pinyin romanization is listed second in the brackets.
許 (traditional Chinese) / 许 (simplified Chinese) (26) [Hsü3, Xǔ] 鄭 / 郑 (21) [Cheng4, Zhèng] 謝 / 谢 (23) [Hsieh4, Xiè] 洪 (above 100) [Hung2, Hóng] 郭 (16) [Kuo1, Guō] 邱 (73) [Ch'iu1, Qiū] 曾 (32) [Tseng1, Zēng] 廖 (62) [Liao4, Liào] 賴 / 赖 (above 100) [Lai4, Lài] 徐 (11) [Hsü2, Xú] 周 (10) [Chou1, Zhōu] 葉 / 叶 (43) [Yeh4, Yè] 蘇 / 苏 (45) [Su1, Sū] 莊 / 庄 (above 100) [Zhuang1, Zhuāng] 呂 / 吕 (47) [Lü3, Lǚ] 江 (74) [Chiang1, Jiāng] 何 (17) [Hê2 or Ho2, Hé] 蕭 / 萧 (33) [Hsiao1, Xiāo] 羅 / 罗 (20) [Lo2, Luó] 高 (18) [Kao1, Gāo]
Other surveys
1994–2011: The American researcher Chih-Hao Tsai has compiled unauthoritative annual surveys of the most common surnames on Taiwan[21] based on published lists of all successful applicants taking Taiwan's Joint College Entrance Exam.[22] The test was mandatory for college entrance until 2002 and is still quite common, with more than a hundred thousand successful applicants a year and a pass rate for all test takers between 60 and 90%.[22]
Philippines [ edit ]
Chinese Filipinos whose ancestors came to the Philippines from 1898 onward usually have single syllable Chinese surnames. On the other hand, most Chinese Filipinos whose ancestors came to the Philippines prior to 1898 usually have multiple syllable Chinese surnames such as Gokongwei, Ongpin, Pempengco, Yuchengco, Teehankee, and Yaptinchay among such others. These were originally full Chinese names which were transliterated into Spanish and adopted as surnames.
There are also multiple syllable Chinese surnames that are Spanish transliterations of Hokkien words. Surnames like Tuazon (Eldest Grandson, 大孫), Dizon (Second Grandson, 二孫), Samson/Sanson (Third Grandson, 三孫), Singson (Fourth Grandson, 四孫), Gozon (Fifth Grandson, 五孫), Lacson (Sixth Grandson, 六孫) are examples of transliterations of designations that use the Hokkien suffix -son (孫) used as surnames for some Chinese Filipinos who trace their ancestry from Chinese immigrants to the Philippines during the Spanish Colonial Period. It should be noted as well that "Son/Sun" (孫) is a surname listed in the classic Chinese text Hundred Family Surnames, perhaps shedding light on the Hokkien suffix -son used here as a surname alongside some sort of accompanying enumeration scheme.
Rank (2014)[23] Name Character(s) Total Number (2014)[23] 1 Tan 陳 532,577 2 Lim 林 415,802 3 Chua 蔡 296,642 4 Ong 王 213,894 5 Dizon 二孫 182,703 6 Sy 李, 施 176,967 7 Yap 葉 141,701 8 Yu 余 134,369 9 Ang 洪 121,093 10 Sison 四孫 109,299 11 Sanson 三孫 95,573 12 Lao 劉 73,403 13 Tuazon 大孫 57,872 14 Tiu 張 56,132 15 Lacson 六孫 48,527
Canada [ edit ]
Statistics Canada has not released a list of common surnames for any of its recent censuses, but much of the Canadian Chinese population is clustered in Metro Vancouver and Greater Victoria in British Columbia and the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and the Ottawa-Gatineau Area in Ontario, as well as in some emerging major clusters, such as the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor in Alberta, Montreal, and the Communauté métropolitaine de Québec (Quebec Community Metropolitan Area) in Quebec.
Ontario [ edit ]
A 2010 study by Baiju Shah & al data-mined the Registered Persons Database of Canadian health card recipients in the province of Ontario for a particularly Chinese-Canadian name list. Ignoring potentially non-Chinese spellings such as Lee (49,898 total),[24]:Table 1 they found that the most common Chinese names in Ontario were:[24]
Rank Name Total Number Character(s) Romanization Trad. Simp. 1 Wong 34,567 王 Wáng, Wong 黃 黄 Huáng, Hwang, Wang, Whang, Wong 汪 Wāng, Wong 2 Chan 32,692 陳 陈 Chan, Chén 3 Li 27,608 李 Ly, Lee, Lei, Lǐ 黎 Lai, Ly, Lee, Lei, Lí 4 Chen 25,618 陳 陈 Chan, Chén 5 Wang 22,548 王 Wáng, Wong 汪 Wāng, Wong 6 Liu 18,784 劉 刘 Lau, Liew, Liú, Low 廖 Lau, Lew, Liào, Lieu, Liew, Liu 7 Zhang 18,003 張 张 Chang, Chong, Chung, Cheung, Teo, Zhāng, Zheung 8 Lam 15,910 林 Lam, Lín 藍 蓝 Lán 9 Leung 13,696 梁 Leung, Liáng 10 Ho 12,830 何 Hé, Ho 賀 贺 Hè, Ho
Indonesia [ edit ]
Nearly as large is the Chinese Indonesian community. The 2010 Indonesian census reported more than 8.8 million self-identified Chinese, making up 3.7% of the general population.[25] Just as in Thailand, though, previous legislation (in this case, 127/U/Kep/12/1966) had banned ethnic Chinese surnames throughout the country. This law was abolished after the removal of Suharto, but Chinese names remain a mix of Indonesian, pinyin, and Dutch-influenced Hokkien.
Malaysia [ edit ]
During the 2010 Malaysian Census, approximately 6,960,000 Malaysians of Chinese race.[26] Chinese is the second largest race in Malaysia, after the Malays.
Singapore [ edit ]
Tan (9.5%) Lim (6.6%) Lee (4.5%) Ng (4.2%) Ong (2.7%) Wong (2.6%) Goh (2.2%) Chua (2.2%) Chan (1.9%) Koh (1.9%) Teo (1.9%) Ang (1.7%) Yeo (1.5%) Tay (1.4%) Chong (0.9%) Chia/Seah (0.9%) Other (48.8%) Chinese Singaporean surnames by frequency:
Ethnic Chinese make up almost three-fourths (2009) of Singapore's resident population of nearly four million (2011).
According to Statistics Singapore, as of the year 2000, the most common Chinese Singaporean names were:[27]
Do take note that the 7th most common surname in China, 趙/赵, is extremely rare in Singapore.
The surname list is not accurate, as the English surnames may actually have many variants not listed above. E.g. The 16th surname 'Low' can be 劉/刘, 廖，卢，or 羅/罗 in Chinese. The 1st surname Tan (陳/陈）is also a pinyin romanisation for the locally rare surname （谈/談） or （譚/谭）。
Thailand [ edit ]
The largest Chinese diaspora community in the world are the Chinese Thais (or Sino-Thais), who make up 12–14%[28][29] of the total Thai population. However, very few of the Chinese Thais have Chinese surnames, after the 1913 Surname Act that required the adoption of Thai surnames in order to enjoy Thai citizenship. Moreover, the same law requires that those possessing the same surname be related, meaning that immigrant Chinese may not adopt the surname of their clansmen unless they can show actual kinship.
United States [ edit ]
The 2010 US Census found 3,794,673 self-identified Chinese Americans and 230,382 self-identified Taiwanese Americans,[30] up from 2,734,841 Chinese Americans and 144,795 Taiwanese Americans in 2000.[31]
Although the Chinese make up the largest segment of the U.S. Asian and Pacific Islander population,[32] the most common Chinese-derived surname during the 2000 census was not itself Chinese but the Vietnamese Nguyễn (Chinese: 阮, Ruǎn).[2]
During the 2000 census, the 10 most common Chinese American names were:[33]
Rank Name Ethnicity
[34] Total Number
(2000 census; API only) Character(s) Pinyin Among
API Across
All Names Trad. Simp. 2 24 Lee Chinese 229,200 李 Lǐ Korean 黎 Lí 6 262 Chen Chinese 100,700 陳 陈 Chén 7 279 Wong Chinese
(Cantonese) 88,000 王 Wáng 黃 黄 Huáng 汪 Wāng 9 399 Yang Chinese
(Mandarin) 69,000 楊 杨 Yáng 10 440 Wang Chinese 63,800 王 Wáng 汪 Wāng 11 426 Chang Chinese 62,900 張 张 Zhāng 常 Cháng 12 461 Chan Chinese
(Cantonese) 59,800 陳 陈 Chén 14 521 Li Chinese 55,700 李 Lǐ 黎 Lí 17 626 Lin Chinese 47,000 林 Lín 18 652 Liu Chinese 45,500 劉 刘 Liú 廖 Liào
Other surveys
2002: study by Matthew Falkenstein, data-mining the 2000 US Census for a particularly Asian & Pacific Islander name list, [35] omitting those like Lee that are common among other ethnicities
omitting those like Lee that are common among other ethnicities 2000: study by Diane Lauderdale, et al., data-mining Social Security card applications by persons born abroad before 1941 for a particularly Chinese-American name list[34]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage, hosted at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. (~700 surnames)1997 DoD Briefing: 'Others' can set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely using electromagnetic waves --By Lori Price, www.legitgov.org Updated: 11 Mar 2010
DoD News Briefing
Presenter: Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen April 28, 1997 8:45 AM EDT
DoD News Briefing: Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen
Q: Let me ask you specifically about last week's scare here in Washington, and what we might have learned from how prepared we are to deal with that (inaudible), at B'nai Brith.
A: Well, it points out the nature of the threat. It turned out to be a false threat under the circumstances. But as we've learned in the intelligence community, we had something called -- and we have James Woolsey here [*puke*] to perhaps even address this question about phantom moles. The mere fear that there is a mole within an agency can set off a chain reaction and a hunt for that particular mole which can paralyze the agency for weeks and months and years even, in a search. The same thing is true about just the false scare of a threat of using some kind of a chemical weapon or a biological one. There are some reports, for example, that some countries have been trying to construct something like an Ebola Virus [OMG! Who would do such a thing?], and that would be a very dangerous phenomenon, to say the least. Alvin Toeffler has written about this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others [LOL] are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.'
Just switch 'yours,' 'others' and 'they' with 'U.S.,' 'U.S.' and 'U.S.' This was in 1997. Imagine, after eight years of George W. Bush turbo-funding these lunatics, what they can do now. Oh, BTW. See, also, the list of dead scientists.
The most fascinating might be the Harvard scientist, Dr. Don C Wiley, 'one of the foremost infectious disease researchers' in the United States, who 'got dizzy' and his car fell off a bridge in Memphis, TN.
The bridge where his car was found is only a five-minute drive away and in the wrong direction from where he was staying, leaving authorities with a four-hour, unexplained gap until his vehicle was found. Now Memphis police are exploring several theories involving suicide, robbery and murder.
That's just a 'we-know-we're-f*cking-with-you-and-there's-not-a-damned-thing-you-can-do-about-it' assassination that any detective on 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent' could wrap up in the first half-hour of the episode.
US military behind Haiti quake, says Innsbruck scientist 09 Mar 2010 Innsbruck political scientist Claudia von Werlhof has accused the USA of being behind the Haitian earthquake in January, it emerged today (Tues). Werlhof said that machines at a military research centre in Alaska used to detect deposits of crude oil by causing artificial earthquakes had intentionally been set off to cause the Haitian earthquake and enable the USA to send 10,000 soldiers into the country.
High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program 27 Feb 2010 The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is an ionospheric research program jointly funded by the US Air Force, the US Navy, the University of Alaska and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Its purpose is to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance purposes (such as missile detection). The HAARP program operates a major Arctic facility, known as the HAARP Research Station, on an Air Force owned site near Gakona, Alaska. The most outstanding instrument at the HAARP Station is the Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI), a high power transmitter facility operating in the high frequency range. The IRI is used to temporarily excite a limited area of the ionosphere... As of 2008, HAARP had incurred around $250 million in tax-funded construction and operating costs.
Click here for full DoD News Transcript.
Credit to Elizabeth K. via Samantha G. on Facebook for unearthing the briefing.
Permanent URL for this article: http://legitgov.org/DoD_1997_set_off_earthquakes_280210.html
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CLG IndexThunderbit
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NewbieActivity: 28Merit: 0 selling my religious beliefs September 03, 2012, 05:16:48 AM #1 im unsure of what religion is best and i do not want to waste years of my life reading about all of the different ones.... so
SAVE MY SOUL
i will be auctioning off my religious views.... whichever religion posts the highest bid wins. i will then convert to that religion and pray to that god. i will not participate in any unlawful activities or animal/human sacrifices. soooooo let the bidding begin!
auction ends Sept 7th at 11:11p.m. eastern standard time
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Sr. MemberActivity: 291Merit: 250BTCRadio Owner Re: selling my religious beliefs September 03, 2012, 05:34:27 AM #7 best hope you dont get some fruit cake that comes up with his own religion, like a pedo priest requiring all those in training to give daily blowjobs to the elders. BTCRadio: 17cafKShokyQCbaNuzaDo5HLoSnffMNPAs
Francesco
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Sr. MemberActivity: 252Merit: 250 Re: selling my religious beliefs September 03, 2012, 08:43:14 AM #9 But I guess they are too serious people for this thread. I haven't seen anyone claiming to be christian yet around here (not that I missed them). There is an Islamic Bank of Bitcoins though, so you have maybe more chances to end up prostrating to Allah five times a dayBut I guess they are too serious people for this thread.
Thunderbit
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NewbieActivity: 28Merit: 0 Re: selling my religious beliefs September 03, 2012, 03:21:32 PM #13 i have to up the anty im new and forgot the coins go to the eigth decimal.... minimum bid for my soul is ten cents....a man has got to have standards....
so now low ball..... minimum bid.01
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I advocate the Zeitgeist Movement & Venus Project.
LegendaryActivity: 1500Merit: 1020I advocate the Zeitgeist Movement & Venus Project. Re: selling my religious beliefs September 03, 2012, 10:17:54 PM #17 0.01 BTC to forego religion entirely and devote yourself to logic, reason and doing good for all of mankind and the earth that we share.
Visit Bitcoin combines money, the wrongest thing in the world, with software, the easiest thing in the world to get wrong.Visit www.thevenusproject.com and www.theZeitgeistMovement.comGoogle is about to begin an ambitious project to notify some half a million people that their computers are infected with the DNSChanger malware.
The effort, scheduled to begin this afternoon, is designed to let those people know that their Internet connections will stop working on July 9, when temporary servers set up by the FBI to help DNSChanger victims are due to be disconnected.
"The warning will be at the top of the search results page for regular searches and image searches and news searches," Google security engineer Damian Menscher told CNET this morning. "The text will say, 'Your computer appears to be infected,' and it will give additional detail warning them that they may not be able to connect to the Internet in the future."
The malware, also known as "RSPlug," "Puper," and "Jahlav," was active until an FBI investigation called Ghost Click resulted in six arrests last November.
DNSChanger worked by pointing infected computers to rogue Domain Name System servers that could, for instance, direct someone trying to connect to BankOfAmerica.com to a scam Web site.
The way the alerts work is both simple and clever: When one of the replacement servers operated by ISC under court order talk to Google's servers, they reply with a special Internet Protocol address. Because connections to that IP address can safely be assumed to be from infected PCs, the alerts can be displayed in search results.
Computers became infected with DNSChanger when they visited certain Web sites or downloaded particular software to view videos online. In addition to altering the DNS server settings, the malware also prevented antivirus updates from happening.
Google took similar steps last summer when it displayed security alerts to infected computers that were connecting through intermediary servers called proxies.Bitcoin is looking heavy today after failing to see a decisive move higher in the last 24 hours.
While bitcoin (BTC) clocked a lifetime high of $17,631.42 just two days ago, it has since retreated to sub-$17,000 levels, as per CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index (BPI).
As of writing, the cryptocurrency is trading at $16,628. As per CoinMarketCap, BTC has depreciated by 2.0 percent in the last 24 hours, though it is still up 8 percent over the last 7 days.
The slow descent in prices is possibly due to alternative currencies garnering more attention from traders and investors. For example, ether has jumped 12 percent in the last 24 hours to a new record high of $747.59. Bitcoin cash and ripple have also appreciated notably – by 24 percent and 16 percent, respectively.
Parallels could be drawn between the action seen in the cryptocurrency over the last few weeks and the behavior in the stock markets.
Major equity indices are usually the first to rally. Once the large-cap valuations look overstretched, investors tend to rotate money out of large caps and into small caps. Investors who missed the bus, also chase the relatively undervalued small-cap stocks. Thus, non-index stocks/small caps begin rising after a rally in the index stocks looks overdone.
On similar lines, the signs of weakness in BTC could be due to investors chasing the small-cap cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin rallied sharply from its Sep. 15 low below $3,000 to the recent record high of $17,631.42. Comments on social media indicate a growing concern among investors over the pace of ascent in BTC prices.
Hence, new buyers could continue to focus on other options in the short-run, leading to a correction in BTC prices. The price chart analysis also points to increased odds of a pullback.
BPI chart
The above chart shows:
Rounding top pattern
Head-and-shoulders breakdown.
Both features indicate a short-term bullish-to-bearish trend change.
As per the measured height method, the head-and-shoulders breakdown has opened the doors for a drop to $15,350 levels.
4-hour chart
The above chart shows a bearish doji reversal (marked by circles) followed by a falling, descending top pattern (as indicated by a falling trend line).
View
As per the 4-hour chart (BTC/USD), the cryptocurrency looks set to test $15,884 (confluence of the ascending 50-moving average and the rising trend line).
On the higher side, only a move above $17,746 would signal a revival of the bull run. In that case, the cryptocurrency could attack $19,697 (Dec. 7 high) and possibly $20,000 levels.
Escalator image via ShutterstockOAKLAND, Calif. – Stephen Curry was annoyed, almost to mouthpiece-tossing levels, by the questions because the answers were so obvious. If the first unanimous MVP in NBA history could only wave helplessly in an attempt to keep Kyrie Irving in front of him, could only respond to LeBron James’ intimidating glares and flexes by looking away and couldn’t even beat the slow-footed Kevin Love off the dribble to create his own shot, was there really a need to ask if something was wrong? Wouldn’t trying to assign some nebulous percentages to his health be a wasted exercise?
Curry never used any excuses for his poor performance on the game’s biggest stage, never sought sympathy for his struggles – even as the Finals version of Curry rarely, if ever, came close to resembling that euphoric, fun-time version of Curry that challenged our definitions of heat checks and deep range before that unfortunate slip on a sweaty court in Houston derailed a dream season.
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As he drifted into an offseason filled with the disappointment from surrendering to James an NBA title and his brief hold on the title of the game’s best player, Curry said he wouldn’t allow himself to wallow in the what-coulda-beens related to being at full strength. The Golden State Warriors lost. He lost. And that was enough to keep him motivated and focused on trying to avoid duplicating those feelings next June.
Story continues
“That was the situation,” Curry said Tuesday about playing with knee and ankle injuries last postseason. “There are certain situations that everybody has to deal with and whoever is at the end … there is no need for any other storylines. I hated that I was asked about it that much, because at the end of the day, I was on the floor playing. If we would’ve won, the situation would’ve been different. Obviously, the question would’ve been a little different: ‘How did you overcome such a catastrophic injury and win a championship?’”
Despite having a less-than-optimal Curry, the Warriors were still one game, and one minute, from hoisting back-to-back Larry O’Brien Trophies – a feat that would’ve enhanced his burgeoning legend. Instead, Curry will have the chance to show if the humiliation has deflated him or inspired a redemptive charge the way it has other greats.
“That’s life. It’s all part of it,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said of Curry. “Pick a player in history – maybe not Bill Russell, he won every year – but I remember Michael [Jordan] when we lost to Orlando [in 1995] and he came back. His summer was different. He was upset. [Larry] Bird, Magic [Johnson] used to beat each other, those guys would go home and try to get better. Unfortunately, losing is kind of part of this. We lost last year. We all had to lick our wounds. So now Steph wants to be better. He’s ready to roll and I think our guys have good perspective, too. We’re lucky to do what we do. We’re lucky to have a really good team and have a chance to have fun every day.”
Stephen Curry is carrying the pain of last season’s disappointment. (Getty Images)
Golden State found the ultimate consolation prize with the free-agent acquisition of Kevin Durant, a signing that put the winners of the past three MVP awards on the same team for the first time since Moses Malone and Julius Erving were together in Philadelphia. After the Warriors made their pitch to Durant at that private home in the Hamptons, Curry remained in contact with the four-time scoring champion until he made his final decision. The text-message exchanges went beyond basketball and instead centered on how well Durant would fit with the Warriors and how Curry had no problem sharing the spotlight. Time shared on Team USA during the 2010 world championships – when Durant was a star on the rise and Curry was barely finding his way – fostered a mutual respect.
“I’ve been watching Steph play since he was in college and then coming into the league, so I knew that we’d figure this thing out,” Durant said. “He’s a guy that doesn’t have to dominate the ball in order to be effective. … Demeanor is still the same. He’s excited about the game of basketball. You can see the joy on his face. It’s contagious.”
Privately, the Warriors realized they had put too much pressure on Curry before his body eventually broke down and it was one of the reasons players were busy recruiting Durant while feverishly chasing 73 wins and a second ring.
With Durant deciding to abandon Oklahoma City, the Warriors actually got out ahead of the rest of the league, forcing the other 29 teams to adjust before they could fully be figured out. Durant has added more excitement to a championship contender that hasn’t had a chance to get stale. And, Durant also spared Curry from the pressure of topping a regular season in which he was arguably, simultaneously, the MVP and the most improved player.
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“I haven’t really thought about it like that,” Curry said of Durant’s arrival, “because that would kind of cheat my process. I have the same mentality. I don’t really think about any other expectations. I want to get better. I want to be better than I was last year. That’s going to be the same, regardless if KD was here or not. You would think there is a blessing with pressure or whatever, but that’s not how I can think, because I’ve got to still do my job and do it at a high level for us to be as great as we want to be.”
What an improved Curry will look like remains to be seen. His scoring average is likely to decrease, but he could raise his assist average and, possibly, his efficiency with so many weapons on the floor to give him space and passing options. But Curry put to rest any speculation about his pending free agency next summer, when the Warriors could give him a five-year maximum contract that could triple the $12 million salary he’ll earn this season.
“I want to be back here. I like playing here, and that’s it,” Curry said. “My answer is not going to be any different all year. Keep asking me, I won’t have a different one. I’m not going to let it distract me at all.”
When Curry arrived for training camp last season, he made mock apologies for his and Golden State’s success, which was greeted with more skepticism than appreciation from peers and rivals. All season, Curry and the Warriors were able to lean on outside sources for motivation. But losing in the NBA Finals and becoming the first team to blow a 3-1 lead after setting the regular-season record for wins created a pain from which they can’t easily recover.
“This is more real for us. Because we felt what we felt all summer. We experienced that,” Curry said. “It wasn’t something that was coming at us. It’s better when you’re motivated from how you feel and the experiences you’ve had versus how other people see your team or your journey, so this is more real for us, coming off a loss.”
More NBA coverage from The Vertical:In this series, Yahoo News takes a closer look at the current opioid epidemic, its roots and demographics, the increasing acceptance of medication-assisted treatment as a supplement to 12-step programs and the remaining obstacles to combating widespread addiction. This series also highlights ways in which the current crisis is unexpectedly forcing a larger shift toward treating addiction more like other chronic illnesses.
Members of the National Governors Association came to Washington for their annual winter meeting with President Obama Monday, armed with a plan to restrict access to prescription painkillers and end the country’s deadly opioid epidemic.
But the proposal, which drew bipartisan support from within the NGA over the weekend, received a less-than-enthusiastic response when presented to the president.
“If we go to doctors right now and say ‘Don’t overprescribe’ without providing some mechanisms for people in these communities to deal with the pain that they have or the issues that they have, then we’re not going to solve the problem, because the pain is real, the mental illness is real,” Obama said during his meeting with the governors Monday. “In some cases, addiction is already there.”
According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 47,055 people died from a drug overdose in the U.S. in 2014 — more than any other year on record. Some 61 percent of those fatal overdoses involved opioids, mostly prescription painkillers like OxyContin or Percocet, and heroin.
The CDC emphasizes the link between the significant increase in fatal opioid overdoses (up 200 percent since 2000) to the rise in opioid pill prescriptions in various parts of the country over the past several years. According to the CDC, “Health care providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for painkillers in 2012, enough for every American adult to have a bottle of pills.”
Some governors, like New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan, have reportedly encountered resistance from doctors and pharmaceutical companies when attempting to impose limits on opioid prescriptions in their own states.
That’s why, ahead of Monday’s meeting at the White House, the NGA teamed up with physicians on a proposal to craft tougher protocols for safer pain treatment that will likely include restrictions on the number of opioid prescriptions providers can write, as well as new training requirements that, among other things, would help prescribers better recognize signs of addiction.
“As governors, we are working as individual states and with one another to stem and reverse the tide of this horrible epidemic, but we know that the fight is far from over, which is why our priorities push for additional support from the federal government,” said Hassan, vice chair of the NGA’s Health and Human Services Committee, in a statement issued over the weekend. “Combating the heroin and opioid crisis is an all-hands-on-deck moment, and we must also partner with the private sector, from manufacturers to pharmacies and health care providers, to find solutions and change the way we treat pain in America.”
The NGA’s call to action is the latest — and perhaps most aggressive — political response to the deadly epidemic that’s prompted a number of initiatives from local governments, from presidential candidates and from the White House.
Read more from this series:
—This is your brain on opioids
—How buprenorphine, or ‘bupe,’ changed opioid addiction treatment
—Abstinence vs. medication-assisted treatment: Traditional 12-step programs embrace a new model
—It’s easier to get a prescription for drugs that cause opioid addiction than it is for those proven to treat it
—The menace in the medicine cabinet: The opioid epidemic’s pharmaceutical roots
—The rise of Narcan, the life-saving opioid antidote that can stop an overdose in its tracks
—Why the new face of opioid addiction calls for a new approach to treatmentImage caption The drugs were collected when HMS Manchester docked in Colombia
A Royal Navy wren has been jailed for smuggling cocaine into the UK on board a warship which had been on counter-narcotics training.
Teresa Matos, 37, from Gateshead, admitted importing the drugs worth £2m.
The cocaine was found in the lining of Matos's clothing when HMS Manchester arrived in Plymouth, Devon, last August en route to its Portsmouth base.
Matos was jailed for seven-and-a-half years at Portsmouth Crown Court. Three men from London were also jailed.
The Angolan-born steward was granted asylum in Britain in 2004.
The rewards that were to be made, had you been successful, would have been considerable and the penalties must be considerable as well Judge Ian Pearson, Portsmouth Crown Court
Her boyfriend Raul Beia, 39, from Clapham, south-west London, who was also granted asylum to live in the UK, was jailed for 13 years after being found guilty of illegally importing drugs.
Abdul Banda, 34, of Ashbourne Road, Ealing, West London, who pleaded guilty to the charge, was jailed for 10-and-a-half years.
The court was told Beia and Banda were the "ringleaders" of the operation, while Matos was a courier and Dean Langley was recruited to receive and distribute the drugs.
Twenty-year-old Langley, of Clem Attlee Estate, Fulham, west London, who had denied involvement, was sentenced to 11 years.
The court was told Matos picked up the 4.94kg haul of 100% pure cocaine while HMS Manchester had docked at the port of Cartagena in Colombia, South America, in July last year.
CCTV footage
The destroyer, which had been on a seven-month deployment across the Atlantic and South Pacific, had spent time in Cape Verde for counter-narcotics training with the island's coastguard.
It had also visited the US, the Falkland Islands, Brazil and Colombia.
Judge Ian Pearson said: "This was a serious importation of a considerable quantity of cocaine.
"The rewards that were to be made, had you been successful, would have been considerable and the penalties must be considerable as well.
"It goes without saying this offence is so serious that only a custodial sentence of some length may be justified."
Matos, of Contsworth Court, Gateshead, was arrested in Plymouth while Banda was arrested with Beia and Langley at Portsmouth's Ibis Hotel.
The three men had been caught on CCTV purchasing digital scales, plastic boxes and clear food wrap to be used to distribute the drugs.
Judge Pearson ordered for the drugs and paraphernalia to be confiscated and destroyed.
Following the sentencing, the Ministry of Defence said criminal behaviour would not be tolerated in the Royal Navy.
"Individuals given custodial sentences are usually discharged from the service," a spokesman said.The catastrophic weather in Texas has thrown the spotlight on the federal government’s troubled flood insurance program, which is nearly $25 billion in debt after huge payouts following Katrina, Sandy and other devastating hurricanes.
But as Houston starts the long process of recovering, lobbyists in Washington have already maneuvered to slow lawmakers efforts’ to overhaul the National Flood Insurance Program and protect their industries’ profits.
Story Continued Below
The powerful home builders’ lobby helped kill a proposal that would have phased out coverage for new construction in high-risk areas. The National Association of Realtors blocked an attempt to rein in discounted insurance rates that homeowners can get when their flood risk increases. And the American Bankers Association has warned of a “regional foreclosure crisis” if Congress axes coverage for homes with excessive claims.
Lawmakers who want to reel in the program are finding that they must appease the influential industry groups whose support they need to move forward.
"We want to have a vibrant construction industry," said Rep. Dennis Ross (R-Fla.), who's pushing for a greater private-sector presence in the flood insurance market. "We want to have a vibrant real estate industry. That's all great. But we're incentivizing building in high-risk areas, which is a moral hazard."
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The flood insurance program, created by the federal government in 1968, was designed to provide coverage to homeowners who couldn’t get it through the private market. But repeated disasters in |
, mathematical texts, astronomical texts, medical texts, metallurgy texts whatever was available, in whichever language it was available was taken out and fortunately, they were able to make millions of pounds, by auctioning these texts again in London’s Christie Auction House and other Auction houses set up there.
Most of these auctioned items were purchased and preserved by the Germans and French, who at the time felt that the British were destroying the cultural scientific heritage and the beacon of the civilizational progress that was India. Post WW-2, some of these articrafts were taken by the Russians who preserved them as well. No spiritual or religious leader in India has any clue of the extent of what was lost from their spiritual and religious organization. By the way, one such object which was carefully lifted from the Kashmiri Temples that was auctioned and purchased by the Germans and preserved in Germany was given to our Current Prime Minister, when he visited Germany.
Were not the Germans expecting a few questions from us, when they told us that the idol belonged to a Kashmiri temple, from the era of Emperor Lalitaditya? If they were, they would have been badly disappointed. We were happy with the gift and we sent a message to German Chancellor thanking her for the gift. But surprisingly none neither historians nor spiritual leaders nor nationalists etc. bother to ask even a single question. If, according to the history that is being taught to us these temple complexes were destroyed methodically by Arabs somewhere between 7th to the 14th century, then how did this statue reach Germany intact and absolutely preserved when Germany never ruled India.
Literally every Western Capital has in their historical records noted the input from all British East India Company logs: From the years 1847-1947, every single day a whopping 200 tons of gold removed from India by British. This number works out to a fantastic 6 million tons of Gold, taken out of India by the EIC in the 100 year interval. A fraction of this was used for financing every war, the destruction of China, as well as the destruction of every aspect of India.
Just as with the recent de-monetization, the ploy of the Western Economic apparatus pushed upon the Indians is “show publicly 0.25 Trillion USD, and hide 3.75 Trillion USD from public view”, the case with Gold is show 160,000 tons and hide the larger figure of 6-million tons. But nevertheless, note again that according to the records, they are supposed to have looted be much less than 30% of the existing wealth from the temples looting, and confiscating from the Kingdoms and their treasuries. Further, this is only the Gold, this is apart from other Jewelry (precious stones, diamonds etc). This 6 million tons of gold is worth about 180 Trillion USD. By way of comparison, the Institute of International Finance figures the World debt at 217 Trillion USD, more than three times the World’s GDP. ( The IIM-professors, who realized the importance of the bullock-carts, may please enlighten us: how did we mine these 6 million tons before the British came? Did we seek any foreign help?)
So still 70% is left with India, so by this estimate, we have about 14 million Tons of Gold still left in India…counting only gold……not counting precious jems etc…… No wonder India is called the “Ratna Garbha”. This gold is still with the people and with the temples. Then instead of 1 pound today being set at 70 Rupees, if India were to back its rupee with the gold that we have, the inverse case would be the reality viz: 1 Rupee = 70 British Pounds. Simply put, the amount of gold still left in India is valued at around two times the World’s total Debt. Who wouldn’t want to ROB IT??
In 2010 the minister for the mines Dasari Narayana Rao gave a written reply to the Parliament that there are 8.8 million oz of minable gold in one single block D-51/D-52?? of Anantapur District. At roughly 30 oz = 1 kg, this is 0.3 million Kilograms = 300 tons. What of the hundreds of other such blocks? The minister held his head high and stated with pride that since India does not have the technology to mine this gold, so we give the contract it to foreign countries.
All the economic indicators and the leading economists and financial experts are saying that the Anglo-American world has blown-up its gold reserves. That is why neither Bank of England nor Federal Reserve want any audit, because it will prove that there is no gold there. Many economists actually suspect that the gold mining figures themselves might have been cooked up and as the value of the gold-prices shooting up, both Fed and Bank of England, sold all their gold reserves to the gold-hungry world, primarily India and China. It is precisely this process that kept their currencies at stable value.
Though initially there were no physical gold transfers executed, recently many countries have started asking for the physical gold into their territories. The Chinese and Germans had requested the Federal Reserve to repatriate the physical gold to their countries. Both were duped and the gold was replaced with other metals.
Many of these countries which believe in the geopolitical objective of a multi-polar world, declared that they would de-link their currency with the dollar and link it with the gold –starting with Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, China and now Russia. In the last two decades of wars in the world, the question of currency-linkage has been the critical causative trigger. All the wars occurred exactly when the countries said that they are going to pull out of the dollar and back their currency with Gold. Whether it was the invasion of Iraq or Libya or Syria, or the current sabre-rattling going on with Russia and with China, all these were and are exactly because these countries had the courage to state that they were pulling out of the dollar and moving to a gold-standard. In addition to direct confrontation, the Anglo-American world resorted to a variety of financial frauds to the rigging of stocks, to the interest-rate-manipulation called Libor Scandal, in which the Europeans held the Bank of England guilty and were about to press large fines whereupon Britain exited from the European Union.
The main cause of the financial ruin in the interval 2008-2012 was this currency manipulation, without any gold left top back it up. If the countries are not of European origin, they are all subjected to what we can now call as gold-pipeLine wars in which Iraq and Libya are knocked out and promptly their gold-reserves were confiscated. And the world is witnessing the similar brink-of-war situation with the other four powers, which were accused by the Anglo-Americans of cornering most of the Gold in the last decade: namely China, Syria, Iran, Russia and North Korea.
As realized in the Syrian adventure is that the outcome of the war is uncertain. However, the serious financial crisis the US and the UK are facing is certain. They need gold urgently to save their financial system and economies and the very integrity of their financial institutions like Bank of England and the Federal Reserve. Thus, they need the gold for two reasons: to fight the wars and to maintain their own institutions.
We are looking at a staggering figure of 20-30 Trillion dollars worth of Gold, or the equivalent amount of real currency to buy such Gold. So then, the obvious question is :- “Apart from the other six nations we have to fight, Who has the currency or who has the Gold? ” The answer is obvious: Only India. So therefore as a first shot, 4-Trillion dollars were taken out and as the next logical step, they will come behind the gold of the Individuals that is stored in India, as the East India Companies have done over the past 100 years.
If in the future, some Indian ruler had the courage to declare that the Indian currency would henceforth be backed by Gold, Indians may please rest assured that India would have to be declared a terrorist country. They would then have to fight with India. Here is the problem:- Fighting with 1.25 billion people is not the same as fighting with Iraq, Libya or with Syria. So, thus therefore a three-pronged strategy has been adopted: First, de-grade the Indian Army to a fourth-class, un-professional and highly-politicized Army. This is precisely following the theory of the General Wellesley Clarke Under which goes under the title of the Strategic Defense Initiative. This will ensure that at any future point of time, if we have to fight with India, it will be an impotent India. Second, move to take the Gold physically out of India so that, we the Indians, can never at any future point of time, use it to back up our currency. One way to take the Gold out is to generate much more black money inside India and take that money out of India….this money being convertible to the Indian Gold. This is where our Government knowingly or unknowingly is falling prey to Western Economic theories of Thuggery and Robbery by demonetizing and re-introducing the much higher currency with a much higher denomination, and only just one reason why the Public are not being shown any consistent steps to handle the question of Indian currency being printed abroad.
Thirdly, push the Indian elite away from understanding and from original thought. And if we see how the Indian research institutes are being forced to lower standards, scientists getting badly de-motivated in research, reduced in quality, funding, strength, finally towards closure and shutting down, we can see India racing on the lines of Destruction. In fact, they never really needed to fight with India, because India was never a republic. It was never that ”India is Independent”—rather it has always been “India is in-dependence”. To control the slaves who had thus been deprived of independent enquiry and thought, the foreign masters need only slogans. India is not a democracy, it is a sloganocracy, the slogans trumpeted by the press-titutes of the private media corporate media.
Several American Presidents have publicly declared that the Corporate Media is a Fake Media. The White House has itself declared that all Corporate Media establishments, such as CNN, ABC, LA-Times, NY-Times which are the Fake Media have no access to the White House. But, we Indians lap up news from this same Corporate Media as if it were the Gospel Truth.
Only one simple example of this fake media’s method of confusing the public of both India and Partitioned India – aka Pakistan –, was on the surgical strikes the army was supposed to have conducted with regard to the Kashmir question. CNN-India ran a program in their Prime-Time and showing that they were taking a call from a Pakistani General from the Neelam Valley who confirmed the strikes, the Indian Public were shown that India had in-fact executed the Surgical Strikes, and then CNN-India went on to push the slogan that whoever opposed the Surgical Strikes are not patriotic Indians and were anti-nationals.
But exactly at the same time, CNN-Pakistan aired a Program which was shown to the Pakistanis in which they had taken Journalists to the same Neelam valley and convinced the People of Pakistan that India has NOT conducted any surgical Strikes at all. And the experienced Pakistani Generals mused and bewildered that if the arc of operational radius of the Surgical Strikes as projected by India of radius 260 Km, this would be logistically tantamount to a not to a “Surgical Strike” but to a “Major Aerial Warfare”. But yet, following CNN-India lead, every other private funded corporate media carried on the same line for one week, insisting that anyone who opposes their message is anti-national.
We are not questioning the capability of the Indian Air-force in conducting such operations, nor are we questioning that a firm hand is necessary in tackling the menace of Terrorism. But what we are questioning is whether the Indian public should accept at all what the Corporate Media is telling them. And as to what really happened there, the nation has a right to know….
While the simple hard working folk of India, who push voting buttons based on what they hear, certainly have a “right to know”, a valid question to the moral authorities of the so-called “higher-educated” India: is it our RIGHT TO KNOW……OR is it OUR DUTY TO FIND OUT? The part of Indian society that is supposed to work cerebrally has badly failed its duty. It is time for this section to realize this and get to work again……when everyone else in the country is working.
What a tragic twist of fate for a country which claims to have given the Artha-Shastra to the world —this same Artha-Shastra was and being is duly followed to the letter in every Western Country, including in Pakistan, and yet waiting to be utilized for the betterment of the Indian economics.
Read this explosive hard-hitting myth-buster, a timely reminder for the decadent Indian society; a masterpiece on Indian geopolitics – India in Cognitive Dissonance only in GreatGameIndia – India’s only quarterly journal on Geopolitics & International Relations.
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For the record:
The weapons Adam Lanza used to slaughter children at Sandy Hook Elementary weren’t exactly “stolen from the owner”. I know those defending the ability to purchase and possess assault weaponry want these to be “stolen” guns, and keep referring to them as “stolen” guns, but that’s not really the case.
The guns were household items. According to reports, Adam Lanza had access to them while living at home. His mother reportedly took him to the range to shoot the weapons. The mother bragged about owning the weapons and made very clear the reason why she had them, had many of them, and had quick access to them.
These were not weapons, for instance, that were stolen from a gun shop and then used to commit a crime; they were household items to which the killer had regular access.
If while living at home, a kid takes his dad’s shovel from the shed (the one that he uses to do his usual yard work and chores) and instead uses it to kill the neighbor’s cat, it’s not a “stolen” shovel. It’s still a crime, but the shovel isn’t reported as “stolen”. The kid had regular access to it.
Or if, let us say (completely hypothetically of course) that a church (likely Baptist – see link at right) held an annual father-son breakfast and gun shoot, and the kids were taught and encouraged (as some form of evangelism, Bible study, of parental bonding in the name of Jesus) to shoot weapons by their parents, and then if the kids, while living at home and while having access to the same guns they are accustomed to shooting, used these guns to commit a crime, you’d have a hard time arguing that the guns were “stolen”. (Of course, the parents might claim that the teenager “stole” the gun to avoid legal liability, but the guns would be better classified as “proud household items”, not items “stolen” from somewhere or someone else.)
[For more on the dangers of giving kids access to unnecessary assault weapons, read this very sad case.]
A better example is the terrible scenario of when a kid living at home takes mom’s car (which he has driven before with his mom, and alone with his mother’s permission), and hits someone with the car and kills them. The police don’t consider the car a “stolen” vehicle, especially if the kid is listed on the mom’s insurance, and especially if mom had given the car to her child in the past, and even taken him to the range to drive the car for practice. Again, the mom might claim that the car was “stolen” to avoid legal liability, but I’m pretty certain that the victim’s family would have success arguing that the child had regular access and permission to drive the family’s car.
Gun advocates want to frame the weapons used by Adam Lanza as “stolen” so they can argue that banning assault weapons won’t stop “thieves” from “stealing” legal assault weapons (say, those owned by law enforcement officials), and then using these “stolen” weapons to commit crimes. They want to classify the Adam Lanza’s weapons as “stolen” so they can make a rhetorical defense of assault weapons and argue that new legislation against assault weapons won’t stop “thieves” from “stealing” them.
The only problem is that the weapons that Adam Lanza used weren’t “stolen”. They were household goods, proudly passed down from generation to generation (as gun advocates are wont to say). They belonged to his family, just like the car. It may have been registered in mom’s name, but it was the family car. And they were the family’s weapons. She may have kept the guns locked (again, like the car, and like the shed), but they were still the family’s guns.
The fact that some would resort to the rhetorical reclassification of weapons used to commit a crime in order to defend the ownership of assault weapons is a not only a transparently fallacious argument, but it betrays the weakness of the advocates of assault-weapons’ position.
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Filed under: politics | Tagged: Adam Lanza, assault, doomsday prepper, guns, Nancy Lanza, Sandy Hook, second amendment, stolen, theft, tragedy, weapons |The New England Patriots currently have just one kicker, punter and long snapper on their roster, but they’re doing their due diligence in case the need for a replacement arises.
The Patriots had multiple specialists in for workouts last week, ESPN.com’s Mike Reiss reported in his Sunday notes column. Included in that group were punters Drew Butler and Spencer Lanning, kicker Adam Griffith and long snapper Cole Mazza, per Reiss.
Both punters are NFL veterans. Butler got his start with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2012 and spent parts of the last three seasons with the Arizona Cardinals. Lanning has signed with seven different teams but has played for just two (the Cleveland Browns and Chicago Bears) and is best known for getting kicked in the face by Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown.
Griffith, who completed a four-year career at Alabama last season, also was on the wrong end of a memorable return: Auburn’s iconic “Kick Six” in the final moments of the 2013 Iron Bowl.
Griffith went undrafted in the 2017 NFL Draft, as did Mazza, his snapper at Alabama.
Some speculated the Patriots might sign a free agent kicker this offseason after Stephen Gostkowski’s uncharacteristically erratic 2016 campaign. They have not thus far, however, leaving Gostkowski, punter Ryan Allen and long snapper Joe Cardona as the only specialists on their 90-man roster.
The Patriots will wrap up organized team activities this week before breaking for the summer.
Thumbnail photo via Steve Mitchell/USA TODAY Sports ImagesT-Mobile iPhone available off contract, as carrier launches LTE, new pricing plans; Sprint and SoftBank warned on Huawei deal; and FCC Chairman announces retirement plans … 3 years ago this week
Editor’s Note: RCR Wireless News goes all in for “Throwback Thursdays,” tapping into our archives to resuscitate the top headlines from the past. Fire up the time machine, put on the sepia-tinted shades, set the date for #TBT and enjoy the memories!
T-Mobile USA to offer iPhone 5 off contract, launches LTE
T-Mobile USA is shaking up wireless pricing, offering the iPhone 5 off-contract starting April 12. The nation’s fourth largest carrier is the last of the big four to get the iPhone, but it’s getting it in a big way. Consumers will be able to get the latest iPhone for $99, and then will pay $20 per month for 24 months. After that they’ll own the phone. Users will have to pay for service on top of that, but T-Mobile has cut those prices as well. T-Mobile’s new “Simple Choice” pricing was unveiled yesterday. … Read More
T-Mobile USA launches new pricing; LTE network could be nation’s fastest
T-Mobile USA is rolling out its new no-contract pricing just as the latest tests of its LTE network are showing speeds that could be the fastest in the country. Tests show download speeds of up to 25 megabits per second. The nation’s fourth-largest carrier, which is on track to merge with MetroPCS, has three new plans: 500 MB of high-speed data for $50/month (with speeds throttling back to 2G speeds after 500 MB), 2.5 GB for $60/month with throtting, and unlimited 4G data (wherever T-Mobile USA’s network offers 4G) for $70/month. All three plans include smartphone mobile hotspot service. The carrier has adjusted its device pricing to reflect the new service offerings, and is also encouraging users to bring their own devices to its network. … Read More
Congress pressures Softbank and Sprint Nextel on Huawei
House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) says Softbank and Sprint Nextel are telling his committee they will try to phase out Chinese network equipment used by Clearwire. Sprint owns the majority of Clearwire and is trying to buy the rest. The concern about Chinese equipment arises from a recent Congressional warning about potential national security risks. That report named Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE as possible threats, and Huawei is a supplier of network equipment to Clearwire. Japan’s Softbank, which is in the process of buying a 70% stake in Sprint Nextel, is also a Huawei customer. According to the Wall Street Journal, Washington may not approve the Softbank-Sprint deal unless the companies promise to notify the government about planned core network equipment purchases. … Read More
FCC Chairman Genachowski announces plans to step down
Following weeks of speculation, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced today that he would be holding a meeting with staff members to inform them he would be leaving his position in the “coming weeks.” Genachowski’s announcement follows that of fellow commissioner Robert McDowell, who announced earlier this week that he would be leaving the FCC “sometime soon.” … Read More
FirstNet: Progress on pilot project negotiations
FirstNet is making progress in its negotiations with seven public safety pilot projects that are to be folded in under the umbrella of its future national first-responder LTE network. The recipients of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grants had their funding partially suspended when the FirstNet board was created, to ensure a blank slate for the national network. But FirstNet board member Sue Swenson was tasked with negotiating use of FirstNet’s 700 MHz spectrum leases and plans for each network to eventually be subsumed by the larger, nationwide project. … Read More
BlackBerry surprises Wall Street
BlackBerry surprised Wall Street with a small profit during the fourth quarter, and said that it has already shipped a million Z10 smartphones. The Z10 is BlackBerry’s new touchscreen phone based on its new BB 10 operating system. Although the new phone has just gone on sale in the United States, it was available in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates during the last part of the fourth quarter. CEO Thorstein Heins estimated today that roughly two thirds of the million Z10 phones shipped have been sold to customers. Heins said demand for the Z10 has been “better than expected” but that the company continues to find itself in a “challenging environment.” Nonetheless Canada’s struggling smartphone maker earned $94 million, or 18 cents a share, in the fourth quarter, compared to a loss of $118 million in the year-ago quarter. Analysts had expected a loss for the quarter. … Read More
Oracle to buy Tekelec
Oracle continues to make its way aggessively into telecom software, this time with the purchase of Tekelec, a provider of diameter signaling and policy control solutions. Tekelec has been privately held for just over a year; it was taken private in January 2012 by Siris Capital in a deal that valued the company at $780 million. Analysts at Exact Ventures expect the market for diameter signaling controllers to grow about 50% a year through 2017, propelled by the accelerating pace of LTE rollouts. The firm says that Tekelec currently has a 75% – 85% market share. … Read More
BlackBerry Z10 finally comes to carriers
BlackBerry is finally getting its touchscreen Z10 smartphone into stores this weekend, more than six weeks after the product launch. The delayed launch is probably due to carriers prioritizing testing for other smartphones that they expect to be more popular, such as the Samsung Galaxy S4. AT&T Mobility will be the first to get the BlackBerry 10, with Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA to follow soon. While the new device is sure to attract some consumer interest, the real test for BlackBerry will be in the enterprise market, which is the company’s traditional stronghold. BlackBerry has won the loyalty of corporations and governments largely through the security and independence of its proprietary network. … Read More
Wireless industry scores ‘poor’ rating in consumer satisfaction survey
Despite the billions of dollars spent by the wireless industry in advertising its wares to consumers, satisfaction with the sector continues to fall short. A new report from the Temkin Group found that the wireless industry garnered a “poor” rating from a consumer survey. Among specific carriers, no-contract provider TracFone posted the highest consumer satisfaction rating with a 66% score, though that result was No. 115 out of the 246 companies surveyed across 19 industries. TracFone provides wireless services through various brand names and across various carrier networks. … Read More
ARM to replace CEO
Warren East is stepping down from the top position at ARM Holdings after leading the British company to become the world’s premiere architect of processors for mobile devices. Simon Segars, head of ARM’s American operation, will replace East in July. “I have worked with Simon in the senior leadership team for many years and we share a global perspective and belief in the ARM approach to partnership and collaboration; he is an excellent choice to lead ARM,” said East in a statement. East, age 51, did not comment on his reasons for leaving ARM at this time. … Read More
Check out RCR Wireless News’ Archives for more stories from the past.The leader of Coalition for Quebec's Future said Tuesday all mosques should be investigated prior to being allowed to open in the province.
Francois Legault, head of the third-most popular party in Quebec's legislature, said a public body should be created to investigate people who potentially disagree with so-called Quebec values.
Legault said the body would be able to find out if "applicants (for mosques) have consistently denigrated Quebec values."
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He said municipal authorities could use information collected by investigators in order to deny permits to people wanting to open mosques in the province.
Legault's comments were in reaction to news that a Quebec town north of Montreal bowed to citizen pressure and denied a zoning change that would have allowed people to build a mosque.
Due to the absence of provincial regulation on reasonable religious accommodation, Legault said the mayor of Shawinigan, Que., was simply responding to concerns from citizens and doesn't deserve to be criticized.
"I am not ready to blame a mayor who was faced with the concerns of his citizens and a lack of regulations," he said. "He took the decision to say: The answer is no."
Legault has joined with the Opposition Parti Quebecois in calling on the government to create clear rules governing how elected officials should respond to religious accommodation requests in Quebec.
The PQ wants to adopt a secularism charter while Legault called on the Liberals to change Quebec's charter of rights and freedoms to include what he said were Quebec values, such as the principle of equality of the sexes as well as respect for peoples' sexual orientation.
Legault says the public investigative body he is proposing will serve as a "guide for municipalities to accept or refuse the occupation of a site of worship or the creation of one."
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Tuesday in Quebec City, Premier Philippe Couillard warned against Legault's call to amend the province's charter.
He said his government will propose rules to govern religious accommodation but won't violate people's fundamental freedoms.It wasn't until the paramedics removed his body after officially pronouncing him DOA that I mustered the strength to make a closer examination. I wanted to know what Billy's last moments were like; what he was seeing and thinking when he placed that noose over his little head and stepped off into oblivion.
I looked down.
Before me was a heap of books he'd arranged as a makeshift stool to stand atop and then kick aside, doing the deed and sealing his fate. I ran my hand along their spines, recognizing some but unable to recognize a couple towards the top. I removed them and brought them out of the closet and into the light:
Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition Player's Handbook
Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition Dungeon Master's Guide
I knew my Billy. I watched what he eat, how much he slept, which friends he played with, and everything else, trying to be the best parent I could and trying to make sure he was safe and happy.. So I did what any responsible parent would do: after a few days passed and I composed myself, I set out to learn as much as I could aboutand why my Billy had chosen those books to kill himself with.
I visited the library. I spoke to other parents. I telephoned the chaplain at my husband's military base. And I fired up my internet. And I learned the awful truth: my Billy had fallen in with a cult.
Dungeons is a cult, plain and simple. The definition of "cult", which Dungeons fits to the tee, is:
A religion or religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader.
Religion Religions are systems of belief that consume one's entire intellectual outlook, a characteristic Dungeons typifies. But whereas mainstream religions are a healthful addition to the plurality of human experiences and diversity of viewpoints that makes this country strong, Dungeons is a scourge of the lowest sort. Dungeons provides its adherents with no positive moral direction whatsoever. Whereas the religious are taught to love their neighbors, Dungeons adherents are encouraged to despise them as detractions from the task at hand: perpetuating the Dungeons movement and its subversive goals. Extremist and unconventional Dungeons adherents are renowned for their iconoclastic lifestyles. The very fact alone that they would rather spend their time sitting around a table massaging integers instead of breathing the fresh air of our fair planet is enough to prove my point. Authoritarian Authoritarian regimes all share the common fact of strict rules directing their subjects' lives in the minutest detail. When I cracked open those Dungeons tomes, what did I find? Heaps and heaps of rules governing how adherents are supposed to go about even basic tasks like purchasing goods and speaking to non-adherents (when allowed). But instead of teaching Billy some skills he could put to good use in the outside world, Dungeons forced him to trust his fate to the rolling of those cursed dice, as though those dice could help him if he ever found himself drowning off a real-life icy floe or languishing at the bottom of a dark pit where he'd accidentally fallen while practicing unsafe and irresponsible exploration. This is what it means to be false. Charismatic leader Like all cults, Dungeons has its charismatic leader, a bald moustached man named Peter D Adkison. Read his biography, as it's the first step all Dungeons adherents must undertake when joining the cult. In fact, one of the easiest ways to spot an adherent to Dungeons is to mention Adkinson's name and watch the listener's eyes for that flash of recognition, as every Dungeons adherent knows his name and his vision well, though they largely fail to comprehend its parallel to Scientology as a sinister money-driven enterprise [editor's note, by jsm]Scientology is not a sinister money-driven enterprise. I would, however, even go as far as to say that only the especially slow-witted adherents cannot recognize Adkinson, but since those adherents also lack the reasoning skills necessary to fall victim in full to the cult movement and could not mentally conceive of committing suicide the way Billy did, they're probably not the ones to be worrying about here.
Does your child spend excessive amounts of time with friends unsupervised indoors? Dungeons adherents are notoriously reclusive, refusing to play stickball in the streets or any of a host of normal healthful activities.
adherents are notoriously reclusive, refusing to play stickball in the streets or any of a host of normal healthful activities. Does he question the rules and commands you lay down as a parent? Dungeons, at least superficially, promotes independent decision making, though we all know this "free thinking" would be more aptly described as "thinking consistent with the tenets and dictates of the Dungeons movement and ideology".
, at least superficially, promotes independent decision making, though we all know this "free thinking" would be more aptly described as "thinking consistent with the tenets and dictates of the movement and ideology". Are his grades slipping of late? One of the myriad of sinister consequences of adherence to Dungeons is the sheer amount of squandered time spent convening and practicing its cult teachings. Dungeons is highly addictive and, if left unchecked, can push a child's entire life aside to make room for more Dungeons.
Let's take this one piece by piece:Once you've recognizedfor the cult it is, it's your job to spot the warning signs before it can suck your children in. Here's a partial list of those warning signs:
At this point, you should be thinking: "How do I talk to my kids about Dungeons?" It isn't merely a question I wish I had known the answer to; it's a question I wish I had known to ask myself. If only I had spoken to Billy before he could have gotten in with the wrong crowd and done this to himself! Children always listen to their parents as long as they know they love them and have their best interests at heart. With a soft voice but stern hand, you can make a difference in your child's life.
Once you have the proper mind set, you should start practicing your answers to some of the retorts your child might try to give in defense of Dungeons.
"But Dungeons has helped me to make lasting friendships!" Just think back to the lectures you gave your kids about drug dealers. Friends made over Dungeons aren't friends at all. True friendship can only be forged through community-building activities like softball and linestepping. If you ever had to rely on these so-called friends in a time of need, then rest assured they would be no where to be found; alternatively, they could be found, but only playing more Dungeons. "But Dungeons helps develop my imagination!" Imagination has its place in a civilized society, but when its citizens become too far removed from reality, social upheaval inevitably follows. Imagination can be a healthy thing, in moderation. Imagination can be put to good creative use, as listeners to wholesome music understand. But like everything else, excessive imagination can lead to severe emotional and physical problems. If your children spend all their time in the realm of fantasy, then they won't know how to interact with their peers and with the bigger world out there when they grow up. At best, Dungeons is directly responsible for the social failures their adherents experience when mixing with jocks and beauty queens. At worst, it can induce psychotic schizophrenic episodes like the ones shown in the 1982 documentary Mazes and Monsters. But Dungeons gives me a sense of belonging! This is exactly what draws people to a cult in the first place; they substitute a cult lifestyle for the one they feel disenchanted with. Fortunately, it's also one of the easiest arguments to rebut: just find another way for your child to "belong". Sign him up for the church choir. Get him to join a little-league team. Have him attend 4H meetings. There's a whole world of community groups out there. Expect some resistance, but don't take 'no' for an answer; you're the parent and you make the decisions. Once he's found a new clique, he will forget all about that Dungeons nonsense, and he'll thank you for it someday.
Let me qualify that last statement with a little bit of advice: be prudent when confronting your child about his addiction. Dungeons adherents have even been known to kill their loved ones who stand in the way of their addiction. If you feel like you're getting in over your head, then call in a pastor or other prominent community leader to help -- I know my husband's army chaplain was a big help for me. There is no shame in recognizing your own limitations for what they are, and you don't want to jeopardize what may be your child's only chance for recovery.
I'll never have my Billy back; he's lost to a world of dangers and temptations that have already too claimed many. But Billy shall not have hanged himself in vain. His death's keen shall be a clarion wakeup call. We must all unite against the menace of Dungeons; only then shall we be assured of the continuing safety of our children and loved ones.
Hug your children. Let them know that there are happier things in life than spelunking around a dank cavern with only a dwarf for companionship. Let them know that no matter how they feel about themselves and others, that you care and want to help. Only your love can turn them from despair and self destruction.
I know Billy's looking down from up there and smiling. He would've wanted it this way.Image copyright Reuters
UKIP leader Nigel Farage "needs to take a break now", the party's only MP Douglas Carswell has said.
Writing in the Times, Mr Carswell said he admired Mr Farage, but questioned his "ill-advised" comments about HIV patients, made in a TV leaders' debate.
Mr Farage ruled out quitting as leader on BBC's Question Time on Thursday, saying he had "phenomenal" support.
It follows a bitter internal row within the party, which has seen two of Mr Farage's senior aides resigning.
In his article, Mr Carswell said that "knowing how difficult it is to lead a party makes me admire Nigel Farage all the more".
"I know that I never could," he added, stressing that he would find it "impossible to simultaneously lead UKIP, be the voice of the party in the Commons, represent my Clacton constituents and at the same time be a husband and a dad".
However, he said that "even leaders need to take a break", adding: "Nigel needs to take a break now."
'Do something else'
He described Mr Farage as "inspirational", saying the party had "done extraordinarily well" under his leadership but now |
little bit confused by this information. as we have always said that we shall ascend beyond the 5th dimension – to the 8th – 12th. Why should I then ascend to the 5th dimension only. Can you ask the Elohim to specify on this information as it does not make much sense to me.
Love
George
______________________________ __________
Dear Georgi,
Absolutely, I will ask them when I return home.
Love
Carla
______________________________ __________
Dear Carla,
GaiaPortal has just issued a new message which very strongly indicates the beginning of the ascension process:
“Essential grids are now in place and energized for rectification of all requisite Hue-manity up-steps. Cosmic stream assistance comes forthwith, at appropriate moment.
Spiraling energies from Gaia Portals which are required for these up-steps will be embraced by sufficient numbers of Hue-Beings to allow Cosmic Upshift in frequencies.
Manifestations likely will include instantaneous multi-body (physical, mental, and emotional) healings as well as resolutions of prior-viewed-as “impossible” situations.
Major Gaia transformations commence with upcoming Cosmic stream influx.”
You must read this message on the background of the previous one from yesterday. They fit very well into our information. What I got from my HS with regard to my ascension is that I may indeed ascend shortly before the PAT to the 5th level of the 5D and from there heave the web of light during the detonation of the PAT supernova, while you will be keeping the other pole /portal of the web of light on the ground. After that we shall both ascend much higher. This makes sense now to me, but you should ask one more time for clarification by the Elohim. I am now vibrationally already in the 5th dimension.
Today was a very tense cleansing day. I always evaluate such waves retrospectively when the worst is over. This explains why I felt so down most of the time. It could have been the last big cleansing before ascension, if I interpret the latest GaiaPortal correctly.
Love
George
______________________________ __________________
August 19, 2013
Dear Carla,
you have forgotten to tell me if Anthony has left Vancouver without any problems and has gone to San Diego, USA on August 19th?
love
George
PS: I was so out of time. I thought today is August 20th.
______________________________ _______________
Dear Georgi,
No worries. The immigration people in USA arranged his temporary visa for Wednesday August 21 for a 48 hour window. He now leaves for LAX Los Angeles on Wednesday at 4 pm arriving 7 pm. His friend will meet him there and they will drive to San Diego.
I am very sad at his departure because now it’s once again a veritable spiritual wasteland in terms of the ascension front. I shall be in touch as soon as I settle in to a coffee shop with wi-fi.
Love
Carla
______________________________ _______________
Dear Carla,
Now I am alone the whole week and can concentrate fully on our ascension. I had a nap this afternoon after a huge wave hit me and got the verbal message in the dream state that everything is prepared for our ascension. I woke up with a very good feeling, an inner feeling of accomplishment and the energies are now carrying me away. It may be this time a gradual ascension for me, just drifting to the 5th dimension, where I actually dwell now.
Love
George
______________________________ _________________
Dear Carla,
I found this publication /message from April 2013, where the Elohim are talking about us transmitting “golden light codes” to all humans to change their DNA and enable them to undergo a transfiguration:
http://www. stankovuniversallaw.com/2013/ 04/elohim-undergoing-massive- transformation-cns-prior- ascension/
“Further, the codes spoken of by your Director were sent indeed for a certain population (Russian Root Race) carrying genetically buffered DNA strands. This buffering actively blocks natural access and assimilation of ‘Codes of the Golden Wave’ which are the precursor to successful transfiguration. There is another ‘Golden wave infusion’ coming to seal this re-alignment (This could have been the wave I and Carla experienced at the same time yesterday, see below).
The second light codes received by your Director were for the sole purpose of activating certain gateways within the DNA of this soul monad (the PAT), necessary for the up-coming transfiguration of these vessels. ”
In this case what I saw this morning upon awakening are further very important “blue codes” in form of hieroglyphs that filled in the whole room /space and only slowly faded away. Obviously, we are huge antennae /senders and we shall also transmit the final codes of ascension. It must be so for two major reasons.
1) You are the first human being to ascend and thus you are a carrier /replicator of these transfiguration codes and
2) I am the nexus to the source and have always been the conduit for the transmission of such codes, beginning with the transmission of the Adam Kadmon’s codes last year at the same time when I moved to this house and was offline for two weeks as to do this. It was then confirmed by April’s HS.
http://www. stankovuniversallaw.com/2012/ 09/the-pat-is-the-adamic- template-of-the-new-humanity- pat-ascension-before-the-wake- up-calls-now-a-realistic- probability/
“Yes, this “break” for the PAT was very important and intentional…. We had some tweaking to do to you that required you to be “offline” or out of usual communication from each other. You see these adjustments are extremely unique energetically to each one of you, and you are somewhat vulnerable, while they take place, as they allow any final purging/moving of energy necessary as to align/finalize your light bodies. Now when I say light bodies, let me clarify – ALL YOUR LIGHT BODIES. Meaning all the vessels you will need in order to cross the threshold and ascend. All bodies required for existing/living in 5D on up. The Adamic template is being reseeded/reactivated for the masses through this greater alignment within you that extends all the way up. This is one of your final functions upon the 3D world.”
Obviously, I need now a full detachment from this reality to transmit appropriately such codes. That is why I had to stop editing this website after your ascension. This explains why we are now so much protected by angels and other forces of light and specialists in transmutation as not to be touched by any negative influences that may interfere with the pure transmission of these last ascension codes.
I am now contemplating on this issue, so that you can develop your own ideas when you ask the Elohim about our personal role in this whole ascension process. But from what I gather so far, our joint energy field, which must now encompass the whole globe, is the key level /system in the whole ascension process and that the PAT will be also activated through us. This seems to be a certainty now for me.
This would also explain your initial information that I will ascend first to the 5th level of the 5D and coordinate the whole ascension process from there. Our field is the actual connection of the source to Gaia and humanity, from where the whole event will be triggered and coordinated.
Please, follow this line of argumentation as to get a more comprehensive and detailed information from the Elohim about our particular role and whether the blue codes I saw this morning were really the final ascension codes.
Love
George
______________________________ ________________
Dear Georgi,
I am happy that you are alone now. This is important for us. Yes, I will miss Anthony as he was a great sounding board for my issues.
Here is a message from the Elohim:
______________________________ ___________________________
The Elohim’s Message
“Greetings Dear One,
There is much anticipation in you and in your dual soul.
This is a time of greatest patience, of the greatest understanding, the greatest measure of balance and of the least action.
Embrace the solitude lovingly sent your way, a time to go within and process the final vestiges of enhancement.
We ask both of you to breathe, breathe deeply and slowly, in order to fully receive and to anchor the fifth dimensional codes sent to your dual soul (Georgi) recently.
You (Georgi) are to, in a conscious manner, send these codes from your level of expression, level 1 of the fifth dimension, to your dual soul (me) of the 12th level of the fourth dimension, (I’m getting because we are not at an equal energetic gradient, even though our fields are meshed) in order to ensure the equal distribution to both levels (5-1 and 4-12) of expression.
The blue enhanced codes are not ascension codes. The ascension codes have preceded this moment. The purpose of the blue codes is to prepare the energetic ground of the Fifth Dimension.
Your dual soul (Georgi) shall insert them into his current level of expression, 5D level 1, thereby anchoring these codes into the fifth dimension in preparation for those in the first wave.
Following the distribution and anchoring of these codes, (5D level 1 and 4D level 12) your dual soul shall make the move to level 5th of the fifth dimension, from where he shall co-ordinate ascension efforts from an enhanced perspective.
You shall anchor the Fourth Dimensional aspect and he the Fifth.
There shall be an ignition of energies followed by an upward expansion, pushing each level higher and ever higher. All is in flow.
A sudden thrust (the PAT Supernova) shall push those who will be the first to arrive in 5D, to now fully analyze their soul’s final contribution and the decision of whether to return to original origin of expression or to the Source.
All events stipulate in perfect coordination of each other. There is no more to do, but maintain a simple life of constancy.
We love you beyond measure.
We are the Elohim. ”
Love
Carla
______________________________ ____________________________
Dear Carla,
I read this latest message from the Elohim on the actual performance /energetic mechanism of the first wave of ascension, including the detonation of the PAT supernova by ourselves and the triggering of the ID split, very carefully several times as to fully internalize it and check it with my HS.
This detailed description of our roles – you at the 12th level of 4D and myself at the 1st level of 5D, where I currently dwell – makes perfect sense, as well as my subsequent ascension to the 5th level of 5D before the actual ascension begins, from where I shall coordinate the ascension process, being the nexus to the Source, while you shall anchor these energies on the 12th level of 4D.
As I told you on skype, we are representing the two energetic poles, between which the first ascension wave of candidates, including the entire PAT, will be suspended within the web of light and will ascend together as a group, while we shall keep the portals open on both sides of the dimensions till the very end.
When the PAT Supernova will be detonated and the “thrust” of the first ascension wave will have catapulted the ascending humans to the 5th dimension, we shall ascend with the PAT first to the higher levels of 5D (Celestria) as to make a final analysis of our achievements and then make the final decision how to proceed – each soul individually – with our mission on behalf of humanity and Gaia.
This makes absolute sense and it fully concurs with all we have heard and known so far about the dynamics of the PAT Supernova and our ascension as a group, being the driving motor behind the entire ascension process.
Love
GeorgeWhat does it mean when a baby points? Photo by Hemera/Thinkstock
Parenthood in early infancy is equal parts tedium and astonishment. The trick is telling the two apart.
This is harder than you might think. Pointing, for example, is not an obviously astonishing act. I have already pointed several times today and no one was astonished. But when a baby points ecstatically at a puppy, or responds to someone else pointing at that puppy, we should marvel at him: We have just witnessed an astonishingly complex act. In fact, by pointing, that baby is, in a very real way, acting out what makes us uniquely human.
Over the last decade, a series of studies out of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have made a very good argument for marveling at your pointing infant. A group of psychologists there have documented that infants, beginning at around 1 year of age, point and react to other people pointing in remarkably sophisticated ways. Babies point to refer to events in the past and the future. They point to refer to things that are no longer there. They can figure out, when an adult points across the room toward a group of objects, what exactly the adult is gesturing toward (the toy they’ve previously played with, say). They can deduce that, by pointing, an adult is trying to communicate something specific (find that toy hidden in that bucket). And not least of all, babies point because they want to share their experience of the world—that puppy—with someone else.
These may just be the talents out of which humans managed to assemble minor things like culture and language. “The basis of language is all right there in gestures,” says Malinda Carpenter, a developmental psychologist at Max Planck, who conducts research on larger issues of cultural cognition. When Carpenter sees an infant pointing out a clown to his mother, she sees a meeting of the minds: That baby is coming together with someone else to share his experience of—and his attitude toward—something else.
This is declarative pointing—showing something to someone else. (It’s very different from imperative pointing, which is pointing to request something. Imperative pointing is what Donald Trump does.) Of course, you could interpret this kind of pointing in a less sophisticated way than a meeting of the minds. Maybe the infant just wanted more attention. Maybe he just wanted the experimenter to see the toy, not to share in having seen it. Maybe he was just pointing for his own sake; maybe it had nothing to do with anyone else.
So Carpenter and her colleagues designed an experiment: They put infants in a highchair across from a screen with lots of closed windows; when a window opened, a puppet popped out. The infants did what any sensible person would do when face-to-face with a gyrating puppet: They pointed. To test different interpretations of what that pointing meant, the experimenter varied his reaction. The only reaction that the babies found satisfying—the only reaction that inspired them to keep pointing for each puppet—was when the experimenter looked back and forth between them and the puppet, saying things like, It’s Grover! That’s so interesting! The infants were delighted by this response. They wanted the adult to share the totally awesome experience of this totally awesome puppet. When the experimenter failed to do this, Carpenter says, “The kids stopped pointing for this weird adult, who wasn’t giving them what they wanted.” When the adult only looked at the infant, the infant often pointed again at the puppet, as if to say, No, you dunderhead—over there.
The infants didn’t just want attention to themselves. They wanted someone to share in their experience of the world. “It’s just so rewarding to have somebody else share your opinions about something,” Carpenter says. “Especially for a 12-month-old baby, but also for us. Imagine if you had a friend who never found the same things interesting that you did. It’s really rewarding for us, too.”
If you look closely enough at those outstretched fingers, you can see the roots of human cooperation. Our primate relatives don’t point declaratively. They point imperatively, like Donald Trump, and they will point to inform an experimenter where an object is—but only when there’s something in it for them, like food. But an ape wouldn’t point to a puppet, or anything else, for that matter, just because it was really cool. It’s a question of motivation, Carpenter says. “It’s just not important for them to share their opinions of things with others.”
Pointing to share an opinion builds on the foundation of what psychologists call joint attention—when two people pay attention to the same thing (and are aware that they’re both paying attention to that thing). Joint attention arises out of what Michael Tomasello, who heads the Developmental and Comparative Psychology Department at Max Planck, has called the nine-month revolution. Out of it grows the basis of pretty much all human achievement: the motivation and the ability to work together toward shared goals. (Apes never get there: They have the attention part but not the jointness.)
All this is enough for the appearance of pointing in infancy to be the most interesting mundane gesture ever. But as Carpenter and her colleagues have demonstrated, declarative pointing is not the only sort that babies do. “Infants from 12 months on, and even earlier in some cases, are pointing to express all kinds of complex meanings,” Carpenter says. For example, they will point just to inform you of something. “So if you’ve dropped something and don’t realize it, infants will point it out to you. There’s nothing in it for them. It’s just to help you.” In addition, babies will not just point to refer to an object that is no longer there—what psychologists call an absent referent—they take into account whether the adult has previously seen the object or not. In some cases, they seem to be trying to tell the adult what was there.
They can also deduce meanings based on who is pointing. When an adult and a baby are tossing toys in a basket together and the adult points to a toy and says, “There!” the baby will toss that toy in the basket too. He understands the pointing to refer not just to the toy but to the game they’re playing together. However, when another adult who isn’t playing the game points to an object out of the blue and says, “There!” the baby won’t toss it in the basket. (Who knows what that crazy adult means?) They also deduce meanings based on how purposeful the pointing appears: If an adult points to an object while looking distractedly at her wrist, the infant seems to assume that this pointing is happenstance, not an attempt to communicate with him.
Pointing, in other words, seems to call on a sophisticated understanding of what is going on in the heads of other people. “That suggests that they can do so much more with pointing prelinguistically than we ever thought before,” Carpenter says. Until recently, people thought that this sort of knowledge only emerged with language. Carpenter herself went to graduate school because she was interested in language. But then she started looking at prelinguistic gestures. “And everything’s already there! I completely lost interest in language because you can see so much complexity already in infants’ gestures.”
My youngest child is now 10 months old. We have exchanged deeply meaningful glances about fish pull-toys. He holds fabric vegetables up for shared approval.
We don’t know why pointing happens when it does. But in all likelihood, sometime soon—after months of my pointing toward interesting things and him drooling and staring dumbly at my finger—it will click. His head will turn.
And then, perhaps when he sees a totally awesome puppet, he will stretch out his own finger. This is a thrilling moment. Instead of listening to yet more of my opinions—and keep in mind that I’ve been monopolizing the conversation for a year now—he can offer his own. As Carpenter says, “The infant herself is able to say, ‘This is what I’m interested in.’ ” And she knows that you’ll be interested in what she has to say.
***
Nicholas Day’s book on the science and history of infancy, Baby Meets World, will be published in April. His website is nicholasday.net.Looking for news you can trust?
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UPDATE: On Thursday, Christie said, “I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge.”
On Wednesday morning, news outlets released emails that strongly imply that in September a top aide to New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie planned a dangerous traffic jam near the George Washington Bridge to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee. After over seven hours of silence, Christie—a possible presidential candidate in 2016—released a statement denying he had knowledge of the aide’s actions. Up until then, Christie and his aides made numerous statements claiming his office had no involvement in the scandal. Here’s the evolution of how Christie responsed to the scandal, dating back to September:
“Kevin Roberts, a spokesman for the Christie campaign, said that any notion that Mr. Sokolich faced retribution for not endorsing the governor was ‘crazy.'” –The Wall Street Journal, September 17, 2013
? “A spokesman for Christie, Michael Drewniak, said the governor had nothing to do with the lane closures: ‘The governor of the state of New Jersey does not involve himself in traffic studies,’ Drewniak said.” –The Star-Ledger (November 13, 2013)
“I was the guy out there, in overalls and a hat. I actually was the guy working the cones out there. You really are not serious with that question.”? -Christie to WYNC (December 2, 2013)
“Mr. Christie also said he believed Mr. Baroni’s [his top executive appointee at the Port Authority] explanation that the purpose of the closures was a traffic study. ‘I don’t think that Senator Baroni would not tell the truth,’ Mr. Christie said.” –The Wall Street Journal (December 13, 2013)
“Christie said Friday the political drama surrounding the issue was ‘created and manufactured,’ further characterizing it as ‘a whole lot of hullabaloo.'” –CNN (December 13, 2013)
“I don’t have any recollection of ever having met the mayor of Fort Lee in my four years…He was not somebody that was on my radar screen in any way–politically, professionally, or in any other way” –CNN (December 13, 2013)
“When asked about that claims that the closures were ordered for political retribution, Christie said ‘absolutely, unequivocally not.'” Politico (December 13, 2013)
“I know you guys are obsessed with this, I’m not. I’m really not. It’s just not that big a deal.” -Christie to Talking Points Memo (December 19, 2013)
And, finally, Wednesday:Police apprehend Eulalio Tordil in the fatal shootings of three people over a two-day stretch in the Washington area on May 6, 2016, in Silver Spring, Md. (Alex Brandon/AP)
As he unsuccessfully tried to carjack a woman at a busy mall and good Samaritans came running toward her screams, the gunman shot and wounded her — and smiled.
Still trying to snatch an SUV less than an hour later, after he had killed one of those helpers and wounded the other, he turned his gun on another woman and killed her — then grabbed some chicken and doughnuts for lunch.
Eulalio Tordil was described as a calculated, coldblooded and cowardly “serial killer” at a court hearing Friday before he received four back-to-back life sentences in a murderous Maryland shooting rampage in 2016 that started with the slaying of his wife in a high school parking lot and ended a day later with the deaths of two strangers as he fled police.
“There was absolutely no reason for him to do what he did other than cowardice and selfishness,” Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Sharon V. Burrell said before sentencing Tordil in the deaths of the strangers. “Life got too tough for him so he decided to solve his problems by killing people.”
Tordil, 64, will be imprisoned without the chance of parole.
Tordil pleaded guilty in April to two counts of first-degree murder in the shootings of Malcom “Mike” Winffel, 45, and Claudina Molina, 65.
Winffel was shot as he went to the aid of the woman whom Tordil tried to carjack in the parking lot of a Montgomery County mall.
Unable to steal a vehicle at the mall, Tordil later fatally shot Molina as he tried to steal her SUV outside a grocery store where the mother had gone to buy milk.
[Suspect in custody in shootings at mall, grocery store, high school]
Tordil’s public defender Theresa Chernosky asked the judge to consider Tordil’s life beyond the two-day shooting rampage. Chernosky said that Tordil was a Catholic school choir boy, former member of the military and a devoted father who postponed retirement to help pay for his stepdaughters’ college costs.
He was so proud of his daughters, Chernosky said, that he put a photo of himself and his family at a martial-arts tournament into the backpack he stocked and carried as he fled police.
“A person is not as bad as his worst deed,” Chernosky said quoting a line from the movie “Dead Man Walking.” “Two horrible days do not define him.”
Tordil’s tear of violence that panicked the region and put businesses and schools in suburban Maryland on lockdown began on May 5, 2016, when he shot his wife, Gladys Tordil, 44, outside of High Point High School in Beltsville. Gladys Tordil was picking up her daughters when her estranged husband confronted her in the parking lot at the Prince George’s County school.
After shooting his wife in front of one of his stepdaughters and shooting at a bystander who tried to intervene, Tordil, a former Federal Protective Service police officer, fled.
He wound up the next day in neighboring Montgomery County, where he killed Winffel and Molina as he tried to dodge police.
If the judge looked beyond the two days of shootings, Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said, she would see terror seeded months earlier.
Two months before the shooting, Tordil turned in a stash of guns to law enforcement under the requirement of a protective order his wife won against him, yet kept the one weapon he would eventually use to kill three and wound three others.
A journal of Tordil’s writings addressed to his wife showed he felt that the fallout of their relationship had “reached a point of no return” and asked “God and the potential victims... for forgiveness,” McCarthy said, reciting the passages.
And Tordil said he planned to die “in a hail of bullets” via “suicide by cop,” McCarthy said.
“It’s not just two days,” McCarthy said. “This is something that brews and simmers for weeks.”
Winffel, Molina and others were lauded as heroes who fought back against Tordil. Winffel had heard a woman screaming in the mall lot and ran to help.
In his attack on Molina shortly after, she clawed at Tordil and ripped off his eyeglasses as he tried to carjack her. She was later found dead, still clutching his glasses, a last act that police later said prevented Tordil from driving far after the shootings.
“My mother fought because she was brave,” Claudina Molina’s daughter Melissa Molina said, directed at Tordil, at Friday’s sentencing hearing. “Not like you.”
She said that her mother was an immigrant and a single-mother who worked two jobs to provide for her children, also struggled financially.
And she pushed back against the portrayal of Tordil as burdened by problems.
“We all have problems, but we don’t go around and kill just randomly,” she said.
[Maryland rampage suspect pleads guilty in murders of strangers]
Tordil pleaded guilty last month in Prince George’s County Circuit Court in his wife’s slaying and the wounding of the bystander. He is set to be sentenced in that case Sept. 6.
Tordil on Friday appeared in court wearing a dark-green prison jumpsuit.
During the two-hour hearing, he stared straight ahead, never turning to look at video slide shows featuring photos of the victims he killed or glancing at family members of the dead as the relatives spoke.
When asked if he wanted to speak, Tordil declined, although another of his attorneys, David Booth, said his client wanted to “express his complete sorrow.”
His defense team said that Tordil spiraled into depression and destruction after his family suffered financial problems and his wife issued a protective order that eventually led to his suspension from work.
“He finds himself trapped in his own mind,” Chernosky said.
Family members shared photo slide shows of Winffel and Molina set to soft music at the hearing. As the images of their relatives flashed by — blowing out birthday candles, cutting a wedding cake or smiling in front of Christmas trees — sniffles and tears sounded in the courtroom.
Throughout the hearing, prosecutors and the family of those slain drew several comparisons between Tordil and their loved ones. Those wounded or killed by Tordil went down fighting, preventing others from harm, they said. And though they all faced family problems or financial issues, none of the victims thought about injuring others the way Tordil did.
Tordil was a coward, they said. But Winffel, Molina and the others were heroes.
“We’re not the victims, we are the victors,” Norma Winffel said. “Today, we take our own lives back.”
Dan Morse contributed to this report.A man was detained over Chex Mix crumbs, which an ignorant cop mistook for marijuana.
Police officer failed to tell the difference between a cereal snack and a plant. How do you like the story?
An officer confronted Jason Miller, communications director for the Houston chapter of NORML, because of his SUV’s back door, which depicted the state of Texas formed out of marijuana leaves. The officer suspected Miller of keeping marijuana, which was illegal in Texas.
However, that’s insanity to accuse a person of having drugs only because he has stickers of marijuana on his car. However, the officer never admitted that he was doing a stupid thing. He demanded a car search. After he searched the vehicle, he only found lunch crumbs!
As a result, Miller was detained for 30 minutes. He should sue the cop for wasting his time and taxpayers money!Mother Teresa's Missionaries Of Charity Says No More Adoptions In India
Enlarge this image toggle caption Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images
The Missionaries of Charity founded by Mother Teresa says it has shut down its adoption services in India over religious objections to the country's new adoption rules. The Catholic sisters known for their blue and white habits and vow of free service to the poor say they have asked the government to de-register 13 orphanages.
The secretary of India's central adoption agency, Veerendra Mishra, told The Indian Express newspaper that there were two points of dispute: "First, [Missionaries of Charity] will not allow adoption by single parents; second, they also have issues with couples, one or both of whom has had a divorce earlier."
A liberalization of adoption guidelines this summer has brought ideological differences between the conservative Catholic order and the Indian government to a head.
India has opened up adoption to prospective parents who are single, divorced or separated.
Under the name Nirmala Shishu Bhawan, the Missionaries' network of homes provides shelter, food, medical care and schooling to abandoned and destitute children, including those with special needs across India. The adoption services were ended Aug. 1, according to Sister Amala, the nun in charge at the Missionaries' home in North Delhi.
Speaking about the decision not to offer adoptions, Sister Amala told local media: "The new guidelines hurt our conscience. They are certainly not for religious people like us.... What if the single parent who we give our baby [to] turns out to be gay or lesbian? What security or moral upbringing will these children get? Our rules only allow married couples to adopt."
A sister at the same home who asked not to be identified said the Catholic missionary society had been thinking "for some time" about shutting down its adoption services in order to "look after special needs children who had not been adopted." She added, "It was a well-thought out discussion."
The controversy comes as the Catholic Church wrestles with modernity and changing social mores. Pope Francis faced criticism over his recent meeting with Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who has refused on religious grounds to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. While many saw her defiance as anti-gay bigotry, others called it the courage of a religious conservative.
As for adoption, it is rare in India, fraught with taboos and red tape. The Telegraph newspaper cites a 2011 study estimating that there are 20 million orphans, but less than 0.04 percent of abandoned children were adopted through official agencies.
Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi wants to greatly increase the numbers of children adopted in India. She told a conference on women and children Thursday that the Missionaries of Charity did not want to "come under a uniform secular agenda." However, she added, "We are trying to persuade them, they are good people."For other uses, see SPM
Statistical parametric mapping or SPM is a statistical technique created by Karl Friston for examining differences in brain activity recorded during functional neuroimaging experiments using neuroimaging technologies such as fMRI or PET. It may also refer to a specific piece of software created by the Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience (part of University College London) to carry out such analyses.
Approach [ edit ]
Unit of measurement [ edit ]
Functional neuroimaging, one type of 'brain scanning', involves the measurement of brain activity. The specific technique used to measure brain activity depends on the imaging technology being used (see fMRI and PET for examples). Regardless of which technology is used, the scanner produces a'map' of the area being scanned that is represented as voxels. Each voxel typically represents the activity of a particular coordinate in three-dimensional space. The exact size of a voxel will vary depending on the technology used, although fMRI voxels typically represent a volume of 27 mm3 (a cube with 3mm length sides).
Experimental design [ edit ]
Researchers are often interested in examining brain activity linked to a specific psychological process or processes. An experimental approach to this problem might involve asking the question 'which areas of the brain are significantly more active when a person is doing task A compared to task B?'. Although each task might be designed to be identical, except for the aspect of behaviour under investigation, the brain is still likely to show changes in activity between tasks due to factors other than task differences (as the brain is involved with co-ordinating a whole range of parallel functions unrelated to the experimental task). Furthermore, the signal may contain noise from the imaging process itself.
To accommodate these random effects, and to highlight the areas of activity linked specifically to the process under investigation, statistics are used to look for the most significant difference above and beyond background brain activity. This involves a multi-stage process to prepare the data, and to subsequently analyse it using a statistical method known as the general linear model.
Image pre-processing [ edit ]
Images from the brain scanner may be pre-processed before any statistical comparison takes place to remove noise or correct for sampling errors.
A study will usually scan a subject several times. To account for the motion of the head between scans, the images will usually be adjusted so each of the voxels in the images corresponds (approximately) to the same site in the brain. This is referred to as realignment or motion correction, see image realignment.
Functional neuroimaging studies usually involve several participants, who will have slightly differently shaped brains. All are likely to have the same gross anatomy, but there will be minor differences in overall brain size, individual variation in topography of the gyri and sulci of the cerebral cortex, and morphological differences in deep structures such as the corpus callosum. To aid comparisons, the 3D image of each brain is transformed so that superficial structures line up, a process known as spatial normalization. Such normalization typically involves not only translation and rotation, but also scaling and nonlinear warping of the brain surface to match a standard template. Standard brain maps such as the Talairach-Tournoux or templates from the Montréal Neurological Institute (MNI) are often used to allow researchers from across the world to compare their results.
Images are often smoothed (similar to the 'blur' effect used in some image-editing software) by which voxels are averaged with their neighbours, typically using a Gaussian filter or by wavelet transformation, to make the data less noisy.
Statistical comparison [ edit ]
Parametric statistical models are assumed at each voxel, using the general linear model to describe the variability in the data in terms of experimental and confounding effects, and residual variability. Hypotheses expressed in terms of the model parameters are assessed at each voxel with univariate statistics.
Analyses may also be conducted to examine differences over a time series (i.e. correlations between a task variable and brain activity in a certain area) using linear convolution models of how the measured signal is caused by underlying changes in neural activity.
Because many statistical tests are being conducted, adjustments have to be made to control for Type I errors (false positives) potentially caused by the comparison of levels of activity at a large number of voxels. In this case, a Type I error would result in falsely detecting background brain activity as activity related to the task. Adjustments are made, based on the number of resels in the image and the theory of continuous random fields in order to set a new criterion for statistical significance that adjusts for the problem of multiple comparisons.
Graphical representations [ edit ]
Brain activation from fMRI shown as patch of colour on MRI scan
Differences in measured brain activity can be represented in a number of ways.
Most simply, they can be presented as a table, displaying coordinates that show the most significant differences in activity between tasks. However, differences in brain activity are more often shown as patches of colour on an MRI brain'slice', with the colours representing the location of voxels that have shown statistically significant differences between conditions. The gradient of color is mapped to statistical values, such as t-values or z-scores. This creates an intuitive and visually appealing means of delineating the relative statistical strength of a given area of activation.
Differences in activity may also be represented as a 'glass brain', a representation of three outline views of the brain as if it were transparent. Only the patches of activation are visible as areas of shading. This is useful as a quick means of summarizing the total area of significant change |
now going to be working 29 hours. This is going to make it more challenging for me.’”
For a firm with 100 full-time employees (defined as those working 30 or more hours a week) the penalty for not providing health insurance would be $140,000 a year.
The Congressional Budget office estimates that by 2018, employers will be paying $15 billion a year in penalties – that money is part of the revenue flow designed to help offset the new taxpayer outlays required by Obamacare.
The drafters of the law struck a balance between nudging employers to provide insurance coverage to more workers – while at the same recognizing that some of the people working fewer than the normal 40-hour week are already covered, some aren’t and some will need subsidies to buy insurance.
According to a study by the University of California at Berkeley’s Labor Center, about 9 percent of workers in firms of 100 or more work between 30 and 36 hours a week.
Among workers in this category, almost half now have employer-sponsored health insurance, about one fifth are uninsured, roughly another fifth get coverage through a family member, and the rest are either covered by a government plan such as Medicare or purchase their own insurance.
“Right now, many part-time workers are losing up to several hundred dollars a month as employers choose to cut hours to fall in line with the ACA definition of ‘full-time employee,’” said Donnelly’s spokeswoman Adrienne Watson.
If the Donnelly-Collins bill became law, Watson pointed out, part-time employees would have access to health insurance on the taxpayer-subsidized purchasing exchanges and could receive a tax credit to help purchase insurance.
The CBO estimates that by 2018, 25 million Americans will be covered by the insurance exchanges, with an average taxpayer-provided subsidy of nearly $6,000 per enrollee. The exchange subsidies and related spending will reach nearly $120 billion by 2018, the CBO says.
The Donnelly-Collins proposal has not yet been scored by the CBO, but one effect it might have is to reduce the revenue from penalties paid by employers – since there would be fewer employers subject to the insurance mandate.
The shifting of employees from an employer plan to the insurance exchanges – with many of them eligible for subsidies– would mean additional outlays by the government.
But Collins said that Obamacare’s 30-hour definition of a full-time worker would result in people working fewer hours and “that in turn means there will be fewer tax revenues flowing into the federal government.”
This story was originally published onSome things have always been abundantly clear about Steve Spurrier. He knows who he is, what he likes, and maybe more importantly, what he doesn't like. He doesn't spend an extra minute concerning himself with the things he doesn't like, and he never liked working long hours year round. In Spurrier's mind, more didn't mean better.
Spurrier would hate coaching college football today under the new NCAA recruiting proposals. Earlier this month, the DI Council approved a number of changes to the recruiting landscape. Among them were an early signing period in December and an additional official visitation period between April and June of a prospect's junior year.
The consequences of the new direction vary among individual recruits and programs. An early signing period could hurt Stanford, for example, because of the school's stricter admission requirements that oftentimes force a waiting game for acceptance. It could also be beneficial to players and programs wishing to lock up a commitment early.
All in all, though, it means more work around the clock. That's not Spurrier's game.
"I sort of liked an offseason. There is no offseason now," Spurrier recently told ESPN. "It's year around, and guys go, go, go, but a lot of guys like that. They don't go to the beach. They don't play golf. They don't travel. They don't do other things in life. I think it helped me last 30 years as a head coach because I did have an offseason."
That Spurrier implies younger coaches will burn out quicker in this new age of college football coaching is interesting. Then again, no one knows about burnout quite like Spurrier. This is a coach who resigned from South Carolina in the middle of the 2015 season -- and that was after giving retirement a serious once over at the end of the 2014 season.
The reactions to Spurrier's resignation were mixed, to say the least. Some called him a quitter, which is technically true, while others believed he earned the right to walk away on his terms if he felt he wasn't doing the best job he could, which also has merit. Somewhere in the middle was the truth, which was that Spurrier was straight-up done with it all. And when Spurrier is done, he's done. That's just who he is.
But regardless of how anyone felt about Spurrier's resignation, if we're to look at the evolving landscape of college football, it's clear he got out just in time.Ciaran O’Reilly, who hoped to challenge Obama over Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange, told he is a ‘prohibited person’
Activist banned from G20 meeting – but police won't tell him why
A Catholic activist who flagged his intention to confront US president Barack Obama during the G20 meeting in Brisbane is one of four people preemptively banned from the event.
Ciaron O’Reilly, who was acquitted by an Irish court over the damaging of a US warplane en route to Iraq in 2003, said police handed him a ban order on Thursday but could not give a reason.
O’Reilly on Tuesday issued a press release saying he would call on Obama to pardon jailed US army whistleblower Chelsea Manning and end any plans to prosecute WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.
“I know Julian’s dad and Chelsea’s mother so it’s quite a personal connection I have with them really, so I feel obliged to do some kind of action while I’m here in Brisbane and the guy holding the keys to their bondage is in town,” he told Guardian Australia.
O’Reilly said it was “guesswork” whether it was this or his “history of non-violent civil disobedience” that prompted the ban.
The peace activist served 13 months in jail, mostly in Texas, for his role in the “disabling” of a B-52 bomber in upstate New York during the 1991 Gulf war.
O’Reilly said WikiLeaks’s release of US diplomatic cables revealed that government’s annoyance at his acquittal in Ireland over the damaged warplane.
A notice addressed to O’Reilly from police commissioner Ian Stewart said: “I have been provided with information about you and after considering the material, I am reasonably satisfied that you are a person who should be included on the prohibited persons list”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest What’s the point of G20, anyway? Find out with our animation
O’Reilly likened the challenge of getting close to political leaders to the Michael Moore film Roger and Me.
“I’ve confronted George Bush Jr in Belfast, and I’ve confronted Hillary Clinton in Dublin and Maggie Thatcher here in Brisbane in the 1980s,” he said.
“So it’s not impossible to get to these people and I’ve got a bit of history of getting to places I should not have been.
“(But) as I said to the cops today, I’m a pacifist so even if I’m completely wrong about everything, I can’t do too much harm, can I?”
A police spokeswoman declined to comment on the decision to ban O’Reilly. But she said 15 people had been excluded from the event, including four “prohibited” persons.
O’Reilly said he would ask his lawyer tonight about whether to appeal against the order, which bans him from inner Brisbane’s “declared zone” and the University of Queensland where Obama will give a speech on Saturday.
“Queensland’s got a long history of suppressing free expression like it’s doing today with the G20 but there’s also a long history of people non-violently resisting that,” he said.Review Originally known as the '$100 laptop' from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, the XO laptop is now available through retail. I bought one under the Give One, Get One program where for a $400 donation, OLPC would send one XO to the donator, and another to a child. This is my story of working with it for a couple of weeks.
Opening the laptop was the first challenge. Being an IT professional - I'm a system administrator - I decided I didn't need to read the documents, and was promptly stymied by an inability to get the laptop open. A Google search revealed what the document I had tossed aside without reading showed: to open the laptop, first swing out the antennae, and open it from the opposite side of the handle. This may sound easy, but the majority of people who tried to open it weren't able to do so without being shown how, either.
OLPC's XO: opening challenge
The CPU is a Geode LX-700 from AMD running at 433MHz, with 256MB Ram and a 1GB built-in Flash drive. There are three USB ports, plus microphone and headphone jacks on the sides of the screen, and an SD card slot on the underside. Accessing the SD slot is a pain that requires pivoting the screen 90° and then turning the laptop over. The XO has Wi-Fi, but no Ethernet port. I found the speakers to be loud but more tinny sounding than those on, say, the Asus Eee. The XO also has a built-in 0.3-megapixel quality webcam.
The screen is 7.5 inches wide, and has two modes: indoor backlit color and outdoor black and white reflective. The backlit mode gives 800 x 600 resolution, and the outdoor 1200 x 900. The monitor pivots around for 'eBook' mode, and a button on the front rotates the screen 90° with each push. The game key pad and buttons double as page up/down and cursor movement keys.
The XO Laptop in eBook mode
Click to see the whole screen
The keyboard is small - this is a kid's laptop, after all - but it is still bigger than many devices where adults need to enter text. The keys are rubberised, and there is enough space between them to (usually) avoid hitting the wrong one. Touch-typing is slow, but possible. Using three fingers on each hand for all but the edge keys worked pretty well.
The layout is good, with the enter key being four times the size of most keys, and the erase being twice as large. There are no Caps Lock or Delete keys, but holding FN and backspace will delete to the right of the cursor.
The XO Laptop's keyboard
Click for a wider view
The unit is totally silent. The lack of a fan and spinning hard disk, combined with the silence of the rubber keyboard, makes for a strangely quiet computing experience. The XO also runs cool, with the back of the screen becoming only slightly warm after hours of use, while the base remains room temperature.Sastry appears to have been a poor man born in a village in southern India, married at the age of eight, and reduced to begging in order to support a large family. An attack of smallpox killed some of his siblings and crippled him. Sastry took to wandering the countryside, living on grass and leaves, until he met the unnamed guru, who was possessed of mystical healing powers and who also apparently contained in his memory the millennia-old V.S. and other Vedic texts.
After curing Sastry of his ailment, the guru recited the V.S. to him in a cave. Subsequently, Sastry, after he had returned home and settled down, developed a reputation of his own as a mystic, given to dictating portions of the V.S. to his followers. This process, which occurred between 1900 and 1922, eventually led to the full Sanskrit text of the V.S. being written down, with copies of the manuscript apparently placed with his disciples and in libraries. Sastry even commissioned drawings of the vimanas mentioned in the text from T.K. Ellappa, a draftsman who had studied at an engineering college.
This literary biography is, admittedly, a conjecture created by a group of scientists studying the V.S. in the mid-’70s. Not only does the V.S. have no written point of origin until the early twentieth century, it announces itself to the world at large only in independent India, trailing the story of its complex, mystical origins behind it, but without any verifiable sources. Its existence was first noted in 1952 in the southern city of Mysore by G.R. Josyer, the founder of an organization called the International Academy of Sanskrit Research. By this time, Sastry was no longer alive. Josyer claimed, in an interview with the Press Trust of India, a government news agency, that his newly established academy had collected a number of manuscripts thousands of years old, but which, in spite of their great age, dealt not with “the mysticism of ancient Hindu philosophy” but with “things vital for the existence of man and [the] progress of nations both in times of peace and war.” One of these manuscripts, the V.S., was on aeronautics, with details about the construction of “various types of aircraft for civil aviation and for warfare.”
Josyer claimed that the opening portion of the V.S. was handwritten in a small exercise book brought to him by a guest on June 28, 1951, the very day his academy was inaugurated by the maharaja of Mysore. After examining the manuscript and showing it to the maharaja, Josyer gave it back to the anonymous guest, who returned it to Venkatarama Sastry, adopted son of Subbaraya Sastry. Josyer later contacted him and borrowed copies of the manuscript, promising to publish the work.
The interview with the news agency (which may never have taken place; the only record of it appears in Josyer’s foreword to the V.S.) was a prelude to that process of publication. It brought him “fan mail,” Josyer writes, from air force officials, journalists, Hindu priests, ministers, and civil aviation mandarins. James Burke of Life International wrote to ask Josyer if he could see the manuscript. Josyer replied, “Please wire one thousand dollars, and then come.” He was more hospitable to Jean Lyon, a journalist from New York. “She came and saw the MSS, and recorded her interview with us in her book Just Half a World Away,” Josyer wrote, deploying a royal first person plural throughout, “concluding with the charge that we were guilty of a rabid nationalism, seeking to wipe out everything since the Vedas!”
Unfazed by such criticism from foreigners, Josyer published a Sanskrit-Hindi edition in 1959. But he discontinued its printing when he received a “harsh letter” from Venkatarama Sastry, the man who had given him the manuscripts, accusing him of exploiting them for his “personal benefit.” Despite that, enthusiastic letters kept coming from India and around the world, Josyer wrote, and he decided to bring out an English translation. “Thus at the age of 81, we had to sit up and translate the technical Sanskrit into readable English, and scrutinize the printing of both the Sanskrit and English, involving the strain of multiple proofreading. The finance required was considerable, and as no help was forthcoming, we had to scrape together the meager savings of a life-time, procure needful printing equipment at mounting costs, engage labor at emergency rates, and at long last, with the help of Divine grace, are able to herald the birth of the volume, which has been in gestation for over ninety years!”
The English edition that appeared in 1973 did not quite receive the acclaim Josyer wanted. Lyon, in her account of meeting him in 1952, had written that he had denounced Nehru’s “modern” government for being uninterested in the secrets “locked” inside the V.S. “This would put India far ahead of the rest of the world in aeronautics,” said Josyer. The knowledge in this manuscript would make us world leaders. But does our ‘modern’ government have the vision? … It would rather ape the West and lag behind it, than follow its own cultural heritage and be leagues ahead of everyone.” Josyer’s suspicion about his modern, fellow Indians may have been right. A year after the publication of the English edition, five scientists from the Indian Institute of Science co-authored an article on the V.S. in the journal Scientific Opinion.
The scientists, while remarkably respectful of Sastry’s mysticism, saw the V.S. as a creation entirely of his imagination, written in a Sanskrit that was modern in its meter and language rather than Vedic. As for the vimanas described in the V.S., they declared that “on the basis of principles, geometry, materials, chemistry, and operational data,” the text “shows a complete lack of understanding of the dynamics of the flight of heavier-than-air craft.” They found verses that violated “Newton’s laws,” mentioned aircraft speeds of 8,000 mph (which no contemporary craft in their time had attained within the Earth’s atmosphere), and instances suggesting the use of electric motors that have existed only since the nineteenth century. In studying the Rukma Vimana, a five-tier aircraft with passenger cabins on the third level, they initially thought it to be quite meaningful, operating like a “vertical takeoff and landing craft.” Nevertheless, they regretfully concluded, on close scrutiny of text and diagram, that it is a “decided impossibility.” While the drawings demonstrate a knowledge of modern machinery, the scientists wrote, the text and the drawings often do not correlate with each other. “None of the planes have properties or capabilities of being flown; the geometries are unimaginably horrendous from the point of view of flying; and the principles of propulsion make them resist rather than assist flying.”
The world revealed by the v.s. is nonetheless a fascinating one, listing clothing for pilots (“silk, cotton, moss, hair, mica, leather... purified by twenty-five processes”) and varying seasonal diets (“In the four months of winter and snow, goat’s-milk, yava and black-gram among grains, and flesh of sparrows”). There are sections on aircraft manufacture, with discussions on furnaces and metals (“artificial, corrupted, mud-born, found in mines, aquatic, mineral-born, vegetation-born, evolved from vermin, flesh-born, grown from salts, hairborn, and resultant from eggs”), on sources of power (“fire, earth, air, sun, moon, water and sky”), and the different kinds of vimanas.
The V.S. is particularly obsessed with military aircraft and aerial combat. One chapter is devoted to mirrors and lenses, which can be used to neutralize both adverse atmospheric conditions and “enemy planes.” Vedic enemies are capable of shooting rays and missiles, “poison fumes” are routinely used, and fighter aircraft need to be equipped with “mine-finders.” The V.S. combines these menacing, modern-sounding technologies with a more organic sensibility, so that it often seems to be advocating a sustainable, locally sourced, crafts-based military production, one that combines, in one example, crystals, tree bark, and “essence of squash gourd” to manufacture a “reflected solar ray attracting mirror.” And while the main aircraft in the V.S. are military in nature, it also details the occasional passenger aircraft. These are equipped with special kitchens operating “sacred fires,” where food for the passengers can be cooked, which certainly seems a step up from clicking “Hindu vegetarian” as one’s dietary option on an airline’s website.
None of the planes have properties or capabilities of being flown; the geometries are horrendous; and the principles of propulsion make them resist rather than assist flying.
In this combination of a Brahminical mania for caste and purity with a fascination for military modernity, one can sense something of Sastry’s obsessions as he dictated the V.S. in the early decades of the twentieth century. In its own way, the V.S. is an imaginative response to what must have seemed to Sastry a bewildering modern world, a colonial era in which traditional societies, including powerful empires, were collapsing—India’s Mughal Empire had succumbed half a century ago—even as the aviation technology pioneered by the modern, warring industrial nations of the West went from the first powered flight by the Wright brothers in 1903 to military applications in World War I. The traditions of mysticism and Sanskritized knowledge that Sastry must have identified with would have seemed particularly ossified under colonial rule, which encouraged the idea of Hinduism as a religion guided by a small priestly sect of Brahmins with specialized knowledge while also denying that knowledge any practical applications beyond the directing of rigid social and religious customs. Sastry responded by conjuring up a world where traditional learning and modern technology could be brought together, where past and future lived simultaneously. What he created, then, was a hybrid, part holy book and part technical manual, with a guru in a cave on one end of its originating spectrum and a mechanical draftsman who had studied at an engineering college on the other.
It is impossible to say how much of this was an aspect of Brahminical Hindu culture feeling shortchanged by a world progressing rapidly around it and how much an imaginative claim being made on the most visibly dynamic aspects of a machine age. It depends on what one sees when reading a fairly representative passage like this: “When enemy planes with men intent on intercepting and destroying your vimana attack you with all the means at their disposal, the viroopya-darpana will frighten them into retreat or render them unconscious and leave you free to destroy or rout them. The darpana, like a magician, will change the appearance of your vimana into such frightening shapes that the attacker will be dismayed or paralyzed.”
Yet for all its psychedelic inventiveness, and for what genre writers today would call “world-building,” Sastry’s imagining remained obscure and unknown in colonial India. Even in post-colonial India, as Josyer guided the V.S. out into the world, it stayed on the sidelines, one more quasi-miracle in a land of many quasi-miracles. Josyer, whom Lyon described as believing that “the Indo-Aryan civilization out of which Hindu India grew was the greatest, most advanced, and most enlightened civilization the world has ever known,” was still representative of only one strand of Indian thinking. It needed the current age of wealthy, aspiring India to bring the V.S. and its attendant claims about Hindu India into the center stage of the national consciousness.
The last two decades of booming wealth in India, accompanied by its rising status in the world, have coincided with a time of increasingly aggressive Hindu nationalism. The same upward mobility that has made some Indians wealthy and professionally successful has made them bellicose and insecure. The reasons for this are not hard to understand. Away from the glitter of India’s billionaires, the endless appetite of its upper class for conspicuous consumption, and the industry of its middle-class technology workers, India remains a place where the vast majority is impoverished, where a quarter century of high profile growth hasn’t changed its shabby infrastructure, its unending violence against women and minorities, or its lagging behind even poor neighbors like Bangladesh in areas such as life expectancy, immunization, infant mortality, and education for girls. Even India’s success as an outsourcing hub and consumer market is built on efficiently mimicking Western business practices and technological advances rather than by coming up with anything original of its own. There may be celebrations among its elites at the appointment of an Indian-origin CEO at Microsoft or the acquisition of Jaguar by Tata Motors, but there is still no Indian Microsoft or Indian Jaguar.
From this anxiety of imitation, it is a short step to seeking authenticity in texts from the past, even if one of those texts is itself a modern imitation. The effect is further magnified by a narrowly instrumental education, the shrinking of public debate, the subservience of media to business interests, the proliferation of social media, and an influential but alienated diaspora, especially in the United States, that seeks to find a glorious Hindu past that can be seen to have exceeded the very West upon which India’s recent success depends so heavily. When this past does not exist, it has to be created, often in less imaginative ways than the manner in which Sastry fashioned the V.S.
It has meant, for instance, the destruction of books with perspectives on ancient India that the Hindu right finds unpalatable. In 2001, when the Delhi University historian D.N. Jha wrote, in The Myth of the Holy Cow, that the ancient Vedic people were eaters of beef, he and his publisher were threatened, subjected to demonstrations, ritual book burnings, calls for the book to be banned, and a court order preventing its distribution. Jha’s work was based on extensive archaeological and textual evidence, and his argument itself is widely accepted by professional historians in India and abroad, but it went against the Hindu right’s insistence that beef-eating was an evil brought into the subcontinent by Muslims (a process it is determined to reverse by force, as in a recent ban in the state of Maharashtra that makes possession of beef punishable by a five-year jail term). Similarly, when University of Chicago scholar Wendy Doniger published The Hindus: An Alternative History in 2009, the campaign against it ran all the way from the United States to India, where the book’s publishers, Penguin India, after a four-year legal battle, agreed to an out-of-court settlement that involved withdrawing all copies of the book and pulping them. Among the arguments against the book in the lawsuit initiated by Dina Nath Batra, founder of a Hindu right-wing educational organization and author of textbooks depicting ancient glories, like television and cars, was that “your approach is that of a woman hungry of sex.”
In the absence of scholarly works that examine India’s complex history, the ancient past imagined by the V.S. has flourished in ways Josyer could never have dreamed of in the ’70s. The Internet has seen to it that there are Facebook groups and YouTube animations on the V.S., while the text itself is widely available online. It has made it possible for the V.S. to be cited as a canonical text at the Indian Science Congress and has even led to the attendant claim that it was an Indian, harnessing Vedic knowledge, who conducted the first powered flight in modern times, well before the Wright brothers.
This is said to have been another Sanskrit scholar, a man called Shivkar Bapuji Talpade, who in 1895 flew an unmanned, heavier-than-air machine at Chowpatty Beach in Bombay. Talpade is supposed to have built the aircraft on the basis of Vedic texts, one of which may have been the V.S., powering his machine with mercury and solar energy and getting it to rise to 1,500 feet before it crashed. No one knows what this unmanned plane looked like, although if one goes by the illustrations in the V.S., it could have resembled anything from a mechanical sparrow to an upside-down flowerpot with small propellers. If the flight happened, few details are available. No month or date for the flight is mentioned, just the year. The maharaja of Baroda, interested in technical innovations, is said to have been present at the flight, but scholars say there is no record of this in his papers. There are no contemporaneous accounts of the flight.
Among the believers of the Hindu right, this absence of evidence is attributed to British control over the media, which seemingly edited Talpade’s invention out of history. But reports of the flight that do exist began proliferating just over a century later, in the 2000s, at the beginning of the fertile, ongoing period of the expansion of the economy and the reinvention of the Indian past. A story in the Indian newspaper Business Standard, discussing the references to Talpade that cropped up in the wake of the paper presented this January at the Indian Science Congress, writes: “A quick search online shows that the event is most often discussed in forums on nationalism and pride routinely outweighs research in these posts. One Hindi news channel even ran a segment recently declaring, ‘Wright brothers wrong thhe’ (the Wright brothers were wrong).”
Zee News, the Hindi channel referred to here, did more than that. Intercutting illustrations from the V.S. and a portrait of Talpade with photographs of the Wright brothers and their biplane, it claimed that Talpade’s machine was not just the modern world’s first airplane but, since it had been operated with a remote control, could also rightfully be described as the world’s first drone. It claimed that Talpade’s design was eventually stolen from him by a British company under the false pretense of helping him and that it was quite likely this design that ended up in the hands of the Wright brothers.
The Bollywood film Hawaizaada, released a few weeks after Bodas’s paper was presented at the Indian Science Congress, is somewhat more modest in its claims. It does not say that the Wright brothers filched Talpade’s design. The film’s trailer merely shows, “December 17, 1903: Wright Brothers Flew World’s First Airplane in America,” before displaying, “Eight Years Earlier, This Had Already Been Done by an Indian,” just as it states, at the end of the film, “Three years back nasa commissioned a program to develop a mercury engine similar to what Shivkar Talpade had made 125 years ago.” The British are still the villains in the film, determined to steal the V.S. from a mystical Sastry, who works on building his craft on a ship with the help of a rakish young Talpade. When Sastry dies, Talpade, in love with a dancer, completes the task, flying into the clouds with his beloved on his reconstructed Vedic vimana, even as the colonial policemen come huffing and puffing down to Chowpatty Beach.
Would Sastry have liked this bollywood version of his life, or does this reinvention of a reinvention say more about contemporary India than the colonized India of his time? After all, even in the heyday of twentieth-century colonialism, Indian perspectives on military might and aircraft could accommodate perspectives other than that of mere emulation. Rabindranath Tagore, a contemporary of Sastry’s, was an anti-colonialist as well as a critic of Indian nationalism, and he responded to the questions raised by powered flight quite differently. Flying for the first time in his life in 1932 from Calcutta to Iran, he recalled the mythical account in the Mahabharata of Arjuna being taken up into the air. Tagore, however, saw in this not power but a loss of intimacy with the earth, Arjuna’s physical distancing leading to a moral distancing that allowed him to kill from the air without compunction. When Tagore arrived in Baghdad and was told by the air force chaplain there that British aircraft had been bombing Iraqi villages, he found his initial suspicions confirmed, reflecting—in terms that will be familiar to contemporary debates about drones—that “killing them from aircrafts is so easy, with so little fear of being killed in return, that the reality of killing becomes faint.”
But Tagore’s pacifism and humanism is not what the modern Hindu right seeks as it celebrates the ancient-modern wisdom of the V.S. It has chosen, instead, to claim everything as its own, the first aircraft and the first drone, without much thought to what it might mean to possess such technology. In saying that the V.S. is an authentic text from the ancient past, it has created the past in the way it would have liked it to be, filled with Vedic heroes flying the skies in their vimanas, and maintaining their caste laws. In this paradise of the past, there are no Buddhists or Muslims or Christians or Jews or left-wingers or women. The world that Sastry built is hermetically sealed from the world itself.
Yet the claim about the V.S. and its insertion into the national self-image is also a claim about the present. It says that Hindu India should rightfully be first among nations and cultures even by the measures of modernity, which are also the measures of the West. It is to say that India should be a place filled with heroes, sages, and inventors of fearsome devices rather than a supply source for technology workers with Western nicknames who put in endlessly long hours for global corporations, their upward mobility dependent on their willingness to be exploited by a West that has been ahead in this race since the time of Sastry. But if India is not what it should rightfully be, the V.S. and its supporting stories make it possible to believe that the enemies of Hindu India—centuries of Muslim rule, Western colonialism, secular modern elites—have stood between the glory of the past and what should be the glory of the present.
This view of India and its place in the world is a powerful and appealing one, but in the end it is to live in a kind of cage. In order to get out, one has to be able to make distinctions. There is no doubt that the modern technology that Sastry saw around him stemmed from brute exploitation and colonial domination, just as it is indisputable that even in later decades, after decolonization, India’s contributions to knowledge were easily dismissed, forgotten, and appropriated by the West. Yet these grievances cannot be taken in isolation, since the same has happened and is happening to many other cultures and societies. And as far as India goes, the Hindu right, rather than functioning as a brave resistance, has been a willing collaborator in this process, attacking historians, banning books, and destroying ancient manuscripts (as happened when the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute was ransacked in 2004), disemboweling the past of all its complexity. In the place of that richness, it has been working hard to create myths it can be proud of, even if that means an ancient book created in modern times, filled with Vedic aircraft that cannot fly.On April 29, the Roots will unveil Rising Down — the latest step in the six-member Philadelphia hip-hop band’s 15-year evolution on record. The darkly funky, politically charged project is now almost done after more than a year of recording, though it is currently missing contributions from planned guest artists Common, Lupe Fiasco, and Q-Tip.
Earlier this week, EW stopped by the Manhattan studio where rapper Tariq ”Black Thought” Trotter, 35, and drummer/producer Ahmir ”?uestlove” Thompson, 37, are working on some final touches, and scored an early listen to the still unsequenced 12-track set.
”RISING DOWN” (possible alternate title: ”Humdrum”) Guest rappers Mos Def and Styles P join Trotter in unleashing a slew of dystopian imagery over heavy, atmospheric synths. ”It’s not an intro, but more an introduction to the topical theme of the album,” Trotter says. ”Mos kicks it off from one perspective. My verse is about global warming and how the world is all haywire. And Styles P is rapping about prescription-drug campaigns, the stuff they advertise on TV, all the crazy side effects. We’re all dealing with different aspects of the state of the world.”
”GET BUSY” It’s a Philly celebration, with verses from longtime protégé Dice Raw (”kinda like W.E.B. DuBois/Meets Heavy D and the Boys”) and more recent associate Peedi Peedi as well as scratches from DJ Jazzy Jeff. The beat’s driven by an aggressive, grinding bassline. ”That’s the return of the boom-bap,” says Trotter. ”We’re revisiting golden-era East Coast hip-hop, but the synthesizers make it modern.” Adds an oracular Thompson: ”What was 20 years ago is also tomorrow.”
”BLACK’S RECONSTRUCTION” Trotter raps for 75 bars straight on this lyrical exercise, spitting effortless game (”Smooth like the dude Sean Connery was playing”) over a dirty drumbeat and foghorn-like tuba moans. ”It was a first take,” notes Trotter. (Show-off!) ”That’s a song in the tradition of ‘Web’ and ‘Thought @ Work’. It’s become something that die-hard fans check for, that extended freestyle, minimal chorus, hard-hitting lyrical joint.”
”APOLOGIZE” Thompson calls this rhythmic, brass-laced cut (also featuring Dice Raw) a tribute to late Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti. Trotter’s lyrics examine the challenges of today’s music industry: ”Look into my daughter’s eyes/Wonder, how can I provide?” ”It’s about not apologizing for what you are,” Thompson elaborates. ”Dice Raw’s verse does his commentary on how the new minstrel image of black people is in vogue now — how that’s the image that’s being sold to you. It’s really hard to hold on to your dignity and not resort to shucking and jiving to sell records.”
”CRIMINAL” (possible alternate title: ”Pay the Bills”) A simmering meditation on street life, still awaiting a guest verse from Saigon. ”It’s about being persecuted and having no other alternative,” Trotter says. ”You could also see it from the angle of the Rockefeller laws,” adds Thompson, ”certain groups of people get persecuted and others get away with it.” Chuckling sardonically, Trotter concludes: ”That [song] is a light-hearted one! It’s a happy album…”
”I CAN’T HELP IT” Trotter says this harrowing tale of addiction, bustling with keyboard burbles and ethereal background vocals, is about ”giving in or not giving in to your urges.” ”I can’t help it/Maybe I’m selfish,” he raps. ”The way I’m running is becoming a health risk/I might have a heart attack, I’m taking more pills than Elvis.”
NEXT PAGE: Six more tracks, including collaborations with Talib Kweli, Common (he promised!), and Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump
”SINGER MAN” Two little-known guest rappers chime in on this unsettling multipart suite, which segues from a spare bass drone to a backmasked, drumless ambient section. ”That’s three different first-person accounts of people that felt justifiable violence,” says Thompson. Trotter raps in the voice of ”an African child soldier fighting for Charles Taylor in Sierra Leone”; Truck North takes on the role of a suicide bomber; and the very unfortunately named emcee Porn explores the perspective of a school shooter.
”UP THERE” ”It was a cold night/Not cold like the winter, but I can feel an energy in the air that I don’t like”: Another claustrophobic narrative, backed by melting synths and an eerie vocal loop. Trotter compares its steady crescendo to 1996’s ”Panic”. ”It’s a dream sequence. Some person is |
decisions that are an essential part of parenting. This book is a must-read for new parents.” –Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, New York Times best-selling author of The Dressmaker of Khair Khana
“Jessica Valenti is a breath of fresh air. She offers the kind of raw honesty that can feel like a punch in the gut, but leaves you with the warmth of a deep embrace.” – Ms. Magazine
“Jessica has been hailed as one of the most influential female voices of the last decade, so it’s not surprising that after she had her first child, she had plenty to say about the culture of modern motherhood.” –Meagan Francis, Babble.com
“When it comes to unpacking what it means to be female in America right now, Jessica’s one of the smartest minds out there.” –Jesse Ellison, The Daily Beast
“In Why Have Kids?, feminist author Jessica Valenti poses a question that few people actually wrestle with before taking the plunge into parenthood.” – Lori Leibovich,Huffington Post
One of “20 New Releases Check Out” in The Atlantic’s Fall Books Preview
A “Fall 2012 Must Read” –Huffington Post
“Why Have Kids? should be required reading in sex education classes.” – Kathy Megyeri, USA Today Letter to the EditorAre Wall Street mega-banks so powerful and sprawling that they threaten our entire capitalist system? That's the claim being made by one top Federal Reserve official.
In a speech at New York University Monday (pdf), Thomas Hoenig, the president of the Kansas City Fed, argued that the biggest and most complex banks are "fundamentally inconsistent with capitalism." His remarks came just two days after global banking regulators agreed to require big banks to hold onto extra capital in order to reduce the risk of bank failures like those that occurred during the financial crisis of 2008.
"So long as the concept of a [systemically important financial institution, or SIFI] exists, and there are institutions so powerful and considered so important that they require special support and different rules," declared Hoenig, who is known as a hawk on monetary policy, "the future of capitalism is at risk and our market economy is in peril."
That's because, he argued, the existence of banks that are understood to be "too big to fail" distorts the functioning of the free market. "For capitalism to work, businesses, including financial firms, must be allowed, or compelled, to compete freely and openly and must be held accountable for their failures," Hoenig said. "Only under these conditions do markets objectively allocate credit to those businesses that provide the highest value."
The financial reform legislation passed by Congress almost a year ago was intended to ensure that banks could never again grow so large that a collapse could threaten the global financial sector, forcing taxpayers to come to the rescue.
But things haven't worked out that way. "Now, with their bailout costs amounting to billions of taxpayer dollars, SIFIs are larger than ever," Hoenig said.
Hoenig proposed rules that would prevent banks that take deposits from making trades--a shift away from the financial supermarket concept that has proliferated since the 1990s.
The new capital requirements were agreed to by the Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision (GHOS), an international group of banking regulators meeting in Basel, Switzerland, this weekend. If the new rules are approved at the G20 summit in November, they'd force big banks to keep an additional 1-3.5 percent of extra capital on hand, so they'd be better able to weather big losses.
Another rule agreed to previously, with a similar goal, requires all banks to hold a minimum of 7 percent core capital at all times.
Not everyone thinks the new requirements, which even if approved won't go into effect until later in the decade, will make much difference. Slate's Bethany McLean argues that capital requirements wouldn't have prevented the 2008 crisis. But Felix Salmon of Reuters counters: "[W]hile the Sifi surcharge won't stop banks growing to the point at which they have to be bailed out in extremis, it might make such growth significantly less profitable than it was in the past."
What's clear, though, is that almost three years after a financial crisis that plunged the world economy into a deep hole and nearly brought down the global financial sector, there's little reason to believe the same thing couldn't happen again.MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Two men who pleaded guilty to the armed robbery of two college students in Minneapolis have been convicted.
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office says Javonta Williams of St. Paul, 20, and Lavelle Grayson of Minneapolis, 23, robbed the students on the West Bank campus of the University of Minnesota in the early morning of July 30.
According to the criminal complaints, a man and women were confronted by Williams and Grayson while they were going back to their residential hall after spending the evening in the Seven Corners business area.
As the men approached the students, one of them pulled out a big handgun and told the victims, “Put your face in the grass and give us everything you’ve got.”
Williams and Grayson made off with the man’s wallet, a cellphone, several credit and debit cards from both victims, $20 cash and the woman’s driver’s license and student ID.
A man found a backpack with a large gun inside later that day in a Minneapolis parking ramp, and brought it to police. The backpack also contained the woman’s student ID card and her license.
The male victim told investigators that his credit card had been used at ATMs at three different light rail stops.
Police looked at light rail surveillance footage from that day and spotted two men, one of whom was wearing a backpack that looked like the one recovered.
Investigators were eventually able to identify Williams and Grayson from the videos.
Williams will be sentenced Jan. 16, and is expected to receive 36 months in prison.
Grayson was sentence to 48 months on Dec. 12.UPDATE 1 (Fri 5 pm): Added a statement from Burson-Marsteller.
UPDATE 2 (Sun 12:30 pm): Updated to reflect that Mr. Grytten was the CEO of Burson-Marsteller’s Norway office when he made his remarks about Israel.
In the public relations world, Burson-Marsteller is a giant—one of the largest and most successful communications companies. The WPP-owned conglomerate operates 67 wholly owned offices and 71 affiliate offices in 98 countries across six continents.
The top-notch firm became legendary for its masterful work during the Tylenol tampering case. They do not shy away from controversy. And they currently represent The Washington Redskins to rally support for the football team to keep its nickname, are engaged in an anti-Google smear campaign on behalf of Facebook, handled the Bhopal disaster in India in which over 2,000 people were killed, and represented Blackwater USA in 2007 after it was revealed that some of its employees were involved in the shooting deaths of 13 Iraqis in Baghdad.
Despite this appetite for controversy—and the juicy retainers that companies in trouble will pay—apparently even Burson-Marsteller has its limits. In 2011, the firm refused to work with the democratic nation of Israel to help the tiny Jewish state improve its image. In turning down a potential $3.5 million engagement, Sigurd Grytten, the CEO and Managing Director of Burson-Marsteller’s Norway office, told the Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naæringsliv, “We will not deliver tender to such a project… we are running a commercial venture. If we accept this project, this will create a great amount of negative reactions … Israel is a particularly controversial project.” Representing Israel, apparently is worse than offending American Indians, anonymous smears, and shady defense contractors involved in extra-curricular killing.
Newly released documents reveal that Burson-Marsteller’s squeamishness about controversial Middle East clients is rather selective. Just released government filings reveal that the PR agency has been hired to improve the foreign image of Tunisia’s Ennahda Party, the Muslim Brotherhood of Tunisia. They will “arrange meetings between Ennahdha representatives and stakeholders” and provide Ennahda “support on media and stakeholder outreach in advance of upcoming elections.” In sum, this Washington, D.C. PR firm will not work with Israel – but will represent Tunisia’s Muslim Brotherhood Party.
As a Jerusalem Post editorial noted, “Ennahdha’s members have been implicated in both incitement and violent actions against Tunisian and foreign targets. The party supported the 1979 embassy takeover in Iran, and evidence suggests it was responsible for bombing four tourist hotels in the 1980s.” The leader of the organization, Rachid al-Ghannouchi, has predicted the end of the state of Israel, described Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 as “the first step in the complete victory of all of Palestine and the holy places of the Muslim,” and supported Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The man has called for the liberation of “Palestine from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean sea” and has openly threatened the United States, saying during a time of crisis, “there must be no doubt that we will strike anywhere against whoever strikes Iraq … We must wage unceasing war against the Americans until they leave the land of Islam, or we will burn and destroy all their interests across the entire Islamic world.”
Many in the PR industry have worked with Middle East interests that harm the West. For a $5,000 monthly retainer, Brown Lloyd James famously coordinated a Vogue magazine profile and photo shoot for Asma al-Assad, Syria’s first lady—now, they want it forgotten as the Assad region has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of her own citizens. This same agency, Brown Lloyd James, worked to boost the regime of Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi. Fenton Communications, a NY PR firm signed contracts with Qatar to delegitimize Israel. There are others.
One understands the need for Tunisia’s Muslim Brotherhood to have such a powerful lobbying and communications firm. What is troubling, however is that Burson-Marsteller deemed working to improve Israel’s image as too controversial, while determining that the Muslim Brotherhood’s money is kosher. Interesting times we live in.
UPDATE:
Several hours after this piece was published, Burson-Marsteller Worldwide Vice President Jano Cabrera contacted the Observer to take issue with this article.
In a telephone interview, he maintained that the firm does not have a policy in place that declines to represent Israel. After much back and forth, Mr. Cabrera was asked, “Yes or no, would you represent Israel?” He replied, “I’m not going to answer a hypothetical question.”
A statement from Burson-Marsteller appears in full below.
The opinion piece written by Ronn Torossian was not accurate. He creates the false impression that Burson-Marsteller currently has or has ever had a policy about whether or not to represent Israel. He writes as if he recently contacted a member of the firm and received confirmation about such a policy. Here are the facts. This firm has no policy about whether or not to represent Israel. The statement Torossian refers to was not made recently but in 2011. Further, the employee he refers to no longer works at Burson-Marsteller and has not worked at the firm since 2012. He was never a member of the firm’s global leadership. His sole role was to head our office in Norway. That employee, in fact, was responding to a hypothetical question from a journalist in 2011 about representing Israel in Norway. He answered hypothetically on his own without consulting anyone in the leadership of the firm, and his answer does not reflect the policy of this firm. Again, unequivocally, Burson-Marsteller has no policy about whether or not to represent Israel. Burson-Marsteller works with the Ennahdha (Renaissance) Party. The party, which won the first democratic elections in Tunisia, helped to establish Tunisia’s constitution, which is widely regarded as one of the most progressive in the Arab world. For further understanding of the role the party has played in Tunisia’s democratic development, we refer you to an editorial from January 10, 2014 in The Washington Post entitled, ‘Tunisia’s democratic compromises should serve as a regional model.’
Ronn Torossian is CEO of 5WPR, one of the 25 largest PR firms in America. He is a life-long New Yorker.There's that old saying that any publicity is good publicity. It gets your name out there in the public conversation, people who may not know who you are Googling you. You end up winning new fans or followers -- a new audience. We all want positive publicity, but there are benefits to bad publicity too.
For the Black Lives Matter Toronto chapter, most of what they do brings bad publicity. And not the good kind of bad publicity. The kind of bad publicity where you ask yourself who is running the show and if there is an adult in the room.
The BLM Community stemmed from problems in the U.S. Cops killings, increased incarcerations, inequality in schools and communities. Some people write it off saying "All Lives Matter." They don't understand that no one is saying "We're more important than you." They're saying "We are important, too."
From the main page of the Black Lives Matter website:
"Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks' contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression."
Now, let's talk about the Black Lives Matter Toronto chapter. There is no raising awareness and focus on issues that affect the black community here in Canada. If there were, then people such as myself could be aware of their plight. I could say, "Wow, good point there, guys!" I'd say "I never thought about how things affect the black community in Canada, thanks for opening my eyes."
But they seem more interested in causing chaos. They are tone deaf when it comes to realising that their actions do very little to help their cause. They are not starting the types of conversations that BLM in the U.S. have inspired. They seem to be more interested in making problems, not resolving them.
Rally participants hold signs while marching on Bay Street. On the second anniversary of the death of Eric Garner during his attempted arrest by NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo on Jul. 17, 2016. (Photo: Dude/Agency)
We know about their sit-in at last year's Pride Toronto parade. I can appreciate that being a minority and part of the LGBT community is a very difficult thing, and that Pride Toronto hasn't had the best relationship in the past recognising that. But to interfere in the parade seemed cheap and selfish. As per the CBC, The organisation was given the status of Honoured Group for the parade, which is the grand finale of Pride Month. It did not give Pride Toronto advance notice of their planned sit-in.
Earlier this year, they took the Pride Toronto board hostage. They made a list of demands like hostage takers and all of them were met. One was banning police floats from the parade and not allowing cops to march in uniform. The past history of Toronto police and the LGBT community has had its dark moments. But Google image search "Pride Toronto Police" and you will see where relations were up until now. You'll see officers dancing in the parade, in uniform, having as much fun as anyone else.
The asterisk that the police can be AT the event, but can't take part in the parade route in uniform is horrible. The decision got blasted by people across the country. People with family, friends, coworkers, classmates in the LGBT community were mind blown. Pockets of the LGBT community questioned why this battle was being waged. When you think of celebrations of inclusion, you think of Pride parades. People of all walks of life partying and embracing, coming together as one.
This decision has excluded people. People are now questioning who is running the show at Pride. BLMTO or the board and planning committee? Some have suggested they can have their own parade and dictate their own rules, banning whoever they want. They've brought down Pride Toronto's credibility and authority of their upper management. Sponsors of the festival now question if they are supporting inclusiveness or exclusion.
"Social justice should be about resolving issues that exist and preventing new ones from popping up."
This past weekend there was an Anti-Islamophobia rally in Toronto. All over the world, rallies took place after Donald Trump's ban on 7 Muslim countries. Yusra Khogali, a co-founder of the BLM chapter in the city called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a "white supremacist terrorist".
Say what you will about him, but he's one of the last world leaders embracing Muslims and refugees. That decision brings controversy, but he and the Liberals have dug in their heels. He made international headlines for welcoming all those affected by Trump's ban. He will probably win a Nobel Peace Prize as the face of Muslim immigration. Muslims have no better ally in the western world right now than Trudeau.
I'm not sure who is advising the Black Lives Matter Toronto chapter. Social justice should be about resolving issues that exist and preventing new ones from popping up. Regressive justice and the approach of BLMTO seems to be creating division. They're stepping on others and provoking controversy. Making such outlandish commentary and actions, they become their own worst enemy.
If they want to be accepted as a credible organization, they need a PR person. They need a buffer, to question consequences and ask if their messaging hurts them. Right now, they are collecting bad publicity after bad publicity. And not the good kind. The kind that makes people tune them out and roll their eyes. There's already a strong contingent of people in Canada who oppose immigration and minorities. Inspiring new enemies to join them is not helping their cause and only fuels up the other side with confirmation bias red meat.
In 20 years, will we be celebrating the legacy of the BLMTO movement during Black History Month? Or will we be looking at it as a drain on the community that caused more tension than bridge-building? They obviously have a knack for getting in the headlines and creating conversations. Let's just hope they can stay on message and get good publicity rather than bad.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this blog stated BLMTO could have asked to march in the Toronto Pride parade instead of holding it up, when they were in fact given the status of Honoured Group for the parade.
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Also on HuffPost:The day is finally here – 1 June 2016 which means I can finally share my long awaited review of one of the most anticipated LEGO Technic sets this year – the 42056 Porsche 911 GT3 RS!
You’ve read the announcement and you’ve seen the unboxing of this beast of a Technic set, now strap your seatbelts in and get ready for an exhilarating ride as I take you through a comprehensive review of the Technic Porsche 911 GT3 RS.
Special thanks to LEGO for sending over a review copy! All words and opinions of mine are of my own.
Name: Porsche 911 GT3 RS
Set Number: 42056
Pieces: 2704
Price: AU$499.99 | US$299.99 – Buy from LEGO.com [AUS] [USA]
Exclusive to: N/A
Theme: Technic
Year of Release: 2016
Instructions: N/A
I will preface this review with a confession and/or a bit of a disclaimer – I am not a Technic person. In fact, this is the first Technic set that I remember building. I may have built a few as a kid, but I can’t remember them at all.
I’m approaching this review as a complete Technic newbie and as a regular LEGO enthusiast. If you want something a lot more Technical (heh), be sure to check out Sariel’s review for one of the most authoritative LEGO Technic fan’s take on this set. I’m probably going to miss pointing out some of the nuances of the set as I still don’t really get Technic. I mean I get it…, I just don’t get it.
The LEGO Technic Porsche 911 is unlike most other sets, in that part of its appeal is tied to its unique packaging. It’s almost luxurious, the way everything is laid out. From the high end materials used for the boxes, the matte sheen of the inner boxes and how all the contents are presented. Unboxing it really sets the tone for the entire build and model.
As I opened and unboxed the set, there was a palpable sense of excitement for what lay ahead – something that regular LEGO sets don’t evoke.
In case you missed it, here’s my unboxing video!
As I alluded to in my unboxing post, the instruction booklet is one of the highlights of the set and a core ingredient of what makes the Porsche 911 GT3 RS such a collectible. It’s more than just a bunch of instructions. It’s a tome dedicated to honouring and celebrating everything that the iconic Porsche 911 GT3 RS stands for.
The booklet is massive, and begins with one of Ferry Porsche’s most famous quotes – “In the beginning I looked around but couldn’t find the car I dreamt of, so I decided to build it myself” which thoroughly encapsulates what the Porsche 911 is all about.
Paying homage to Porsche’s German heritage, all the content in the book features German text alongside English. I really liked that they did this to give it more of an authentic feel to the stories told.
The booklet is a joy to flip through if you’re an automotive or LEGO Technic fan. There is a wealth of insight, perspective and stories from the Technic team charged with bringing the Technic Porsche 911 to life, drivers and leaders of Porsche AG, all waxing lyrical about the 911 and its undeniable impact on motoring history.
The photography in the booklet is phenomenal, shot and edited to evoke a very moody and gritty feel. There are also quite a number of stunning Porsche 911 photographs, including some historical shots as well.
As excited as you may be to put together the Porsche 911 when you first open it, I highly recommend immersing yourself in the content of the booklet, to get acquainted with the 911’s rich legacy and the philosophy of one of the greatest sportscars ever designed.
It functions well as a coffee table book, something that you can show off to your guests who will undoubtedly marvel at the finished model. I would’ve really loved it if LEGO had split up the manual to two parts, one a proper hardcover book and the other the instructions but that would’ve probably added significantly to the already high retail price.
The book ends with an invitation to begin building the Technic Porsche 911. Let’s get into it.
The contents of the set are broken down into four numbered boxes, each with numbered bags containing all the elements needed. This is what’s in Box 1, the largest box of the bunch.
One of the highlights of this set is that you build the Porsche 911 from the ground up, closely replicating the actual manufacturing process of real 911s. In many ways, it feels like you’re being led along on a journey, playing the active spectator as the Technic Porsche takes shape.
Each main build section is numbered to correspond to the box that you’re building and starts off providing context to what you’re building which is incredibly useful for me not being familiar with Technic or a hardcore motoring enthusiast.
Box 1 starts you off by assembling the gearbox which houses the PDK dual clutch that actually works.
You then move on to build the drivetrain, which is made possible thanks to a labyrinth of complex interlocking gears and Technic thingamabobs.
Here’s another look at what Box 1 builds you.
Here’s a look at how the steering wheel works. I admit, when I built it, I was quite mesmerised by the motion of the Technic parts and how it all moves in unison.
The highlight of Box 1 is the heart of the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, the 4.0 litre, flat six engine. It’s constructed quite faithfully, with 6 moving pistons inside which unfortunately is hidden away from sight.
During the build, I was quite amazed that the pistons could actually move up and down in unison. I’ve never built a Technic engine before, so it definitely made me go wow, and helped me appreciate the mechanical properties of it a lot more.
That said, Box 1 took me a whole night and it was an incredibly tedious affair. Putting Technic parts together isn’t really enjoyable to me and I found myself being quite worn out by the whole process despite the build being quite meticulous and the instructions very clear and well-designed.
Box 2 is where things get a bit more interesting as you build the body and frame of the car. It kinda felt like putting the skeleton of the Porsche 911 together.
You start off building two seats, which I liked because they managed to look like seats despite just being made out of Technic elements.
Here’s a work in progress shot where you can see the frame take shape.
This is where the “marriage” takes place, and you fuse the body to the drive train. Box 2 took a very long time as well (maybe I’m a slow builder) and I was glad that most of the car’s insides were mostly finished.
Here’s a closer look at the driver and passenger seat.
The model so far doesn’t really look like a Porsche 911, but there are slight glimpses of orange which give you a slight teaser of things to come.
Box 3 is really when it all starts coming together as the focus shifts from the interior of the 911 to putting together the body. Most of the orange elements and Technic panels start to appear and the build becomes a lot less tedious. It’s at this point that the end result really starts to take shape as you assemble important parts like the roof, bonnet and side panelling.
Here’s the Technic Porsche 911 after you’re done with Box 3. Still quite skeletal but you can start to see the curves and slopes of the Porsche 911 come to the fore.
Box 3 has you completing most of the back as well as the car’s roll cage.
I was incredibly relieved when I arrived at Box 4. This has been a mostly tedious and tiresome build, exacerbated by the fact that I don’t really find a lot of enjoyment in building with Technic parts. I actually took 3 nights of solid building over the weekend to complete this set.
It’s by far the longest I’ve ever spent on a LEGO set and not one that I’ll be looking to repeat any time soon. Thankfully, Box 4 goes by in the breeze as you put together the finishing touches to the car, and build the rear spoiler as well.
The end result is nothing short of beautiful. Instead of traditional lightbox photography like most of my other reviews, I decided to do a full outdoor shoot of the LEGO Technic Porsche 911 GT3 RS as I figured it would be a lot more fun and give a lot more character to the car.
Despite the harrowing ordeal putting the set together, I couldn’t be happier with the final model of the Porsche 911. I really hope you enjoy some of the photographs below as I had a lot of fun snapping them.
The first thing that strikes you about the 42056 Technic Porsche 911 GT3 RS is how massive it is. It is absolutely monstrous in size which helps replicate many of the signature curves of the actual 911.
The real life version of the Porsche 911 GT3 RS is a thing of beauty and I’m very happy that the Technic designers have managed to capture most of the signature curves and shape, shrinking it down to a 1:8 scale.
While it doesn’t completely replicate the look of a 911 when compared to the likes of die-cast models, it definitely doesn’t detract from the overall look.
It’s quintessentially and unmistakably a LEGO Technic model, which is apparent thanks to the noticeable gaps between the panels and some of the harsher edges. I don’t think it’s a bad thing and while I may not have the most sophisticated taste in LEGO Technic, the grandiose scale of the Porsche 911 GT3 RS more than makes up for any minor aesthetic flaws.
In terms of actual utility, I’ll be honest and say I couldn’t care less about the insides and all the complex properties that Technic fans appreciate. My LEGO hobby revolves primarily around displaying sets, which is why I am fully and completely satisfied with the Porsche 911 model – simply because it’s an exceptional display piece.
Here’s a look at the Porsche 911 from the side. The proportions are slightly off but for the most part, it does a great job retaining the 911’s signature curves and overall shape.
The front of the car is by far my preferred view as its from this angle that it looks most like a Porsche 911. The angled headlights are particularly stunning and so is the gentle downward slope on the car bonnet.
I can’t say that I’m the biggest fan of the bumpers as there are far too many exposed sections and I also don’t quite like the pointy elements used.
Here’s a look at the Porsche 911 from the front.
Like most sets these days, the Technic Porsche 911 relies on stickers to inject a sense of realism to the car. The tiny sticker that bears the Porsche emblem is placed in the front, although I feel that it’s a little too small for my tastes.
The front bonnet opens up to reveal a space that packs a small Porsche carry-bag. I don’t own a Porsche… so I’m not acquainted with the significance of this bag. I guess it’s a rich people thing – something for you to store your racing gear in and inform everyone that you own a Porsche 911.
Despite there being a number of stickers in the set, all is not lost as the side panels above the wheels have printed details.
I really like the iconic yellow Calipers of the PCCB (Porsche Carbon Ceramic Brakes) and how they pop against the black wheels. Very legit and realistic, which is something that will delight Porsche fans. The yellow calipers are stickers, but you can’t really tell since they’re mostly obstructed by the spokes anyway.
The exclusive rims are gorgeous as well and there’s a printed RS round tile that’s affixed to the centre for added realism.
Here’s a look at how the Porsche doors open up and also a peek into the driver’s seat, the steering wheel, tachometer and of course the PDK double clutch. You can also put the car in Drive, Neutral and Reverse via the PDK selector/shifter.
The interior also plays host to an exclusive laser-printed tile with a special code that you can input into LEGO.com/technic to gain access to exclusive content. This is one of my favourite things about the set as there’s something undeniably classy about owning a piece that’s uniquely personalised to each set and owner – essentially making no two sets the same.
The rear spoilers look pretty cool as well and you can adjust them at different angles.
Here’s a look at the back of the car, where you can see the GT3 RS sticker and the back lights as well. Unlike the front, the back is a lot cleaner and has a more organic, natural look to it.
The back lifts up as well to give you a glimpse of the flat 6 engine.
Here’s how the Porsche 911 looks like from above.
The Technic Porsche 911 GT3 RS is an undeniable beauty. As a display piece, I had a blast taking photos of it outdoor, making full use of the gorgeous Australian Autumn colours as a backdrop to my photos.
It’s unlike anything I’ve ever built before and I am most definitely going to display this set for a long, long time, if not permanently – mostly because it looks fierce as hell and I like Porsches.
The Lava Orange colour scheme is quite a contentious issue, but I quite like it as it’s bright, vivid and pure eye-candy. It makes the Porsche 911 stand out in a way that only a bright orange colour scheme can pull off.
When I say that it’s a large model, I am not exaggerating. Here’s the Technic Porsche 911 next to the VW Camper and a couple of smaller LEGO vehicles for scale.
What I liked:
Packaging, intruction manual/coffee table book and overall premium experience
An incredibly faithful homage to one of the best sportscars ever
Set is just perfect when on display
Really well designed and contains plenty of cool Technic engineering built into it
It’s massive
What I didn’t like:
The build was absolutely painful and not enjoyable till the second half
Some parts like the rubber elements are quite flimsy and pop out while transporting it
Final thoughts: Despite Technic not being a traditional interest of mine, I have to say that I (for the most part) enjoyed the heck out of the LEGO Technic Porsche 911 GT3 RS.
Everything about this set screams amazing and it’s truly one of the most exceptional LEGO Technic sets that have ever been produced. The Technic Porsche 911 is ambitious, bold and overwhelmingly pushes the envelope of LEGO Technic as a medium – mirroring the impact and influence that the 911 has on automotive history.
I’m not a Technic fan, which is probably why I didn’t really enjoy or appreciate the build. It took me three long nights of casual building (while watching Netflix) and I would guesstimate that the entire process took at least 15 hours in total. I also discovered that Technic is quite a painful and punishing experience, since you’re constantly having to push pins inside holes, which literally hurt my hands.
That said, it gets a lot better after Box 3 and you’re at the end, putting the finishing touches to the car.
As a regular LEGO fan, I actually developed quite a keen appreciation of LEGO Technic and the model as I was building it. It didn’t instantly transform me into a Technic fan, but I can definitely see the appeal with fans. I just couldn’t enjoy the process and I toiled all the way to the end.
Thankfully, the end more than makes up for the sleepless nights building the majestic LEGO Technic Porsche 911 GT3 RS. This set is pure eye-candy. You can tell that the design team truly put their hearts and souls into the Porsche 911 to best capture the iconic elements that made it into one of the most beloved sportscars of all time.
It’s such a stunning display model and extremely photogenic to boot. I would venture that this is one of the best display pieces in my entire collection.
The LEGO Technic Porsche 911 GT3 RS is truly an experience that’s unlike any other. From the moment you hold the massive black matte box, lift the lid and peer into the contents, flip through the book and build the set to completion, it feels like a complete, enriching and awe-inspiring experience. I definitely developed an even greater love for the Porsche 911 after this.
A lot of fans are undoubtedly going to baulk at the AU$500/US$300 price tag and that’s perfectly understandable since this set isn’t for everyone – the same way that a real Porsche 911 GT3 RS isn’t for everyone.
If you’re an adult LEGO fan with sufficient disposable income, or if you’re a huge Technic fan, this set is a no brainer. You will absolutely enjoy all that the Porsche 911 GT3 RS has to offer, possibly even more than me!
That said, if you’d like to experience a LEGO set unlike any other, I highly recommend this set. It will completely alter what you would typically expect from a retail LEGO set and open up your eyes to the complete LEGO experience at its finest. Like a luxurious sportscar, it comes down to the entire experience – the emotion, prestige and pure exhilaration that can only be evoked by a Porsche 911 GT3 RS.
As a collectible, this is one of those sets that are definitely going to increase in price, purely because of its design and the Porsche 911’s notoriety amongst motoring enthusiasts.
Rating: 5/5
That concludes my review of LEGO 42056 Technic Porsche 911 GT3 RS! I hope you enjoyed the photos (and words) as much as I did taking them!
The Technic Porsche 911 GT3 RS should be on sale from LEGO.com now. If you’re on the fence about the set, I urge you not to wait as this is possibly one of the most heavily anticipated Technic sets of all time and will definitely sell out incredible quickly.
Are you going to buy the Porsche 911 GT3 RS? Let me know what you think of this amazing set in the comments!
Special thanks to LEGO for sending me a review copy. All words are of my own and are not influenced in anyway.
PS: so sorry if I’ve been unresponsive and haven’t posted much. Have had the busiest week with work but things have gotten back to normal (hopefully) so I should be back to producing regular content!With more than 18,000 new Amateur Radio licenses issued in the first half of this year -- 18, 270 to be exact -- 2010 is shaping up to be a banner year for Amateur Radio. So far, the number of new licenses issued by the FCC in 2010 is outpacing the January-June 2009 totals by almost 8.5 percent; at this time last year, the FCC had issued 16,844 new licenses.
In 2009, a total of 30,144 new licenses were granted, an increase of almost 7.5 percent from 2008. In 2005, 16,368 new hams joined Amateur Radio’s ranks -- just five years later, that number had increased by almost 14,000, a whopping 84 percent! The ARRL VEC is one of 14 VECs who administer Amateur Radio license exams.
Comparing 2010 to 2009, the only month that had higher license totals in 2009 was January: 1960 licenses were issued in January 2009, compared with 1726 in January 2010. Beginning in February, 2010 showed higher new license numbers: 2263 in February 2010 versus 2749 in February 2010; 3463 in March 2009 compared with 3734 in March 2010; 3430 in April 2009 compared with 3508 in April 2010; 2717 in May 2009 compared with 3136 in May 2010, and 3011 in June 2009 versus 3417 in June 2010.
As of June 30, 2010, there are 694,346 licensed Amateur Radio operators in the US, an almost 1 percent rise over all of 2009. In 2009, there were 682,500 licensed Amateur Radio operators in the US, an almost 3 |
18 years to build, and generates 20 percent less electricity than was predicted. “Large dams, in a vast majority of cases, are not economically viable,” according to a 2014 report from Oxford that analyzed 245 large dams in 65 different countries. “Instead of obtaining hoped-for riches, emerging economies risk drowning their fragile economies in debt owing to ill-advised construction of large dams.”
▲ Itaipu Dam, built between Brazil and Paraguay in the 1980s, cost $20 billion, took 18 years to build, and generates 20 percent less electricity than was predicted. Visual: Ruy Barbosa Pinto/Moment/Getty
A man casts a fishing net in the Nu river in China’s southwest Yunnan province. The Chinese government plans several dams here. Visual: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty
Meanwhile, the Albanian government granted multiple hydropower concessions on the Valbona River — allegedly without the required public notifications. Visual: Sean McDermott for Undark A man casts a fishing net in the Nu river in China’s southwest Yunnan province. The Chinese government plans several dams here. Visual: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Meanwhile, the Albanian government granted multiple hydropower concessions on the Valbona River — allegedly without the required public notifications. Visual: Sean McDermott for Undark
Given such dire statistics, there’s been growing enthusiasm for smaller hydropower projects. So-called “run-of-the-river” projects divert the river’s flow through a turbine without creating a reservoir, and are thought to have less impact on the environment because they don’t stop a river altogether. But the name can be misleading; they still divert water, and many also still store water behind impoundments. “Smaller hydro [projects] or run-of-the-river hydro is not immune to significant social and environmental consequences for the river,” Horner says.
Widespread corruption makes enforcing environmental protections for dam projects difficult.
Although many countries, including China, India, and Brazil, have passed policies promoting small hydropower projects in the belief that they’re more environmentally friendly, researchers at Oregon State University recently calculated the scaled impact of dams on the Nu River in China, and found that, by certain measures, small hydropower actually had a greater impact per megawatt. “One of the things we have been pushing for, which is important for both small and large hydro, is the need to not assess impacts project by project, but cumulatively,” Horner says. “If you have a cascade of small hydro, it might have the same impact as one large installation.”
That’s to say nothing of the damage a single dam in the wrong place can do. In northern Albania, the Valbona River spills from the Accursed Mountains, where steep white limestone formations cradle a sprawling floodplain. Every spring, floods set the stones of the river singing as boulders rush down the mountains. Then the waters slow. In a few weeks, the river’s mouth dwindles into a trickle you could practically step over.
In December 2015, Catherine Bohne, a resident of the valley, requested information about a small hydropower plant planned on the Valbona River. As it was the holiday season, she hadn’t gotten around to looking through the documents when a man from the local government arrived at her door with a huge map showing plans for four larger plants. Confused, she opened the envelope she’d received and realized she had requested information about the wrong hydropower project by accident. Further digging revealed plans for an additional nine plants, bringing the total to 14. It turns out that the government had granted multiple hydropower concessions on the Valbona River, allegedly without the required public notifications. For its part, one of the companies, Dragobia Energy, claims it followed appropriate procedures; a local non-profit, EcoAlbania, says the company signed names of people who had died to falsify records of public meetings.
The Valbona projects highlight the thorny legal issues involved in granting approval for such plans, and the vast difference between standards on paper and what happens on the ground. Dragobia Energy submitted an environmental impact assessment during their permitting process. Supposedly, the environmental protections mandated by the European Bern Convention, which Albania has signed onto, were upheld. In reality, though, eight of the hydro projects are within a nearby national park, which has been a protected area since 1996. The Dragobia Cascades project, which began construction in March, has already bulldozed the northern bank of the river, diverting water through a 10-foot wide delivery tunnel.
At a recent meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Emirjeta Adhami, a World Wildlife Fund representative, highlighted the gaps in the company’s assessment, explaining that it lacked even simple baseline data. She complained that it did not quantify impacts, and gave no thought to cumulative impacts or the effect of “significantly reduced river flows.”
Widespread corruption makes enforcing environmental protections difficult. According to a recent European Union report on the problem, nearly one in two Albanians admit to being demanded to directly or indirectly bribe public officials. But the problem extends far beyond Albania. “Decision-making on dams often underestimates the weakness of the wider governance context,” according to a recent study conducted by the Dutch Sustainability Unit. Josh Klemm, who focuses on the role of international financial institutions at International Rivers, puts it more bluntly. “There is no transparency,” he says. “It’s a huge issue.”
One proposed dam in Macedonia’s second oldest national park would threaten the habitat of the critically endangered Balkan lynx, of which there are fewer than 50. Visual: mpiet/Wikimedia/CC
Further complicating the problem, the funding for dams often comes from large international organizations. According to a 2015 press release regarding a report from CEE Bankwatch Network, an independent finance watchdog group, “multilateral development banks are playing a key role” in the construction of dams in the Balkans. In addition to the World Bank, the release says, “The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is the biggest investor in hydropower in the Balkans.”
The profits from selling surplus electricity rarely get reinvested in local communities.
Pippa Gallop, research coordinator at Bankwatch, says, “What’s particularly scandalous is that public banks like EBRD and the World Bank can and do finance smaller hydropower via commercial banks.” In the process, she explains, who is responsible for what gets confused, and that minimizes accountability. Local banks, contracted by multinationals, are “supposed to do their own due diligence,” Gallop says, but since the large banks aren’t required to disclose their local partners, no one — often not even the parent bank — checks in to see how well it’s done.
Bankwatch found that the EBRD supported 51 hydro projects, including 21 inside protected areas. Some of these are particularly fraught; one proposed dam in Mavrovo, Macedonia’s second oldest national park, would threaten the habitat of the critically endangered Balkan lynx, of which there are fewer than 50. “Our strategy for the energy sector is to try to meet a different energy mix,” says Francesco Corbo, Principal Banker of Power and Energy at EBRD. “One way is to invest in renewables, and one source of renewables is hydropower.”
Developing countries often get trapped in these complex financial arrangements. “Governments are required to provide guarantees to private investors,” Horner explains. “So they’re essentially taking on enormous risk.”
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, a massive dam proposed on the Congo River is already delayed, with huge cost overruns. “Countries have these massive concessional loan structures that [are] contingent on certain dam performance, and when rains don’t come,” Horner says, “countries have gone into debt crises.”
Researchers at Oxford University reported in 2014 that the majority of large dams don’t recoup the cost of their construction, let alone improve the local quality of life. As the economists James Robinson and Ragnar Torvik wrote in a 2005 study, “It is the very inefficiency of such projects that makes them politically appealing,” as it provides an opportunity for those in power to funnel money earmarked for projects into other hands.
If unexpected costs end up being borne locally, the benefits are sometimes far-flung. Bankwatch analyzed the electricity supply and demand patterns in the Western Balkans, and found that if all the proposed dams were built, the region would have a 56 percent electricity surplus by 2024. The profits from selling surplus electricity rarely get reinvested in local communities. In other words, the argument that hydropower is needed for development is sometimes misused.
In the DRC, Horner says, the vast majority of the delayed mega-dam’s future electricity is already allocated to South Africa. “If you’re thinking South Africa is really far away from the DRC, you’re right,” she says. “They still have to build transmission lines. People like to say it’s a clean energy resource lifting people out of poverty, but that’s not what’s happening.”
Rok Rozman and other anti-dam protesters have worked to block projects on the Vjosa. Visual: Scott McDermott for Undark
High levels of corruption in Albania make success in such efforts rare, but the country’s first environmental lawsuit earned a victory for the Vjosa in May. Visual: Scott McDermott for Undark Rok Rozman and other anti-dam protesters have worked to block projects on the Vjosa. High levels of corruption in Albania make success in such efforts rare, but the country’s first environmental lawsuit earned a victory for the Vjosa in May. Visuals: Scott McDermott for Undark
Back in Kuta, Hazizaj and the other villagers waited nervously this spring while a lawsuit against the proposed dam worked its way through the Albanian courts. Just as with the Valbona projects, “the public consultation was fake,” says Besjana Guri of EcoAlbania, which filed the complaint along with two other conservation organizations and dozens of residents. “The company produced an EIA that we said was a farce.”
“People like to say it’s a clean energy resource lifting people out of poverty, but that’s not what’s happening.”
Expectations for the country’s first environmental lawsuit were low. But in May, the judges announced that construction would have to be halted. Guri was thrilled, if surprised. “Winning against the state is not something that happens in Albania!” she says, adding that she received more congratulations on the outcome of the lawsuit than she did when she got married.
Sarah Chayes, an expert on corruption and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, explains why results like this are so rare. “In these countries, the political economy is captured by an integrated network of kleptocracy,” she says, whose “objective is to capture revenue streams.”
Two common targets are high-end construction and infrastructure projects, which align perfectly with hydropower projects. Because the corruption often goes right to the top, it’s difficult to prevent. Often, Chayes says, “the whole project isn’t designed to serve the stated purpose” — like the proposed dams in Valbona, whose profit-loss projections defy logic. “The primary objective is to serve as a conduit for skimming money out of the government budget,” she says.
Chayes argues that international banks and nonprofits need to change their approach to funding such projects. For one thing, hydropower “shouldn’t be considered renewable, with all the implications of ‘renewable’ and what it means in today’s world in terms of positive branding,” she says, to say nothing of international financing or carbon credits.
In the end, she says, you can’t get to better governance through higher GDP. “We’ve been saying if these countries have higher GDP, they’ll demand better governance, but it’s getting captured by kleptocratic networks, so it’s not working.”
The solution, she maintains, is working with local communities on every step of energy projects. “It can be time consuming and messy, she says, but it “has really positive downstream effects.” In helping people hold their governments accountable, Chayes says, “lies development and prosperity.”
Statistics, predictably, can be marshaled to support each side of the argument for hydropower. Depending on your source, Albania currently imports between 13 and 78 percent of its energy — an enormous gap that reflects opposing agendas. But beyond the numbers, there’s an unavoidable trade-off between the benefits dams bring, and the harm they cause.
The lure of hydropower has long been the idea that there’s a way to generate energy without negative impacts. But in the end, the truth follows a basic law of physics: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In the meantime, one proposed dam on the Vjosa has halted, but construction in Valbona proceeds.
Lois Parshley is a journalist and photographer, and currently a Knight-Wallace Fellow. She writes for a variety of publications, including Businessweek, National Geographic, Popular Science, and The Atlantic, among other outlets.In the passed five years, 17 US States legalized same sex marriages. Many would argue that, in regards to the rest of the nation, it is not a matter of if but when the remaining 33 states will follow suit. Marriage equality is huge these days. A number of public figures–including a few Republican law makers–have spoken in favor of it. During the SCOTUS deliberation on the DOMA and Prop 8 cases, social media was overflowing with red equal signs–a symbol of support for gay marriage–as profile pictures, avis, etc. While this does indicate a level of progress, it does not mean that the LGBT community has gained an influx of TRUE allies.
First and foremost, let me fill you in on what has, in recent years, become one of my most monumental pet peeves. That is the reduction of LGBT folks to the SINGLE ISSUE of marriage. Often times, in conversation with heterosexual people and/or those that identify as such, I find that marriage occupies a massive space in their thinking about gay, bi, and or trans people. Never mind the facts that, in America, most places do not prohibit discrimination against people based on sexual orientation or gender identity; the fact that the possibility of being discriminated against by a property manager is very real for anyone who is not cishet; the fact that school districts in several areas are pushing back against the idea that anti bullying legislation should include sexual orientation; the fact that black gay men still have the highest infection rate of any other demographic or the fact that same gender loving and/or trans teens are more likely to end up homeless than their cishet counterparts. I think this occurs for two reasons. First, it is because mainstream LGBT organizations as well as the media characterize the desire to get married as the rallying cry of the LGBT community. Secondly, it is something simple to think about and talk about. Being “for” or “against” gay marriage does not require a great deal of thought or research. Because of the way the LGBT movement has been largely painted, ALOT of people sincerely think they are doing something by sharing a pro-gay marriage meme on Facebook or Instagram.
Some may wonder how is it possible to support the legalization of gay marriage but still be homophobic. It is quite simple. There is not one argument against it that can withstand scrutiny. Even a Louisiana legal scholar with strong ties to the Louisiana Family Forum(that should be called the Louisiana anti abortion and anti gay club), had to admit that, though he opposed same sex marriages due to his religion, there was no legal foundation for opposing it. In a recent fb thread–the kind that I always manage to get sucked into–there was this guy who was going IN about how the thought of gay sex grossed him out and, though he supports individual liberties, he doesn’t “personally agree” with it. After I took him to task on several things that he said, he dropped the f bomb. You know. The one that rhymes with maggot. When I went through his profile pics, what did I find but one of those red equal signs?
At the end of the day, I think support for marriage equality by straight people is a great thing. I think that it is helps to move the cause forward. However, what many need to realize is that is a single cause. A nuanced approach to LGBT justice is the only one that I am checking for. Bubbling in a survey saying you support gay marriage–or even marching on your state capitol for gay marriage–is not enough. It simply means that you support the legal rights of individuals to have their relationship be state sanctioned. However, what good does that do if you refuse to have dinner with your lesbian cousin and her girlfriend? Also, think about this. How does your support of gay marriage stop an effeminate fourth grader from being beat up on the play ground? How does your being in favor of marriage equality console or provide assistance to a transgendered or same gender loving teen who has been put out of his/her father’s home? How does you sharing a marriage meme for the Human Rights Campaign guarantee a gay man won’t be let go from his job because he never talks about a wife or a girlfriend? Moreover, what about the members of the LGBT community who could either give two fucks about getting married or simply have no one to marry? In a nutshell, it takes a lot more than celebrating the weddings of a few white couples in New England to prove that you are down for the diverse array of people that make up the LGBT community.
AdvertisementsImage copyright PA Image caption Obese children are more likely than their peers to remain overweight as adults
Obesity rates have dipped among low-income American children for the first time, according to US health officials.
The fall was recorded in 18 states for children aged two to four, said the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
The report used data based on the height and weight of nearly 12 million children in 40 states.
But one in eight nursery-age children are still overweight in the US, with even higher rates among African-American and Hispanic children.
Obesity's side effects
The most significant declines were seen in Florida, Georgia, Missouri, New Jersey and South Dakota, where it dropped by more than 1%.
Other states showing improvement were California, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Washington.
"Now, for the first time, we're seeing a significant decrease in childhood obesity," said Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC, which produced the report.
Nationally, the lowest rate was seen in Hawaii, where 9% of the children who participated were obese. California had the highest rate - 17%.
Obesity rates were up in three states - Colorado, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.
Some states such as Texas, which is known to have a problem with childhood obesity, were not included in the report.
The research did not suggest why there appeared to be a decline in obesity rates in some parts of the country.
In the last couple of years, cities like Philadelphia and New York and states like Mississippi have reported improvements, but not on the scale of the results published on Tuesday.
The last such analysis, which looked at data from 2003-08, reported a rise in childhood obesity in 24 states.
Obese children are five times more likely than their peers to remain overweight as adults.
They also face a higher risk of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, asthma and mental health issues.
A third of US children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.
Most of the data for Tuesday's report was gathered from children enrolled in the government's Women, Infants and Children programme.
It is not clear whether the trend also applies to children from more affluent backgrounds, but experts say obesity rates tend to be higher among children from more deprived homes.This was about more than just understanding defensive-zone coverages or forechecking schemes or breakouts. Heck, this was about more than just having some dynamic offensive players in Rick Nash and Mats Zuccarello on the flanks in order to help 18-year-old Filip Chytil with the start of his NHL career.
Instead, this was about total acclimation for Chytil, the Rangers first-round pick (No. 21 overall) who earned his opening-night roster spot as the third-line center. And that included Nash rooming with Chytil, 15 years his junior, as the Rangers went on their three-day team-bonding trip to Lake Placid which ended on Tuesday.
“Just kind of showing him the ropes,” Nash told The Post after the team’s practice there on Monday. “[Sunday] night in the room, I explained to him that after dinner we all go to the hospitality room and hang out, watch TV, watch football. Made sure he was aware, came down and hung out with us. Things like that you wouldn’t get the opportunity to do back in Tarrytown, we can do here.”
It’s all been a bit of a shock for Chytil, who is still working through some language barriers from his native Czech Republic, and occasionally leans on countryman and backup goalie, Ondrej Pavelec, for some translation help. But there was Nash on the Lake Placid ice, talking to Chytil and explaining with his hands as the two new linemates smiled in comprehension.
“He’s got a pretty mature game for an 18-year-old,” Nash said.
It wasn’t an easy decision for the organization to keep Chytil instead of fellow first-round pick Lias Andersson, who also is a center and was taken No. 7 overall. But the team has nine games to watch Chytil before the first year of his entry-level deal kicks in. They would love it if he could stick with the team, and if not, he’s more than likely going back to his team in the Czech Republic.
“I just feel that at this time right now, if we’re going to get a real good read on him, we have to give him the best possible chance,” coach Alain Vigneault said.
Of course, Vigneault had to consider his whole roster and where people might fit when making this decision. As Vigneault explained, he wanted to keep together the line of Michael Grabner, Kevin Hayes and J.T. Miller, and also thought the combination of Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad had more success with Pavel Buchnevich on the right wing rather than Zuccarello. (Also it didn’t hurt that Kreider speaks Russian and communicates with Buchnevich in his native tongue.)
So that left Nash and Zuccarello as natural fits, both as skilled players and veterans who can help Chytil with any questions he might have.
“Two experienced guys,” Vigneault said. “Two guys that are definitely going to help a younger player with their experience on the ice and off the ice.”
As training camp rolled along, Nash was focused on his own game and bouncing back from a disappointing statistical season marred by injury. But he couldn’t help take notice of the poise and skill in Chytil’s play, especially when they were put on a line together.
“It seems like he’s got a complete game,” Nash said. “He can play in the ‘D’ zone, has patience with the puck.”
It’s an experiment the Rangers hope pays off when the regular season begins Thursday night at the Garden against the Avalanche. It will be interesting to see if Chytil is ready for the big stage, and if his veteran linemates [and roommate] can help him adjust.
“We’ll see what happens,” Vigneault said. “They’re going to play their first game together and hopefully they’re going to be good.”Yahoo was officially incorporated on March 2nd, 1995. This is a partial transcript of several episodes of the Internet History Podcast, including an oral history interview with Tim Brady, Yahoo’s employee number 3. You can listen to the full episodes at the bottom of this article.
In the beginning, there was Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web…
In early 1994, Jerry Yang and David Filo were PhD students in electrical engineering at Stanford. Yang was the outgoing, gregarious one of the two. Born in Taiwan, Yang moved with his family to California when he was ten. He claims that on his first day of school in America, the sum total of his English vocabulary was the word “shoe.” Filo was the quieter, more circumspect of the pair— so circumspect, in fact, that friends nicknamed him The Unabomber. Filo was born in Wisconsin, but was largely brought up in Louisiana. The two knew each other from their time at Stanford, but really bonded when they signed up for a brief teaching stint in Japan. The dissertation that the two were (ostensibly) working on in the Spring of 1994 involved design automation software, which was a hot area of research at the time. Yang and Filo shared side-by-side cubicles in a Stanford portable trailer, in lieu of official offices. They had the place to themselves. Their dissertation advisor was on sabbatical so they were free to order pizza, goof around, and oh yeah, occasionally research. They named their computer workstations after their favorite sumo wrestlers, a passion they had picked up during their time in Japan (Yang’s was named Akebono; Filo’s was named Konishiki). More often then not, one or both of them would end up sleeping in the trailer. A friend called the trailer “a cockroach’s picture of Christmas.”
But the two students weren’t exactly burning through their dissertation. Filo had discovered the Mosaic browser shortly after it was released, and this led the pair to an all-consuming obsession with the World Wide Web. In those days, it was still possible to visit every single website in existence in a matter of a few hours. But new websites were popping up every day. So, in the hours when they should have been doing research, they were browsing the web instead, trying to find and catalog the new. Always a bit intellectually competitive, the two began collecting and trading links to the new websites they found. They started compiling these favorite links into a list, each trying to outdo the other by finding the coolest new site of the day. “I kept bugging Dave to show me the sites he had found,” Yang remembered later. “So he made his hot-list, and I made my hot-list, and he wrote some software to combine both our lists.”
This was right at the moment when Mosaic was lighting the fuse under the powder keg that was the early web. As the web grew that summer, things got a bit more complicated. Because Yang’s workstation was hooked up to Stanford’s public Internet connection, other people could view the list the two were generating by going to http://akebono.stanford.edu. The list was called Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web (initially, Filo didn’t want his name attached) and it proved popular among Yang and Filo’s group of friends. Word of mouth spread news of the list even further and soon complete strangers were emailing in suggestions of new sites to be included. In order to keep things reasonably organized, Yang and Filo broke the list out into a hierarchical directory. Thus, to find MTV’s home page, a user drilled down by category: Entertainment > Music > Music Videos > MTV.com. The pair came up with their own software to seek out ever-newer sites and webpages, but the additions to the directory were made entirely at Yang and Filo’s discretion. In those days, there was no automation or algorithm.
The pair began working on the directory to the exclusion of almost everything else. It was an all-consuming project, an obsession. They would toil away on Yahoo for dozens of hours at a stretch, trading off sleeping on the floor, only to go back to more searching and more indexing. For Yang and Filo, it wasn’t work; it was fun. The added benefit was, it wasn’t what they were supposed to be doing. “We wanted to avoid doing our dissertations,” Yang admitted. Yahoo was the perfect distraction. When their dissertation advisor returned from her European sabbatical, she was stunned to find that the messy trailer was the headquarters of a world famous Internet phenomenon.
By September 1994, Yang and Filo had compiled a directory of more than 2,000 sites. What was more impressive was the fact that Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web was getting 50,000 hits (searches) a day. The same parabolic web growth that Mosaic had simultaneously ridden and helped stoke was buoying Jerry’s Guide as well. What had started as a hobby now became a full time project. “We were in a unique situation in the summer of 1994,” Yang remembered later, “to be able to experience that kind of grass-roots growth, fueled by a lot of interest that was not our doing, and then just sitting back to watch the access logs go up.” The pair decided that their project needed a better name. A convention among software developers at the time was to name projects “Yet Another Something Something.” For example, YAML was Yet Another Markup Language. So, Yang and Filo settled on the name Yahoo!, which they claimed stood for Yet Another Hierarchical, Officious Oracle. The exclamation point was irreverent and entirely intentional—as Filo put it, “Pure marketing hype.” The url became http://akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo.
Stanford had a long history of being supportive toward student-run projects that may or may not evolve into startups at some later date. So, at least initially, Stanford was a generous host of Yahoo’s traffic and content, free of charge. When Netscape launched its beta browser late in 1994, it decided to make Yahoo the default link when a user clicked the “Directory” button on the top menu of the browser. No one could have anticipated it beforehand, but it turned out that having a button in Navigator’s menu bar was almost as valuable as having an icon on the Windows desktop. All those early web users who surfed the web via Netscape were introduced to Yahoo as the defacto search utility. The flow of curious web searchers grew into a flood. Yahoo had its first million hit day late in 1994. By January of 1995, soon after the domain Yahoo.com was registered, Yahoo had grown into a directory of 10,000 sites and was getting more than 100,000 unique visitors a day. The servers began to struggle under the deluge. And it turned out that there was a limit to Stanford’s generosity. The university asked Yang and Filo to find another host for their website.
Marc Andreessen and Mike Moritz to the rescue
For Yang and Filo, it was the moment of truth. For months, they had left their dissertation languishing. Now it was time to decide if Yahoo was a real thing or not, and whether or not the boys were willing to become businessmen. “David had it in his gut very early on that Yahoo could ultimately be a consumer interface to the Web rather than simply a search engine or a piece of Technology,” Yang told Fortune magazine. “We weren’t really sure you could make a business out of it though.” Interested parties were already forming a line at Yahoo’s trailer door. Reuters, MCI, Microsoft, CNET and a pre-IPO Netscape all met with the boys to see if some form of partnership or buyout was possible. In order to build bridges, Marc Andreessen reached out and solved the hosting problem by agreeing to host Yahoo temporarily on one of Netscape’s spare Silicon Graphics servers. Yang and Filo would be able to leave Stanford behind and strike off on their own. They took the leap into entrepreneurship.
The Venture Capitalists came calling as well, and now the boys were ready to talk seriously to them. But the moneymen were a bit skeptical about whether or not Yahoo even was a business. Netscape might have seemed like a dubious proposition when it was looking to raise funds around the same time: barely making money, kinda-sorta giving away their product for free, unproven market, etc. But at least Navigator was a software package. People understood that software could be sold. And Netscape was proving it could make real money providing support and server packages to supplement their software. Yahoo, on the other hand, wasn’t exactly software. It was a service; a destination; a directory; a glorified list. There was almost nothing proprietary about it. Anyone could make a list of websites. Furthermore, it was a service that you could never charge for. Yang and Filo were convinced—quite rightly—that the day they started charging users to search would be the last day users ever visited Yahoo’s website ever again. If Netscape’s business seemed intangible, Yahoo’s seemed downright hypothetical.
Undeterred, Yang and Filo incorporated Yahoo on March 2, 1995, and Yang began circulating a scratched-together business plan, but failed to impress the VC’s who were sniffing around. Even a March 1995 feature story in Newsweek didn’t overcome the skepticism. Among others, Kleiner Perkins took a pass, despite the close ties Yahoo had to its big Internet investment, Netscape. But one of those who made the trek to the messy Stanford trailer (before Yang and Filo vacated it for a proper office) was a VC named Mike Moritz. Moritz described the squalor in the trailer as, “…every mother’s idea of the bedroom that she wished her sons never had.” Moritz and his team quizzed Yang and Filo among the empty pizza boxes and humming workstations, asking the obvious question: “So, how much are you going to charge subscribers?”
“Dave and I looked at each other and said, ‘Well, it’s going to be a long conversation,” Yang would recall. The pair intended to stick to their guns. There would be no fees to users. “Two hours later, we convinced them that Yahoo should be free.” Moritz was a young 40-year-old General Partner at the VC firm Sequoia Capital. Sequoia had funded such Silicon Valley luminaries as Apple, Atari, Cisco and Oracle, but it had not yet dipped its toe into Internet waters. When Moritz took Yahoo’s business plan back to his firm, he encountered the same skepticism from the other partners that Yang and Filo had run into at every other VC firm in town. The product was free! Yang and Filo had absolutely zero business background or acumen! What was to stop someone else (Microsoft? AOL?) from simply making their own directory? And then there was that crazy name. The very moniker “Yahoo” was enough to make some of the other partners at Sequoia dubious, sight unseen. The vision that Moritz used to argue Yahoo’s case was the one put to him by Yang and Filo. Yahoo already had millions of loyal users; surely there would be some way to monetize them. As more and more users were coming to the web, Yahoo could be the friendly guide that would hold the hands of new users and lead them out into the void.
If there was an elevator pitch, it was that Yahoo had the chance to be the TV Guide for the Internet. Like Yahoo, TV Guide simply provided information that any other entity could aggregate. And yet, TV Guide was the largest circulation magazine on the planet. There was value in being the trusted directory for something. Sequoia eventually bought the pitch. The factor that tipped the scales in Yahoo’s favor was the fact that Moritz was pitching a revenue model the other Sequoia partners knew very well: advertising-supported mass media. Radio was free. Television was free. Both were supported by advertisers who paid good money to reach an audience of millions. “So why will the Internet be any different?” Moritz asked. “The trick, strategically, was to get an audience and at some point the advertisers would come.” Yahoo had an audience of millions, and if the Web kept growing at the rate it was growing at, who knew how many hundreds of millions could be reached in the near future?
By that logic, even the wacky company name could be seen as a plus rather than a minus. If done the right way, Yahoo could create a brand that would be fun, funny, irreverent, hip—in short, perfectly suited for the burgeoning Internet audience. And after all, as Don Valentine, the legendary founder of Sequoia put it, “A long time ago, we helped finance a company called Apple.”
That investment had turned out handsomely.
Building a “real” (web) business
In April of 1995, Sequoia invested $1 million dollars in exchange for 1/4th of the newly incorporated Yahoo. This investment would turn out handsomely as well. By early 1999, Sequoia’s initial $1 million was worth $8 billion. At the peak of Yahoo’s market valuation, the value of that initial 1/4th of Yahoo would be worth more than $30 billion. With its first infusion of cash, Yahoo went about becoming the business Yang and Filo had thrown academia over for. 1,500 square feet of office space was secured at the auspicious address of 110 Pioneer Way in Mountain View. Engineers were brought onboard to help Filo setup Yahoo’s servers and technologies in-house. Finance folk were brought on to structure Yahoo like a mean, lean startup. An “adult” was brought in to be CEO, in the person of Tim Koogle, a veteran of both tech startups and the tech establishment (he was recruited from Motorola and like Yang and Filo, Koogle was a veteran of the Stanford Engineering department). As for the two boys, Yang took the official title of “Chief Yahoo,” and continued to be the face of the company. Filo took the title of “Cheap Yahoo,” and dedicated himself to keeping the tech side running smoothly.
Most importantly, a cadre of new hires was fashioned into a team of professional web surfers who would help build out the Yahoo directory and stay on top of the exploding web. The surfers, who would eventually number more than 50, were expected to each add as many as a thousand new sites a day to the directory. They were overseen by a longtime friend of Yang and Filo’s, Srinija Srinivasan, who became the “Chief Ontologist,” the head of the Yahoo directory efforts. And this is a key thing to keep in mind: Yahoo! was a human powered directory for the web, not a “search engine.” Yahoo did farm out search functionality to various partners, but the key selling point—at least, for much of its early life—was that it was human powered and human curated. This was in stark opposition to competitors at the time like Excite, AltaVista, Lycos and others.
Despite this focus on a human face behind the exploding web, Yahoo adopted the Netscape “get big fast” strategy. This was partly because it had to. The web was growing exponentially, and all those humans at Yahoo needed to keep up with it. There was also the matter of competition. One by one, the other search sites had all |
, no victim has approached the police, forcing them to shut the case.
The police cannot consider allegations made on social media, and have said that they are beginning to wonder if the original article on Medium written by user 'The Indian Fowler' is even true or if such a person exists. Consequently, Kumar will not be called to a police station to record a statement. He is no longer officially an accused person.
The Mumbai Police will soon reply to Siddiqui informing him of the closing of the case and the dropping of allegations. However, the source speaking to India Today maintained that even if one victim emerges at this time and speaks to the police, an FIR will be filed with immediate effect against Arunabh Kumar.
Over the course of a week in March, a Medium blog, a Facebook post and a victim who spoke to The Quint alleged that they were sexually harassed by Arunabh Kumar. In an official statement, TVF called these allegations "ludicrous" and "defamatory".
Updated Date: Mar 29, 2017 09:33:48 ISTMike Locksley
Mike Locksley is Alabama's new wide receivers coach and co-offensive coordinator (RollTide.com)
Before Mike Locksley's official Alabama title was announced, a former colleague made a prediction that proved accurate.
Told that the Crimson Tide needed both a wide receivers coach and a tight ends coach, former Maryland colleague Lee Hull responded confidently: "He'll probably be the receivers coach."
"Mike can coach receivers?" Hull was asked.
"He can definitely coach receivers," said Hull, who has been a wide receivers coach with Oregon State, Maryland and the Indianapolis Colts.
Nick Saban apparently agrees.
Like Tosh Lupoi, Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian, Locksley has been promoted to a full-time assistant after a year helping the Tide behind the scenes as an analyst, taking over as Alabama's wide receivers coach and co-offensive coordinator.
While this will be the first time Locksley has coached receivers since 1996 at Army, he is a veteran, respected coach and recruiter whom USC offensive coordinator Tee Martin describes as a "triple threat."
"He's a triple threat because he's a guy that has head coaching experience, has coached a lot of different positions, and the way that he recruits is an asset," said Martin, who worked under Locksley at New Mexico in 2009.
Recruiting prowess
Alabama's previous wide receivers coach, Billy Napier, was an All-Star recruiter. So is Locksley.
The 47-year old has been recognized as a top recruiter since his early days as an assistant at Maryland and Florida.
Because of Locksley, Illinois once beat out schools such as Florida State and Notre Dame for five-star wide receiver Arrelious Benn.
After being hired as Maryland's offensive coordinator in 2012, Locksley was key in Maryland landing one of the top-10 players in the 2012 recruiting class, wide receiver Stefon Diggs, over high-profile programs like Florida and Ohio State.
'He's a stud': Meet Collin Sexton, the headliner of the top recruiting class in Alabama history "He can really turn this program around make us a top-10 team"
Behind Locksley, Maryland also signed other top recruits in recent years such as five-star offensive tackle Damian Prince and four-star linebacker Yannick Ngakoue, who had eight sacks last year as a rookie with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Locksley ranked 15th in 247Sports' recruiter rankings in 2014.
Saban has called Locksley "one of the best recruiters in the nation."
"At Maryland, there were a lot of guys we got in recruiting that no one thought that we could get, but Mike did a great job," Hull said. "I was recruiting Stefon Diggs before Mike got there and was doing a good job but just couldn't get over the hump, but Mike came in and helped me and did a great job of just also building a great relationship with Stefon and with his parents and everybody that was helping him make a decision."
Well-rounded
Former Maryland and current Connecticut head coach Randy Edsall paused while praising Locksley as a recruiter.
"Mike gets a lot of credit for his ability to recruit," Edsall said, "but where I think he does a really good job is his ability to look at defenses and know what you have to do in order to attack an opponent's defense and be able to score points."
A lot of coaches have only worked with one or two position groups. Locksley has coached every position group offensively and defensively except for the offensive line while also having been a head coach at New Mexico and an offensive coordinator at Illinois and Maryland.
Illinois ranked 86th nationally in total offense in 2004, the year before hiring Locksley as its offensive coordinator. Under Locksley, Illinois was up to 34th nationally in 2007 and then 19th in 2008.
In Locksley's second season as Maryland's offensive coordinator, the Terrapins eclipsed 5,000 yards for the first time in 10 years and ranked 55th in the nation in yards per play despite playing the second half of the season without their top two offensive players.
"He is an outstanding offensive mind who brings a wealth of knowledge and experience as both a head coach and offensive coordinator," Saban said.
Continuing to grow
Locksley was a free agent last year after serving as Maryland's interim head coach in 2015, choosing to leave the program after a new head coach was hired.
Locksley surely could have gone elsewhere and landed a much higher-ranking position than the one he took at Alabama. Yet, he chose to join the Tide as an offensive analyst.
One of the reasons: Saban.
Meet Alabama's 'future at the outside linebacker position' "That's a young guy that doesn't even know how good he can be. He's already freakishly good. That's what the scary thing about it is."
"I think it just goes to show you how he wanted to continue to grow as a coach," Edsall said. "To go and be a part of Nick's staff at Alabama showed that he wanted to learn and learn more about what a championship-caliber program was all about and how it was run. The way I look at it, here's a guy that, at his age, is still willing to go and learn to become better as a coach and gain a better understanding of what it takes to run a successful program."
It's worked out well for both Locksley and the Tide, which Martin recognized during a December conversation with Locksley.
"He talked about how much he's learned from Nick Saban and the way coach Saban runs the program," Martin said. "Mike's one of the more creative, innovative, smart coaches that I've been around, and I really think that his time at Alabama has made him better. That's a good sign for him and a good sign for Alabama."The President has a long list of things to worry about, topped by his approval to disapproval ratio in the general electorate. Among Latinos the downward trend in approval is reflected, but less severe. The big worry for the administration regarding Latinos is not that their disapproval will push them into the arms of the GOP but rather that they will not have the same ganas that they did in 2008.
The Latino Decisions tracking poll has shown Obama’s approval numbers take a steady and continuous tumble. In the February tracking poll Latino approval of the president was 70%, in June that support slipped to 68% and most recently stands at 63%. From June to August there was a five percentage point drop.
The most worrisome numbers are not the aggregate approval numbers, but the slide from “Strongly Approve” to “Somewhat Approve.” In the June 2011 tracking poll 41% of Latinos “Strongly Approved” and 27% “Somewhat Approved” of the job the President was doing. This month, the “Strongly Approved” category has plummeted to 28% while the “Somewhat Approved” category stood at 35%. In other words, the shift in approval has gone from enthusiastic to lukewarm. In the world of political participation it is the “Strongly Approve” that are going to have the ganas to go through the effort of registering and turning out to vote.
The certainty of intending to vote for President Obama has also sharply decreased. The Latino Decisions poll includes a question that asks how likely one is to vote for the President or for the Republican candidate. In the poll from earlier this summer, 49% stated that they were certain to vote for the incumbent President. Today, only 38% of Latinos state with certainty that they will vote for President Obama. These vote intention statistics are grim, especially when you consider that in this last election (admittedly a midterm) only 31% of eligible Latinos voted, as compared to 48% and 44% for whites and blacks respectively.
The 2008 election saw a very different economic and political climate than the one we are living today. For the purposes of mobilizing an electorate, especially Latinos, the long and hard fought Democratic primary contributed to hyping up the ganas of Latino voters. The 2012 presidential election will not see a similar contest on the Democratic side and the related energy that comes with primary campaigns.
There is no fast cure for the ganas gap. A recovery of ganas is a slow recovery and will entail focusing on rehabilitating the “Somewhat Approve” back up to “Strongly Approve.” This recovery will be based on policies – a recovery of the economy, and working toward a sensible immigration solution. In the lead up to the election however, a big shot of mobilization via an all-out air and land campaign will be the Red Bull that can translate the ganas into votes.
Victoria DeFrancesco Soto
Dr. VMDSIs FCC Commissioner Saying One Thing And Doing Another?
Above: Chair of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, talks with Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese at the encampment outside the FCC’s front door.
And, What You Can Do To Assure Net Neutrality
The path for an open Internet that functions without discrimination is evident: polls of the American people, the courts, federal communications law and reality all point to the Internet being treated as a common carrier, a public utility that operates without discrimination. The Chair of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, is saying he wants an open Internet without discrimination. Why isn’t he taking a path that leads there?
Once it became known that Tom Wheeler was going to recommend a tiered Internet with different levels of service based on fees, the negative reaction was massive and swift. The reaction included emails, petitions and phone calls roaring into the FCC demanding net neutrality. Margaret Flowers and I began an encampment at the FCC’s door one week before their Open Meeting where this proposal was going to be discussed. Within the week, the camp grew to 25–30 people. The pressure mounted and Wheeler changed course by including our view in the rule-making process but he continued to cling to his view that the Internet was not a common carrier.
The strong negative reaction to Wheeler’s proposal should not be surprising as supermajorities of Americans support net neutrality. Since the court overturned net neutrality regulations in Verizon v. FCC in January, polls show very high levels of support for net neutrality: 69% support by the SF Gate poll (May 2014); 73% support, Baltimore Sun (April 2014); 84.7% support, Thundercloud (Feb. 2014); 74% support, Bay News 9 (Jan. 2014); and 81% support, CNET (Jan. 2014).
There is no question what the public wants – they want telecoms like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T to be common carriers that bring us to the Internet without any discrimination.
As pressure mounted on Wheeler, the FCC, according to TIME Magazine, was in “chaos.” TIME credited the growing encampment outside of the front door of the FCC and too many phone calls coming in for the agency to handle. Shortly after TIME’s report, Wheeler came to visit us at the encampment. He made sure to have himself photographed with a sign favoring the Open Internet.
Wheeler is an easy to like guy, who spoke his position well, telling us what we wanted to hear. It was not surprising that he was a super star in two Internet business halls of fame for Cable Television and the wireless industry. When the Guardian asked me what I thought about the meeting with Wheeler I said: “He says he wants an open internet and equal access for all. That’s great, but I judge a man by what he does not by what he says.”
Wheeler’s rhetoric got sharper, by the time he spoke at the FCC Open Meeting. He praised us for our civic action saying: “Thank you to those who felt so strongly about the issue that they camped outside. The Founding Fathers must be looking down and smiling at how the republic they created is practicing the ideals they established.” In addition, his rhetoric was sounding like us, saying: “This agency supports an open Internet. There is one Internet. Not a fast Internet, not a slow Internet; one Internet.” As the New Republic wrote reporting on the Open Meeting:
“Just listening to Wheeler today, you’d have thought he was the biggest Internet freedom activist in the country. ‘If telecoms try to divide haves and have-nots, we’ll use every power to stop it,’ he said at the meeting. ‘Privileging some network users in a manner that squeezes out smaller voices is unacceptable.’”
Unfortunately, as S. Derek Turner of Free Press writes – Wheeler’s rhetoric is not consistent with what he has proposed. His proposal would allow a tiered Internet based on fees paid. This is in fact not only inconsistent with what he says, but the opposite. Turner highlights portions of the proposal that demonstrate Wheeler is proposing a tiered Internet based on fees:
“We tentatively conclude that our proposed no-blocking rule would allow broadband providers sufficient flexibility to negotiate terms of service individually with edge providers, consistent with the court’s view that we must permit providers to ‘adapt … to individualized circumstances without having to hold themselves out to serve all comers indiscriminately on the same or standardized terms.’ [paragraph 97 of the proposal]
“Today, we tentatively conclude that the Commission should adopt a revised rule that, consistent with the court’s decision, may permit broadband providers to engage in individualized practices … [paragraph 111]
“…. we tentatively conclude that the Commission should adopt a rule requiring broadband providers to use ‘commercially reasonable’ practices in the provision of broadband Internet access service … [this rule] could permit broadband providers to serve customers and carry traffic on an individually negotiated basis, ‘without having to hold themselves out to serve all comers indiscriminately on the same or standardized terms … ’ [paragraph 116]”
The proposed rule says it would “permit broadband providers to serve customers and carry traffic on an individually negotiated basis.” Turner translates this into layman’s terms: “The FCC proposal authorizes ISPs to create fast lanes and slow lanes.”
Tom Wheeler is very smart, understands the law and has read the court decisions. For some reason he seems unable to comprehend the clear statements of the courts or the Federal Communications Act under which he operates.
Marvin Ammori, one of the top tech lawyers in the United States, explains in simple and clear language why the approach Wheeler is taking will result in a tiered Internet and end net neutrality. The court in Verizon v FCC ruled that if the Internet is not classified as a common carrier under Title II, then net neutrality rules do not apply. The court was pretty blunt: “We think it obvious that the Commission would violate the Communications Act were it to regulate [companies that are not subject to Title II] as common carriers.”
Ammori highlighted the key provisions of the law, writing:
“These are the parts of Title II that require common carriers in communications to serve everyone and not discriminate among users. (The full provisions provide even more detail.)
“Serve everyone on fair terms: “It shall be the duty of every common carrier engaged in interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio to furnish such communication service upon reasonable request therefor; … All charges, practices, classifications, and regulations for and in connection with such communication service, shall be just and reasonable.”
“No unreasonable discrimination: ‘It shall be unlawful for any common carrier to make any unjust or unreasonable discrimination in charges, practices, classifications, regulations, facilities, or services for or in connection with like communication service, directly or indirectly, by any means or device.’”
To get a little further into the FCC law, the Act defines “telecommunications services,” and says those services must be offered on a common carrier basis under Title II. These are services that move data between two points without changing it, i.e. like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon. Under the Act other services that provide and change information, like Facebook or Yahoo, are “information services.” In 2002 when the Internet moved from dial-up to broadband the FCC made a mistake – it classified the Internet as an information service and as a result, it cannot be regulated as a common carrier and required to serve everyone without discrimination.
When this 2002 classification was examined by the US Supreme Court it was upheld, not because the court agreed with the classification but because courts allow administrative agencies to make these types of decisions. The agency is the expert and the court will only overrule in extreme situations.
In his dissenting opinion, Justice Scalia mocked the FCC decision comparing telecoms to a pizza place that delivers pizza. Scalia explained that if a pizzeria advertises it delivers pizza, it cannot claim it does not offer delivery just as a telecom cannot claim that it doesn’t deliver information. That would be saying something along the line of “No, we do not offer delivery–but if you order a pizza from us, we’ll bake it for you and then bring it to your house” writes Scalia. In this respect the pizza place, like telecoms offering cable broadband, are common carriers.
The FCC, now that two courts have thrown out net neutrality rules, should take the advice of Justice Scalia and make the law consistent with reality – reclassify the Internet as a common carrier so that net neutrality becomes the law.
When Wheeler met with us outside the FCC he said that treating the Internet as a common carrier would result in lengthy litigation. While the telecoms might challenge this decision, once the decision is made that the FCC was within its power to reclassify, that is the end of it. The approach Wheeler is suggesting would result in more litigation because the FCC would have to decide on an individual basis whether a decision is “commercially reasonable” resulting in litigation about lots of cases.
The American people want an Internet that does not discriminate based on fees. The politics of this are clear and Wheeler, an Obama appointee confirmed by the Democratic Senate, is going against super-majorities of the American people. This former Obama fundraising bundler is risking an electoral landslide against his party by going against the people’s wishes.
The law is clear that to avoid discrimination, the Internet must be classified as a common carrier. The courts have been explicit in explaining this to the FCC. And the reality is – the Internet currently is a common carrier – the law should be consistent with reality.
This all seems so obvious, yet for some reason this two-time hall of fame industry lobbyist now serving as Chair of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, is unable to see it. Does Wheeler really not understand or is he saying one thing and doing another? The people need to make reality clear to Wheeler by demanding that the Internet be reclassified as a common carrier.
To help Tom Wheeler understand reality and the law please submit a comment to the FCC. Submit your comment to the FCC here. The Proceeding Number is 14-28.You can also submit them via email: [email protected]. Take action now, we need to overwhelm the Commission with comments supporting treating the Internet as a common carrier so real net neutrality is the law. For a model comment see What’s Next In Our Campaign To Save The Internet.”
Kevin Zeese is an organizer with Popular Resistance,co-director of Its Our Economy and Attorney General for the Green Shadow Cabinet.There is a popular online video of Rafael Cruz, pastor of Purifying Fire Ministries and father of Sen. Ted Cruz, giving an anti-Obama speech to a fervent Tea Party crowd. He trots onstage to “Eye of the Tiger” and begins with a bit of personal history.
“I grew up in Cuba under a strong, military, oppressive dictatorship. So as a teenager, I found myself involved in a revolution. I remember in that time a young, charismatic leader rose up, talking about hope and change. His name was Fidel Castro.”
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“When my son was 8, 9 years old,” he says later, “our conversation around the dinner table centered on politics every day. I remember over and over I would ask him, you know, Ted, when I faced oppression in Cuba, I had a place to come to. If we lose our freedoms here, where are we going to go?"
My mother came to the U.S. from Cuba as child refugee with Operation Pedro Pan in 1962, living in foster homes and a camp run by Catholic Charities until her parents were able to follow three years later. She is politically moderate, but Papi Cruz’s speech was more than familiar to me, from visits to Miami and time spent with family members who are also Cuban exiles. Even my father, a Salvadoran, half-jokingly calls the president a communist.
“Ese Obama es comunista!” an old woman screamed at me once out of the blue, when I was in Miami during the 2012 presidential election. I hadn’t said a word to her. I was tying my shoelaces, about to go for a jog, and looked up to see her standing over me.
“You young people,” she said. “You want a movie star. You didn’t live what we lived.”
Apparently Marco Rubio also knows a thing or two about these kinds of conversations. In an interview with GQ in 2012, Rubio says, “I'm not making any comparison between Barack Obama and Castro from Cuba — but I was raised in a community of people who were told that if government had more power it could equalize things and it could give them more than others, and at the minimum undo some of the unfair things that had been done to them, and they were very skeptical of that given the experience that they had had.”
White Cuban conservatism, once an afterthought for GOP primary candidates who would stop in Miami to headline a quick anticastrista rally on the way to the nomination, has become a driving force in the Republican Party. It has not only reared its two major token Latinos, but provided a base of support for Jeb Bush, its wannabe token Latino, who resides in Miami and has deep ties with the Cuban community.
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Some connect this particular conservative flavor to John F. Kennedy’s mess, the Bay of Pigs invasion, or with Republican support for the embargo. But for the most part, it is incredibly simplistic, and has its roots in the past crimes of one man. Fidel is big government. You are either Fidel, or you are Ronald Reagan. There is no in between. “A young and charismatic leader rose up, talking about hope and change.” So charisma in politics is suddenly a bad thing? So we should only trust old, angry white guys?
Its second pillar, perhaps shakier than the first, is the myth that Cuban émigrés rose to prosperity in the U.S. with zero help from the government. Government is always bad; government can never “equalize things.” Government intervention is satanic, unless, of course, it is passing the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, which, in addition to making the path to citizenship (amnesty!) for Cubans easier, provided $1.3 billion in direct financial assistance, including Medicare, free English courses, scholarships, and low-interest college loans. Many banks offered start-up loans to Cuban businesses that had no collateral. Imagine if the families fleeing violence in Mexico and Central America were given that kind of reception. Maybe they, too, would have a chance to become as successful (and as staunchly pro-American) as Cubans in Miami. But they weren't lucky to come from a major pawn in a Cold War chess game.
None of which, of course, is to say that Cubans didn’t work hard. My grandparents came to the U.S. in their fifties and immediately got menial jobs. Though he had three children to support, my grandfather refused to accept a single welfare check. But my mother and her two siblings all attended college on what was then called the “Cuban loan.” Can anyone picture Cruz and Rubio’s GOP supporting a “Salvadoran loan” anytime soon? An Iraqi or Syrian loan?
What Fidel took away, the damage he did, is hard to understand for those who didn’t experience it directly. The rage he still provokes is well-deserved. Even I feel it sometimes when I see video of him standing at a podium, giving one of those endless speeches (similar to Cruz’s infamous 21-hour filibuster). He turned his back on those whose courage had helped bring him to power, and destroyed what was then among the most advanced, culturally rich societies in Latin America. He tore apart families, including my own, and worst of all, he got away with it.
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But it’s beyond frustrating to see his name so baselessly invoked by people with such a slippery grasp of history. Rafael Cruz, who portrays his 1957 beating by Batista's soldiers in Cuba as the climax of his revolutionary saga and the impetus for his escape to the U.S., was unable to give the reason for his arrest to the Times.
"I'll have to think about it," he said. "I don't quite remember."
Rubio, who vaulted to national prominence by telling the story of his parents at the 2012 Republican National Convention, can’t get the facts of their emigration straight. He initially led audiences to believe that his family left Cuba in order to escape Fidel, but in reality they had left at least two-and-a-half years before he came to power.
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“My parents and grandparents came here from Cuba in '58, '59’, he told Sean Hannity in a 2010 Fox News interview.
They came in 1956, the senator’s office later clarified. When questioned about the confusion by The Washington Post in 2011, Rubio replied, “I’m going off the oral history of my family. All of these documents and passports are not things that I carried around with me.”
Going off the oral history of his family is a tenuous thing on which to base one’s political narrative. In another speech, at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa, Rafael Cruz quotes George Santayana: “If we do not learn from history, you (sic) are bound to repeat it.”
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Learning from history is one thing; letting its grip pull you (and the country that gave you refuge) into an endless muck of empty fear and rancor is quite another.Summary
Discovery
On the back of a new NIN tour shirt, fans noticed that certain letters were highlighted. These highlighted letters form the phrase "I AM TRYING TO BELIEVE." Assuming that this was not mere coincidence, they found that www.iamtryingtobelieve.com is an actual website.
After analyzing the page, certain keywords and phrases piqued fan's interest and more websites relating to the World of Year Zero were uncovered. The information on these websites illustrated a dystopic world of the future, in which a totalitarian government has assumed control of the United States.
Year Zero Calendar
In Year Zero, the calendar has been altered from the traditional BCE-AD structure. The years following Year Zero are denotated as "0000". When referring to the past, the years are subtracted from the date of the calendrical reconstruction. Example: Thirteen years prior to 0000 is listed as "-13 BA," or "Born Again". It is now proven that Year Zero itself is actually the year 2022, as indicated by the image located here Thus the year 2007 is actually -15 BA.
Year Zero: The Story
The websites suggest that in Year Zero, there is no longer a distinct separation of Church and State. Perhaps due to an onslaught of bioterrorism attacks, the government has assumed totalitarian control and used the threat of future terrorist attacks to justify their absolute power.
Church of Plano
The Church of Plano is a sola scriptura organization that threatens "Whoever Resists the Authority Resists God" to legitimize and support the current Administration. Not much is known about the Church, but it has taken a special interest in The Presence and is sponsoring a "Neighborhood Cleansing Program" so members can "put their faith into action".
105th Airborne Crusaders
Alongside the Church, the 105th Airborne Crusaders, a unit of soldiers whose purpose is to protect and police "God's green Earth" is further propagating the government's political and religious control of the nation. This faith-based squadron was created in -13 BA as a response to the bioterrorist attacks in Los Angeles. The 105th was formed by "those men and women who kept a personal relationship with our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ and allowed the Holy Ghost to guide their rifles true."
Cedocore
Cedocore is a large pharmaceutical company that is the creator of Parepin and other drugs such as Anphylox, Amproprax, Avoprem, Niraderm, Phenylpro, Prozira, Sariferm, Xarylax, Zalaflo and Zynacor.
Drugs
Parepin
In order to ostensibly protect the public from future bioterrorist attacks, the government developed a drug called Parepin. Parepin, found on the first discovered site I Am Trying To Believe, is a drug added to the water system and drinking supply of the general public. Its initial purpose allegedly is to combat all disease, though there is no scientific proof to justify this claim. The Year Zero Administration added it to the drinking supply to both combat disease and reduce the populace's susceptibility to bioterrorist attacks, however, many citizens are reluctant to believe this. Discontinued use of the drug has provided citizens with an increase in their clarity of thought, which the government claims is mere paranoia.
Parepin seems to be an ACTH blocker. ACTH is a "fight or flight" hormone which is released from the hypothalamus whenever danger threatens. When secreted, ACTH stimulates the synthesis of the epinephrine (adrenaline) precursors dopa and norepinephrine. Second, ACTH stimulates the adrenal cortex to release cortisol. [1] Cortisol is a corticosteroid hormone produced by the adrenal cortex that is involved in the response to stress; it increases blood pressure, blood sugar levels, may cause infertility in women, and suppresses the immune system. [2]
Opal
Opal is a new drug distributed commonly in liquid form. It is supposedly "the new cocaine" as it is cheaper to distribute and more widely available. The Opal trade has replaced much of the Colombian cocaine trade, and according to many underground news sources, this drug's main distribution source is America itself. The drug can either be injected or dropped into the eye, causing the whites of the eyes to turn black. Opal is said to mimic a religious experience for many people. It has been suggested that Opal is either chemically related to Parepin, or is Parepin in its "street" form. Opal can be seen in the "Survivalism" video at 2:13 as two of the people in the apartment complex are seen using the drug through the surveillance camera. According to a secret directory on the future pharmaceutical company Cedocore's Web site, Opal, known as "Hycephamitamyn-η" was developed by a German company and manufactured by Cedocore itself, lending credence to the Opal-Parepin connection.
Blue pills: "die-agra"
One of two soldier performance-enhancing drugs referred to on Be the Hammer. These are soldier boosts that counter the effects of parepin, allowing soldiers to act aggressively. The effects are temporary.
Red pills: "blisters"
Also from Be the Hammer. Stronger, nastier soldier boosts that "erase the line between killing and fucking." Some of the effects are permanent.
Users of the pills were not told they couldn't return home until after they had first taken them.
Copper
This appears to be a secret, government-only vaccine for Red Horse, an Ebola-like virus described in more detail at Red Horse Vector. According to the 0 pages at Another Version Of The Truth, Copper has some unfortunate side-effects, including paranoia, skin sensitivity, and aversion to bright light. Worse, withdrawals are fatal.
A person who uses Copper smells like the metal copper, and has orange secretions.
Terrorism
In the world of Year Zero, the fear of terrorism seems to be the dominant factor shaping American society, with terrorism redefined to include disagreement with the government. At The Price of Treason, a site devoted to warning dissenters away from "seditious" activity, dissent is directly correlated with treason and "the terrorist events of the past twenty-one years..."
Ricin
From http://www.hollywoodinmemoriam.org/memoriam.htm, Ricin is apparently what was released from dirty bombs in Hollywood, CA. Ricin is poisonous if inhaled, injected, or ingested, acting as a toxin by the inhibition of protein synthesis. See the Wikipedia article on Ricin for more info.
Star Chamber
According to U.S. Wiretap, Star Chamber was an underground club that participated in anti-government activity which suffered an attack from the Red Horse virus. Initially, it was apparently targeted by terrorists. However, according to the "zero pages" on AVOTT, it could've been some kind of inside job. A transcript of an interview with a police officer on the scene describes a government agent leaving the place on the aftermath of the attack, with the orange secretions (tears, in this case) and smell corresponding to use of Copper.
The Presence
The Presence is represented as a ghostly arm reaching down from the sky. It was initially thought to be an Opal or Parepin-related hallucination, but this was debunked by people who claim to have seen or been affected by The Presence, but who are not under the effects of Opal or Parepin. It has been suggested, however, that use of Opal or Parepin may intensify or increase the frequency of these encounters. People who have been affected by The Presence have described feelings of intense fear, insignificance, astonishment, and forgetfulness. Whether the Presence is government related or not is disputed. A key note to the information regarding the Presence is that there are pictures documenting the image of the presence. This lends credence to the theory that the Presence is a corporeal entity.
Resistance
There is a significant resistance faction within society Another Version of the Truth (website), seemingly split between those who would promote violent resistance to provoke radical change, and those who would use peaceful means. Members of the resistance fear that the Parepin has rendered society complacent and hence unable to effect change. Their mission is to awaken society to the dangerous atmosphere of Year Zero, in which basic freedoms are repressed and objection to the Administration's control is not tolerated.
Just a general suggestion for perusing the Year Zero websites; when reading the text, highlight it with your cursor and you can then read it clearly without any of the distortions or discolorations.
Also try pressing your 'Tab' key on the keyboard to reveal any hidden links within a Year Zero related webpage.
If you are using Firefox you can right click on the page and select "View Page Info". Select the "Links" tab to see the name, address, and type of all links on the page.
Key Information
Puzzles
Theories
Related Phone Numbers
Proven Related Web Sites
Modification times are obtained from the Last-Modified: HTTP header of http://url/default.htm
Unlinked Images
Album Art
Proven False Web Sites and MediaRecently, a fellow photographer (who shall remain nameless) posted a rather beautiful image on his social media, and added "Shot a little bit of boudoir this weekend..." as the caption. This made me take pause and ponder about what boudoir is, or rather is supposed to be, and how it could very well be the most misunderstood labels in portraiture.
First off, let's hit the etymology of the word boudoir. A Wikipedia entry on the word seems to indicate that boudoir "derives from the French verb bouder, meaning "to sulk" or boudeur, meaning "sulky”..."
Which is about as sexy-time as a traffic accident.
The same entry then goes on to say that the word boudoir is "A cognate of the English "bower", historically, the boudoir formed part of the private suite of rooms of a "lady" or upper-class woman, for bathing and dressing, adjacent to her bedchamber, being the female equivalent of the male cabinet. In later periods, the boudoir was used as a private drawing room, and was used for other activities, such as embroidery or spending time with one's romantic partner."
Ah yes, now it is starting to sound more familiar.
Still curious about the etymology and demanding further clarification, I hastily texted my friend, French born fashion model Ava Miura to ask her. Like a standard-issue naive American, I pressed her for said clarification. Interestingly, she informed me that the word is considered "old" in France, and seldom used. She then flat out added "Honestly I only know that word the same way [Americans] do. I only know the use that Americans have of it." So, there's that.
So what the heck is Boudoir then?
To really get right down to it, boudoir photography is mostly an approach, and not a genre. For whatever the etymology states, and for whatever it meant two or three decades ago, here in 2015 boudoir is an approach to intimate portraiture that involves a multi-step process heavily involving customer service, marketing, psychology, counseling, photography skills, retouching skills, and an overall willingness to make people do what they never thought they could. So, no, it's not simply a style of lighting or specific wardrobe options in portrait work.
Let's explain this a bit further. The image below is of model Victoria Loren, who I shot in Houston recently. This shot, and countless others like it, are often mislabeled boudoir by many photographers for one silly little reason: Victoria is wearing lingerie in the photo. See, if you were to swap out the lingerie in the shot for a swimsuit, and leave the lighting, the pose and of course the model precisely the same, almost no one would call the image boudoir.
Professional model wearing lingerie = boudoir? No, not really.
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the Big Death."
Winton Weyapuk was a child in Wales, Alaska, and was orphaned by the epidemic. In an interview from 1997, he recalled that the flu came on a dog sled. The mailman, on his monthly delivery, brought the corpse of a man who'd died on the way to Wales. Curious villagers crowded around the corpse. "The men, women, and children who came to see this body went home, and many got sick and most of them died before the next morning."
Weyapuk's father died that first night, so the family moved into an uncle's house. Most everyone in the uncle's house died, and Weyapuk and his brother Dwight lived in a one-room sod house with four corpses until someone found them. He recalls seeing white men building tripods over the sod houses, using block and tackle to pull frozen bodies up through the skylights, then blasting holes in the frozen ground with dynamite for mass graves. Family sled dogs, neglected and starving, roamed the streets and fought over human remains.
The shamans, normally counted on as healers, were helpless. The population was decimated, and the social structure had to be created from nothing: Another Wales resident remembers that, in the aftermath, so many families had been destroyed that an official from Nome came to the village with a stack of notarized wedding licenses. He lined up all the surviving men, all the surviving women, and all the surviving children, and built families at random.
Catholic missionaries made major inroads into these communities in the aftermath of the Big Sickness. (Along with the Baptists and Orthodox churches. The major churches had a summit in Sitka years prior and divided up their geographical spheres of influence.) The missionaries brought flour and coffee, built orphanages and schools. "They looked at the shamans as evil and of the devil," Boudreau says. A new social order was created. In the villages of Northwest Alaska, the Jesuits stepped into a tailor-made power vacuum.
T he history of child molestation in the Catholic Church goes back centuries. The first official decree on the subject was written at the Council of Elvira, held around A.D. 305 near Granada, Spain. The precise history is complicated, but the council is traditionally believed to have set down 81 rules for behavior, the 71st of which is: "Those who sexually abuse boys may not commune even when death approaches." It was the harshest one-strike policy: If you're caught abusing a child, you are not only laicized, but permanently excommunicated—damned for all time.
The other major condemnation of clerical sex abuse was The Book of Gomorrah, completed by radical church reformer Father Peter Damian (a Benedictine monk, as it happens, who became a cardinal) in 1051. He appealed directly to the pope about the abuse of children, as well as consensual sex among clergy—in howling language: "O unheard of crime! O outrage to be mourned with a whole fountain of tears!... What fruitfulness can still be found in the flocks when the shepherd is so deeply sunk in the belly of the devil!"
In the 1930s, a priest-psychiatrist—and also a Benedictine—named Reverend Thomas Verner Moore researched the higher-than-usual rates of insanity and alcoholism among Catholic clergy. He suggested the church build an asylum for priests. The U.S. Catholic Bishops turned down his request in 1936. Father Moore became a Carthusian hermit.
In 1947, Father Gerald Fitzgerald founded the Servants of the Paraclete in Jemez, New Mexico—the same institution Father Poole was to visit almost 50 years later.
In a 1957 letter to the Bishop of Manchester, Father Fitzgerald wrote that predatory priests (who he euphemistically refers to as "schizophrenic") cannot be effectively treated and should not be allowed to continue in the ministry:
Their repentance and amendment is superficial and, if not formally at least subconsciously, is motivated by a desire to be again in a position where they can continue their wonted activity. A new diocese means only green pastures... We are amazed to find how often a man who would be behind bars if he were not a priest is entrusted with the cura animarum [the cure, or care, of souls].
By the early 1960s, Father Fitzgerald had seen enough chronic pedophiles that he did not want to treat them and have them rereleased into the ministry, but, as he proposed in a letter to Archbishop Davis, to build an "island retreat... but even an island is too good for these vipers."
In 16 centuries, church policy had evolved from one strike you're out to 30 strikes and you're sent to an island in the Caribbean.
In 1965, according to an affidavit from Fitzgerald successor Father Joseph McNamara: "Father Gerald purchased an island in [the Caribbean], near Carriacou, which had an abandoned hotel, damaged by fire, on it. This hotel was entirely removed from any civilization... This was to be Father Gerald's long sought after 'island refuge,' but it did not come to be. As is described below, Archbishop Davis ordered Father Gerald to sell the island."
Shortly thereafter, Father Fitzgerald was asked to step down. "It all became too public," Wall says. "The Holy See would never be able to explain Father Fitzgerald's leper island for pedophile priests."
In 1985, two priests and a lawyer—Father Michael Peterson, Dominican Father Thomas Doyle, and Ray Mouton—presented a report to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. The report, which reads more like concerned advice than a condemnation, warns that high rates of abuse and high rates of recidivism for "treated" priests could cost the church over $1 billion and a major loss of credibility in the coming decade.
Later that year, in the first highly publicized case of a pedophile priest in the United States, Father Gilbert Gauthe admitted to abusing 37 boys in Louisiana. He accepted a plea bargain, was sentenced to 20 years, and served 10. By 1997, according to the New York Times, he had moved to Texas, where he was "arrested for fondling a 3-year-old boy" and put on supervised probation. (According to the Times, "Texas authorities did not know of his criminal record in Louisiana.") In April 2008, he was arrested again for failing to register as a sex offender.
In 1993, Canice Connors, the director of St. Luke's, a psychiatric institute for troubled clergy, told the Los Angeles Times: "The Catholic Church in North America possesses the greatest data bank of evaluation and treatment of nonincarcerated pedophiles on the continent. That data should be analyzed scientifically and shared with others studying the problem." He was in Milwaukee to present his findings to the U.S. Conference of Bishops.
In 2003, the Archdiocese of Boston agreed to pay out $85 million to 552 victims of clerical sex abuse.
Also in 2003, in the midst of negotiations to settle four claims of clerical sex abuse with the Diocese of Fairbanks, one of the church's mediators told Ken Roosa that the dioceses didn't want to offer more than $10,000. "They said they couldn't offer more money to an Alaska Native because they'd just get drunk and hurt each other," Roosa said. "And it would just encourage more victims to come forward. Unbelievable."
In September 2005, former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—who'd just become the pope—asked the justice department of the Bush administration to grant him immunity from prosecution in sex-abuse cases in the United States. Ratzinger, the onetime head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was accused of "conspiring to cover up the sexual molestation of three boys by a seminarian" in Texas, according to the Associated Press. Ratzinger had "written in Latin to bishops around the world, explaining that 'grave' crimes such as the sexual abuse of minors would be handled by his congregation. The proceedings of special church tribunals handling the cases were subject to 'pontifical secret,'" Ratzinger's letter said. The Bush administration granted Ratzinger the immunity.
In 2007, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay $660 million to more than 500 victims of clerical sex abuse.
Why does the church keep sending these priests, who have come to be such a major liability, back into ministry? "It's all about keeping the stores open, keeping the revenue rolling," Wall says. The Alaskan provinces in particular, Wall says, were a source of revenue—not from the Native population living there, but from parishioners in the lower 48 who were encouraged to donate for the Native ministry up north. "You could raise thousands to fund a mission that cost very little to run," Wall says. "The profit margin is huge."
T he lawsuits against the Northwest Jesuits regarding abuses of Alaska Natives are not over. Within the coming weeks, Roosa and Wall say, more claims will be filed, more press conferences will be held, and more stories will come out.
"We talk about how we feel like we're doing God's work," says Boudreau. "It's something bigger than all of us. We're working to reveal the truth of what happened."
This story has been updated since it was originally published, and a photo caption has been corrected to properly identify Father George Endal.GREENBELT — NASA unveiled a new satellite-based system on Monday that space agency officials say should reduce the time needed to locate lost boaters and hikers to just seconds.
"Our mission is to take the "search" out of search-and-rescue technology," said Dave Affens, the search and rescue mission manager at NASA, an agency sometimes criticized for not focusing enough on Earth-bound problems.
"Our ultimate goal here is to save lives," Affens said.
Designed and developed at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, DASS — the Distress Alerting Satellite System — will be able to locate emergency beacons carried by aircraft, boats and hikers almost instantaneously, officials said.
Help could be on the way in minutes. The current Search and Rescue Satellite system might take an hour or more.
The new technology won't be operational until the hardware can be fully deployed aboard a constellation of 24 new U.S. Air Force Global Positioning System satellites. Nine are already in orbit, but the rest may not get there until 2017 or later, officials said.
In the meantime, the existing satellite rescue system continues to save lives — more than 27,000 worldwide to date. Air Force and Coast Guard authorities Monday urged anyone setting off in boats, planes or on foot into the wilderness, to consider carrying a satellite beacon — costs range from $200 to $700 for the handheld models, $800 to $1,500 for those used on boats — and to make sure it is registered.
One life the current system did save belongs to Dennis Clements. The Missouri man set out last Dec. 26 from Norfolk, Va., bound for Culebra, an island off the eastern tip of Puerto Rico.
He soon found himself alone, 250 miles off the Carolina coast, where he and his craft, the Gloria Adios, were pounded for four days by gale-force winds and tall waves.
"At one point, I saw the mast pointed straight down to the bottom of the sea," he said in a video interview with University of Maryland Baltimore County researcher Silvia Stoyanova. "I was shaken loose somewhere under water, and when I reached the surface, I could see my boat about 30 feet away."
As he tried desperately to swim to the craft, it righted itself, caught a breeze and sailed out of reach. "As I floated there, I knew this was the end," he said.
It wasn't. The Gloria Adios carried an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB), which activated automatically when the boat began taking on water.
Capt. David McBride, chief of the Coast Guard's Office of Search and Rescue, said too few boaters carry the devices. "Many people think they're going to use cell phones or radio," he said. But one big wave can quickly put those devices out of commission.
"The only means you'll have to notify anybody is the EPIRBs or ELTs [Emergency Locator Transmitters used on airplanes]," he said. "They're the only ones designed to work in that emergency for a specific length of time." Hand-held Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs) must be activated manually.
Clements' beacon was picked up by orbiting weather satellites, where NASA-developed repeaters relayed the call to a ground station in Suitland, Md. There, computers did the math to calculate his location.
From Suitland, Clements' identity and position were sent to the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, at Tyndall Air Force Base, in Florida, which receives 15 to 25 similar alerts every day. The center alerted the Coast Guard, and Clements was eventually rescued by a Navy diver.
Even before the Gloria Adios capsized, Coast Guard search and rescue controllers had gotten the alert, and were using Clements' EPIRB registration to contact his relatives. They confirmed his whereabouts. The Coast Guard knew in advance that rescuers on this call would not be risking their lives for nothing. Officials said 25 percent of the satellite beacons now in use have never been registered, putting first responders at risk needlessly in the event of false alarms.
A Coast Guard helicopter crew found Clements and dropped a life raft. And a Navy diver from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower — the only ship within 100 miles — finally put a harness on him and helped pull him from the roiling seas.
"It was the bravest thing I've ever seen," Clements said.
The current satellite beacon system saved Clements' life. But it has limits.
Operational since 1982, the Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking (SARSAT) system relies on two kinds of weather satellites operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
GOES satellites, which track weather systems from geosynchronous orbits that keep them "hovering" 22,500 miles above the Earth, also listen for emergency beacons. Each one can "see" 40 percent of the Earth's surface.
"GOES tells you the signal went off," said SARSAT's systems engineer, Mickey Fitzmaurice. But "it can't tell you where it is."
Some more expensive beacon devices carry global positioning electronics that encode their position into their signals, enabling rescuers to pinpoint their locations immediately to within a few feet, even as they drift with currents. But most do not.
Finding those beacons requires another satellite fleet, called Polar Orbiting Weather Satellites (POWS). They circle the globe on "low" Earth orbits — about 450 miles up. By listening for subtle "Doppler effect" changes in the beacon's radio frequency caused by the motion of the satellite, the SARSAT computers can locate the source to within a radius of 1.5 miles.
The technique works well. Lt. Col. Charles Tomko, commander of the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, said his unit launched 1,100 rescue missions in 2009 in the contiguous 48 states. More than 700 of them were initiated by satellite beacon alerts. He figures those responses saved 214 lives.
But faster and better information on the locations of the alarms would save even more lives. So, in 2002, NASA engineers at Goddard began working on a promising new idea.
What the system needed was a larger fleet of satellites flying at middle altitudes. with only six POWS satellites in orbit, it can take more than an hour for one to pass over a given location. And, because of their relatively low orbits, they can miss beacon signals blocked by mountains or other surface terrain.
What the Goddard engineers needed was a larger fleet of satellites flying at an altitude somewhere between those of POWS and GOES.“Worse,” I said. “They’re sending each other rubber blowup dolls online.”
“Oh, my God,” he added before he logged into Facebook to sign up himself, “I had no idea you could do that.”
Neither did I. Which came as quite a shock, as if a virtual pail of ice water had been thrown at me. After all, among my friends I’m known as the queen of Facebook.
I was the first mom on the block to sign up last summer, leading a whole cohort of parents — Tina, Stephanie, Nick, Amy and three Lisas — to go online to creep out our children (and amuse ourselves).
In fact, I had become pretty smug recently, after what has come to be known, in our family at least, as the Night of the Three-Martini Video. My husband (Mixmaster Mr. Q.) and I crowded around the computer to post a spirited birthday greeting on the wall of our oldest daughter’s best friend. Although old people have always embarrassed the young, now children have the evidence of our bad behavior to parade the next morning. I for one think this is significant.
But the discovery of the existence of Naughty Gifts proved I was, once again, out of touch. I was willing to forgive myself a little. After all, how could anyone keep up with the steady stream of programs — more than 7,000 as of last week — created by more than 100,000 developers since last spring when Facebook invited outsiders to build them?
Clearly, it was time to find out what else I was missing.
In a panic, I called my friend Seth Goldstein, whose company SocialMedia Networks was among the first to develop Facebook applications, including “Food Fight,” which allows you to toss pies, and “Appsaholic,” which tracks the growth of the site’s myriad applications.
Photo
Mr. Goldstein told me to relax because trying to keep up with every application has become futile.
“I throw a cheeseburger at you and smelly socks at my brother, but send virtual flowers to my wife,” he said. “What every single one of these applications is really offering is a different dialect, a way to communicate very specifically to friends and family and colleagues and different social groups.”
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That was interesting in an academic sense. But it didn’t help me go beyond Mr. Whipped Cream.
I needed to stop following the herd, to fight the literal sheepish effect that makes me, like most Facebook users, gravitate to the same applications my friends already use. So I scoured Appsaholic and the blogs — like Bestoffacebook.com, Allfacebook.com and Insidefacebook.com — that cover each new Facebook wrinkle as intently as Ernie Pyle chronicled World War II.
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This led to a few hours exploring oddities like “Zombies,” “Booze Mail,” “What’s Your Stripper Name?” and “Poo Fight.”
Flinging virtual feces seemed empty, somehow. But I gave it my all, throwing pigeon poo, kitten poo, snail poo, rabbit poo and hamster poo — all at my husband.
Finally, he blocked me. That gave me a thrill. Mr. Goldstein said he understood.
“The magical applications on Facebook are the ones that enable you to do things you can’t in everyday life,” he said. “Everyone wants to have a food fight, but they can’t.”
By that measure, I should have been more amused by “If They Mated” (“Ever wonder what your friend’s kids would look like? Stop wondering and show your friends what would happen... IF THEY MATED!!!”)
I would have found it magical if the application actually had mixed and hashed the photos of my friends to generate a personalized “baby.” But instead, all it did was announce “Here’s the Baby!” under a thumbnail photo of Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat.
I was starting to see why a mere 84 Facebook applications accounted for 87 percent of the use, as the technology consultants at O’Reilly Research reported. (And that was a whole month ago, when there were barely 5,000 applications.)
Maybe I had overlooked something in plain sight. Exhausted, and in sheer desperation, I went back to Naughty Gifts.
A few hours later, my computer rang. It was Zoe, calling on Skype from college.
“We are worried about you,” Zoe said.
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“We?” I asked.
“Ella and me,” she said, referring to her sister.
“Why?” I asked.
“Did you or did you not send us rubber blowup dolls?” she asked.
Oh, that.
“Why did you do it?” Zoe asked.
“Maybe for the same reason that you and Ella sent them to each other,” I said.
“Oh, my God, you are so creepy,” she said. And hung up.
It was good to be the queen again.Oslo defines Nordic cool.
Once a seat of the Viking empire, Norway’s capital was shaped by centuries of maritime culture. Visitors today can take a bite out of a thriving food scene and discover a new breed of young designers and quirky drinking dens in such former working-class neighborhoods as Grünerløkka.
Natural features—forests, valleys, island-studded inlets—distinguish this Scandinavian metropolis. Flanked on three sides by the wooded hills of the Marka regionMarka region and on one by the 62-mile inlet known as Oslofjord, Norway’s capital is an ideal destination for lovers of the outdoors—which describes most of the city’s 600,000 residents.
Stay at one of the hotels in the Holmenkollen district, Oslo’s leafy playground, and you may find yourself hiking, biking or, weather permitting, cross-country skiing before dinner. A 20-minute metro ride from this verdant outer borough sits Oslo’s center, founded some 1,000 years ago and pulsing with museums and galleries, world-class restaurants, and fun-loving nightlife. For recreation, head to Frogner Park, where locals promenade, skateboard, and sunbathe among 212 statues by Norwegian artist Gustav Vigeland.
View Images A monolith designed by the late Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland rises in Frogner Park. (Photograph by Andreas Teichmann, LAIF/Redux)
But for the best impression of Oslo, experience it from the water. Catch one of the hop-on, hop-off sailboats for a cruise that takes in the reenergized Aker Brygge area, City Hall (home to the Nobel Peace Prize awards ceremony), and the medieval Akershus Akershus Fortress. A particular draw is the waterfront Opera House, completed in 2007 and shaped like an ice floe; its sloping marble-clad roof lures walkers at all hours.
Oslo’s contemporary sheen pairs with a briny maritime history. On Bygdøy, a peninsula west of downtown known for its museums, the Viking Ship Museum houses a pair of well-preserved ninth-century ships along with period artifacts. Two more recent vessels rate their own museums.
The Fram Museum commemorates “the world’s strongest polar vessel,” the century-old Fram, used by a series of Arctic and Antarctic explorers, including Roald Amundsen. Next door, the Kon-Tiki Museum focuses on the oceangoing balsa raft that environmentalist Thor Heyerdahl sailed from Peru to Polynesia in 1947. A mile north lies the outdoor Norwegian Folk Museum, with its much photographed 12th-century wood church.
> Norse Noshing
For a nation with a small population, Norway has produced a surprising number of world-class chefs, including four Bocuse d’Or gold medalists. You will find one of them, Bent Stiansen, at his restaurant, Statholdergaarden. Other worthy culinary emporia include Eik and Maaemo, the latter the only Nordic restaurant to receive two Michelin stars on its first attempt.
Classic Norwegian fare fills the menu at Grand Café, where smørbrød (open-faced sandwiches) and prawn mayonnaise are perennial favorites. Don’t miss the large mural on the back wall portraying the Christiania Bohemians, a group of artists who patronized the café in the late 1800s; you may recognize playwright Henrik Ibsen, who came to Grand Café twice daily to quaff a beer and read the papers.
One of Oslo’s most popular lunch spots for 115 years, the Viennese-style Theatercaféen, across from the National Theater, also serves smørbrød, along with reindeer and seafood (try the lutefisk) entrées.
View Images All clear light and clean lines, the glass-walled Oslo Opera House is Norway’s largest cultural building. (Photograph by Bob Sacha, Corbis)
For a more Bohemian ambience, head to the Grünerløkka area, where offbeat cafés and restaurants have names such as Noah’s Ark, Villa Paradiso, and Mucho Mas (Mexican home cooking). The Vietnamese-flavored Hai Cafe is a local darling. African and Asian eateries abound in the eastern parts of downtown and in the Grønland neighborhood.
Aker Brygge, a renovated shipyard west of Grønland, and adjacent Tjuvholmen (“thief island”), Oslo’s newest neighborhood, teem with pubs and bars. On summer days you’ll find people munching on prawns fresh from fishing boats and enjoying after-work beers. Many Oslovians reserve Sundays for a hike in the hills north of the city, for panoramic views—and servings of waffles with sweet goat cheese in the log-framed Frognerseteren Restaurant.
> Fashion Fair
An eclectic mix of unconventional shops is on tap in Grünerløkka, from vintage clothing at Frøken Dianas SalongerFrøken Dianas SalongerFrøken Dianas Salonger to imaginative gifts and home products at Liebling and odd T-shirts at Probat. Indoor food hall Mathallen stocks coffees, fish, cheeses, and meats, including such local offerings as smoked sheep’s head; children are invited to try free cooking courses. Then there is Friends Fair Trade, which claims to have Scandinavia’s biggest selection of fair-trade clothes, gifts, and more.
Oslo insiders know to shop nearby Grønland for the city’s best assortment of vegetables and fruits. Also here: colorful textiles at bargain prices.
The independent bookshop Tronsmo is a literary gem, covering everything from politics to design— and with a comic-book collection in the basement.
Scout out haute couture at Eger, on Egertorget (Eger Square); Paleet, near Karl Johans Gate; Glas-Magasinet and 0ther boutiques on Bogstadveien; and everywhere, it seems, in Aker Brygge. For men’s fashion, don’t miss Moods of Norway; it has three shops in central Oslo.
Behind the city cathedral, the Basarhallene (“bazaar halls”) house arts and handicraft studios. Several artisans also work in and sell their wares at the Norwegian Folk Museum. For antique and vintage oddities, stop in Butikk BrocanteButikk BrocanteButikk Brocante. Classic Norwegian sweaters and blankets fill the shelves of Heimen Husflid.
> After Hours
View Images Two friends share news at Fru Hagen, a cozy Oslo cafe. (Photograph by Joerg Modrow, LAIF/Redux)
Norwegians drink more coffee than anyone else, which is reflected in Oslo’s trove of independent coffee shops. Many double as nighttime cocktail bars, such as LaWo, Café Con Bar, and Fuglen, where the vintage furniture is for sale.
Care to dance? Nivou, Oslo’s largest nightclub, offers two floors, which fill by 1 a.m. Patrons at Baroque Bygdøy Allé strut to house music under chandeliers. Raspoutine’s “imperial Russian” decor draws a tony clientele inured to high prices.
Find alternative entertainment at Underwater Pub, where you may feel you’re in an aquarium; professional and amateur opera singers entertain diners Tuesdays and Thursdays. Litteraturhuset (“house of literature”) encompasses a bookshop, a restaurant, and, best of all, places to sit and read. Brick-walled Bare Jazz caters to that genre with live acts and a shop selling jazz recordings. Lorry has long been popular for its 129 types of beer served in a homey, quirkily decorated setting.
In Grünerløkka you’ll find such fun venues as the 1950s-style Bar Boca (fabulous mojitos in summer), colorful Café Kaos, vintage-themed Fru Hagen, and the industrial-chic club Blå. If you prefer wine bars (with Italian food), Enoteca, with two locations, is a fine choice.
This piece, reported by Anne-Sophie Redish, first appeared in the April 2015 issue of National Geographic Traveler magazine. This is an adaptation of a story that ran in our partner U.K. edition, National Geographic Traveller.A Massachusetts principal has been criticized for canceling his school's Honors Night, saying it could be 'devastating' to the students who worked hard, but fell short of the grades.
MyFoxBoston.com reports that David Fabrizio, principal of Ipswich Middle School, notified parents last week of his plan to eliminate the event.
"The Honors Night, which can be a great sense of pride for the recipients' families, can also be devastating to a child who has worked extremely hard in a difficult class but who, despite growth, has not been able to maintain a high grade-point average," Fabrizio penned in his first letter to parents, the station reported.
Fabrizio also said he decided to make the change because academic success can be influenced by the amount of support a student receives at home and not all students receive the same level of emotional and academic support at home.
Some parents disagree with his philosophy.
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"It's been a tradition in Ipswich, and you're very proud as a parent to see your child, as well as some of the other children who made, really, some great efforts," Dave Morin, a parent, told the station.
Fabrizio says he plans to include the honors ceremony with a previously planned end of the year assembly where students will be recognized in front of the entire student body.
Click for more from MyFoxBoston.comNEWPORT Wales (Reuters) - NATO’s top official accused Moscow outright on Thursday of attacking Ukraine as allied leaders gathered for a summit to buttress support for Kiev and bolster defenses against a Russia they now see as hostile for the first time since the Cold War.
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron (L) and NATO's Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen attend a bilateral meeting at Celtic Manor golf club near Newport in Wales, September 3, 2014. REUTERS/Andrew Winning
U.S. President Barack Obama and his 27 allies meeting at a golf resort in Wales will also discuss how to tackle the Islamic State straddling parts of Iraq and Syria, which has emerged as a new threat on the alliance’s southern flank, and how to stabilize Afghanistan when NATO forces leave at year’s end.
“We are faced with a dramatically changed security environment,” NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters on arrival at the summit. “To the east, Russia is attacking Ukraine.”
His statement stepped up Western rhetoric against Moscow and set the tone for a two-day meeting marked by a return to east-west confrontation 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Moscow denies it has troops in Ukraine but NATO says more than 1,000 Russian soldiers are operating in the country. Rasmussen also said NATO allies would consider seriously any request from Iraq for assistance in dealing with the growing insurgency by Sunni militants.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, the summit’s host, said pressure on Moscow would mount if it did not curtail military action which he branded unacceptable.
“What Russia needs to understand is if they continue with this approach in Ukraine, this pressure will be ramped up,” Cameron told BBC television, adding that U.S. and EU sanctions were already having an effect on the Russian economy.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, whose forces have suffered a string of setbacks at the hands of Russian-backed separatists in the south and east of the country since last week, was to meet Obama and the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy just before the summit starts.
The Ukrainian leader is looking for arms, training and intelligence support for his armed forces as well as political support against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
However, his talk of reviving Ukraine’s bid to join the U.S.-led military alliance could reopen a rift within NATO.
Were Ukraine to join NATO, alliance members would be obliged to defend it with arms. As it is not a member, they have made clear they will not fight to protect it, but are taking mainly economic measures - U.S. and EU sanctions - against Russia.
Obama said in Estonia on Wednesday the door to membership would remain open to states that meet NATO standards and “can make meaningful contributions to allied security”, but France and Germany remain opposed to admitting Kiev.
A French official said NATO should contribute to easing tensions, not exacerbating them.
RUSSIA WARNS
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov underlined Moscow’s opposition to Ukraine joining NATO, warning that attempts to end the country’s non-aligned status could “derail all efforts aimed at initiating a dialogue with the aim of ensuring national security”.
After a week of defiant statements from Putin, Lavrov said Russia was ready for practical steps to de-escalate the crisis in Ukraine and urged Kiev and the rebels to heed ceasefire proposals put forward by Moscow on Wednesday.
Asked about Putin’s plan, Rasmussen said NATO welcomed efforts to find a peaceful solution but “what counts is what is actually happening on the ground and we are still witnessing, unfortunately, Russian involvement in destabilizing the situation in eastern Ukraine”.
As more than a decade of NATO-led combat operations in Afghanistan draws to a close at year’s end, the 28-nation, U.S.-led military alliance is refocusing in part on its core task of defending its territory.
NATO leaders will set up a “spearhead” rapid reaction force, potentially including several thousand troops, that could be sent to a hotspot in as little as two days, officials say.
Eastern European NATO members, including Poland, have appealed to NATO to permanently station thousands of troops on their territory to deter any possible Russian attack.
But NATO members have spurned that idea, partly because of the expense and partly because they do not want to break a 1997 agreement with Russia under which NATO committed not to permanently station significant combat forces in the east.
Instead, leaders will agree to pre-position equipment and supplies, such as fuel and ammunition, in eastern European countries with bases ready to receive the NATO rapid reaction force if needed.
NATO has said it has no plans to intervene militarily in Ukraine. It has focused on beefing up the defenses of former Soviet bloc eastern European countries that joined the alliance in the last 15 years. The Baltic states Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, the only parts of the former Soviet Union itself to be admitted to NATO, fear Moscow could meddle in their affairs with the same rationale it applied in Ukraine - protecting Russians.
In an article in The Times newspaper on Thursday, Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron wrote: “To the east, Russia has ripped up the rulebook with its illegal, self-declared annexation of Crimea and its troops on Ukrainian soil threatening and undermining a sovereign nation state.
“To the South, there is an arc of instability that spreads from North Africa and the Sahel, to the Middle East.”
So far, Western military gestures of support for Ukraine have been mostly symbolic. NATO leaders are expected to approve a package of support for Kiev, setting up trust funds worth around 12 million euros ($15.8 million) to improve Ukrainian military capabilities in areas such as logistics, command and control and cyber defense.
A dozen countries will join an exercise in Lviv, Ukraine, later this month, co-hosted by Ukraine and the U.S. Army.
NATO officials say the alliance itself will not send the weapons that Ukraine is looking for but individual allies could do so if they wish.
RUSSIA RELATIONSHIP
NATO leaders will discuss the alliance’s relationship with Russia, which officials say has been fundamentally changed.
After the end of the Cold War, NATO and Russia sought cooperation in some security fields but NATO has concluded that this effort has failed, and for now at least, Russia is not a partner, a senior alliance official said.
“Russia has basically violated very fundamental agreements on the basis of which we have constructed peace and security in Europe for the last two decades,” the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.
NATO has already suspended cooperation with Moscow following its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region.
Related Coverage Russia expects France to deliver warships: minister
France, which has faced fierce pressure from Washington and other NATO allies to halt the sale of two helicopter carriers to Russia, said on Wednesday it would not deliver the first of the warships for now because of Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.
What NATO leaders will agree to do to help Iraq combat Islamic State militants is less clear.
The alliance as a whole is highly unlikely to follow the U.S. lead in staging military strikes on Islamic State, NATO diplomats say, although individual allies such as France and Britain may do so. NATO could revive a mission to help train the Iraqi armed forces that it halted in 2011, diplomats say.Hiring was strong in January and many economists expected another strong showing for February. Career fairs, like this one, have been bustling.. (Photo11: Alan Diaz, AP)
A labor-market survey on Wednesday provided the latest signal that job growth is strengthening along with business confidence.
Payroll processor ADP said businesses added 298,000 private-sector jobs in February, significantly above the 189,000 forecast. The figure was the latest positive reading on the labor market following a strong hiring report from LinkedIn, low jobless claims, and a surge in service-sector activity.
Together, the indicators are stoking expectations for Friday’s closely watched survey from the Labor Department, which counts both private and government jobs. That report is projected to show 190,000 payroll gains, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists.
The data “indicate that the U.S. job market is in very good shape at the beginning of 2017,” Gus |
, “it’s a purse. There’s stuff in there that’s purse-y.”
“It has a long strap,” Wilson countered.
“How far do you ever really have to carry it?” Anna Shapiro, the director, asked. “It would be a purse if you ever had to carry it to a car.”
Not finished with the subject of personal carriers, David moved on to discussing the backpack on wheels he now takes with him when he travels and his policy of always checking bags on airplanes, so he won’t have to lift a bag into an overhead bin (a movement he pantomimed dismissively, as if it revealed its own deficiency).
It was a recent Thursday afternoon, and David, Wilson, and the rest of the cast were rehearsing Fish in the Dark, David’s debut as both playwright and, excepting fifth- and eighth-grade turns in school plays, stage actor. David got the idea for the play two years ago from his friend Lloyd Braun, an entertainment executive whose father, a powerful music lawyer in Beverly Hills, had just died after a three-day hospital vigil. “We’re sitting shiva,” Braun recalls, “and Larry’s over the first day at my house, and I was telling him a whole bunch of stories of what had gone on for the last few days, because some were crazy and hilarious, like a relative flying in from wherever ’cause they want to be in show business. It’s an outlet for me. We start talking about how it’s incredible material. Larry says, ‘It’s a Broadway play.’ ” One might wonder why David, having mastered the half-hour sitcom as co-creator of Seinfeldand auteur of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, immediately thought of doing a play. For one thing, the limited number of settings—hospital room, shiva, etc.—suggested a stage production. But David had also been intrigued watching his friend Nora Ephron’s play Lucky Guy, imagining the thrill of live audience laughter. He went off and wrote Fish in the Dark.Later, he got an email from the producer Scott Rudin: “You wrote a play? Hello?”
It wasn’t David’s intention to star in it, but Rudin persuaded him that audiences would want him in the role (his fellow cast members include Wilson, Rosie Perez, Ben Shenkman, Lewis J. Stadlen, and Jayne Houdyshell). The producer ultimately paired David with Shapiro, who’d proved her ability to take non-theater animals like Chris Rock, in The Motherfucker With the Hat, and Tavi Gevinson, in This Is Our Youth, and make them Broadway-ready. David has already drawn her into his reality bubble, asking her, for instance, why he needs to change his clothes when he gets to the theater. Why can’t he just be wearing the first of his five or six costumes when he arrives? “At first, I thought it was the silliest question,” Shapiro says. “But then I thought, Why couldn’t we give him a rack of clothes at his hotel? He said, ‘Yeah, I don’t like getting undressed in places.’ ”
David in rehearsals for Fish in the Dark last week. Photo: Joan Marcus
David is lanky and kinetic. At the rehearsal, between reps of a scene set around the hospital deathbed, he was restless, chewing gum, shifting his weight from side to side, pacing in circles, removing his corduroy jacket, stretching his scarf behind his head as if it were a TheraBand, and making trips to a table on which he had an array of things to put in his mouth: a pack of Trident White, a box of licorice Altoids, a yellow tin of Rescue Pastilles lozenges. David was playing a character named Norman, but he might as well have been starring in a theatrical adaptation of Curb. So pronounced is David’s comic voice, so singular his mannerisms and cadences, and so pervasive the cultural residue of Seinfeld and Curb, that pretty much anything he says or does seems like the character he’s been cultivating for years, that alternately fretful and oblivious guardian of his own idiosyncratic vision of the social contract. Jason Alexander, who made a close study of David when he was playing his alter ego, George Costanza, on Seinfeld, found that it was a physical tic of David’s that unlocked the character for him: “What Larry does is when he hears something that stops him in his tracks, he drops his jaw, takes his tongue and rather firmly presses it against the base of his bottom teeth, his head will cock to one side, he’ll do an intermittent nod, and his eyebrows go up each time he nods, as if considering the veracity of what was said to him and a number of potential responses or nonresponses.”
David is anxious about Fish in the Dark’s plot being spoiled by early disclosure, but Rudin summarizes the play, which opens for previews next month at the Cort Theatre, as being “about a guy who, with the death of a patriarch they didn’t entirely relate to as a patriarch, leaves all the internal family relationships unmoored, and he’s pinioned between his wife and his mother.” In David’s hands, this means a cascade of metastasizing pettiness during what should theoretically be a period of sober grief. The scenes I watched him rehearse managed to squeeze in many of David’s obsessions, including greed, selfishness, dishonesty, aggrievement, and the awkwardness of tipping. But besides lots of his familiar comic alienation, the play will also feature more of a traditional dramatic arc than Seinfeld,where the on-set credo was “No Hugs, No Learning,” or Curb, which was similarly distinguished by a lack of character growth.
That afternoon, as he prepared to rehearse a shiva scene, there was one point he needed to resolve. Shapiro had told him that a moment in the play, where Norman receives a “bad hello” at a funeral, was a repeat of a scene from Seinfeld. David disagreed and had checked with a writer from the sitcom, who didn’t recall it either. “I can tell you the episode, I can tell you the exchange,” said Shapiro, who knows her Seinfeld. “You do not want to mess with me, Larry David.”
“That’s funny,” David said, “ ’cause I remember when I wrote the idea for it, and it was at Nora Ephron’s memorial, and that was way after Seinfeld.”
“You know what,” Shapiro said, “your humor speaks to the collective-unconscious experience. I don’t know what to tell you.” David was still unconvinced, so Shapiro launched into a detailed recitation of the episode’s plot, while a member of the crew confirmed her memory via Google.
David shook his head and said he now couldn’t rehearse that part. “I had the same idea again,” he acknowledged later. He would cut the scene from the play.
David, right, with Michael Richards, Andy Kaufman, Melanie Chartoff, and Brandis Kemp at a taping of Fridays in 1981. Photo: Ron Galella/Getty Images
After rehearsal, David and Shapiro shared an Uber to the Upper East Side. “This is my old building,” David pointed out as we passed a subsidized-artists’ high-rise at 43rd Street where he’d lived in the ’80s.
This was during the arctic blast of early January, and as the car sped past billowing steam pipes and bundled-up, speed-walking New Yorkers, Shapiro checked a weather app on her phone, reporting that “right now, it is 4 degrees,” but “it feels like it’s negative-9.”
“See, I don’t buy all ‘what it feels like,’ or this and that,” David said.
“Okay,” Shapiro said, “but this is spoken like someone who’s now spent too much time in warm weather.”
“You can give me the temperature, and that’s the temperature. Four degrees is 4 degrees.”
“If it’s 4 below, and the wind is not blowing, it’s 4 below,” Shapiro said. “But if it’s 4 below and the wind is blowing, it’s not 4 below.”
“Oh, at 4 below you can picture wind,” David said.
The semantics of temperature got David thinking about a therapist he’d gone to, years earlier, whom he’d told about a dream in which he was driving himself in a bus. “And he says, ‘Well, the bus is your house.’ I said, ‘Well, then, what’s my house?’ ” (It was a misleading story, insofar as David has had hardly any therapy and “can’t stand” it. “Give a guy a girlfriend and a great job, he doesn’t need therapy, that’s my theory,” he told me.) Cackling wickedly now, David said, “These publicity people are so scared of me.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Shapiro said. “You make me look amenable, so thank you for that.”
The Larry David of Curb Your Enthusiasm is a curmudgeon and misanthrope unconcerned with niceties. David himself conceives of the character as the person he’d like to be, if he weren’t impeded by social constraints. But his friends are used to having to explain that he’s not really the guy on the TV screen. They’ll describe him using shockingly off-brand words like “tremendously sweet” (Jason Alexander) and “kind” (Jeff Garlin) and “so generous in every way” (Steve Adams). Shapiro says she was initially wary. “I thought he would be neurotic in a not-amusing way. I thought I would encounter the darkness behind his humor. And I just haven’t had that. I find him to be incredibly warm, very friendly, really nice, and in the relationship really respectful, really generous. I can’t say enough about him as a person.”
David is someone whose mind snags on those glitches in social interaction that a lot of people barely notice or choose to ignore; he sees the comic possibilities and jots down the idea in the leather-bound notebook he carries with him at all times. “You can watch Larry David walk down the street and look at something,” Ricky Gervais says, “and laugh because you sort of know what he’s thinking.” The real David “perceives the slight and insult and diminishment, he just doesn’t always act on them,” Alexander says. In real life, David will say “Nice to meet you” and go out of his way to put an apple core in the proper trash bin. He also, unlike his character on Curb, has children, two college-student daughters with whom he loves FaceTiming.
Much of David’s artistry consists of his intricately structured, complexly orchestrated, many-stranded plots that resolve in a single, cluster-bomb dénouement, but the observations and incidents that are quintessentially Davidian derive both from his life and his lens on the world. “The Contest,” the Seinfeld episode about a masturbation contest that won the show an Emmy, was something David had actually done. When George Costanza quit his job in a huff, then went back into work the next day as if nothing had happened, it was based on David having done exactly the same thing. The show was filled with the real names of friends of his aunt in her Florida retirement community, who’d be buzzing the morning after a new episode aired about who’d been name-checked that week.
David has a knack for identifying and extrapolating the disaster potential of mundane situations. “What he is is a savage Edith Wharton,” says writer-director Larry Charles, who has worked with David off and on for more than three decades. “If I’m with him and we’re having a meal, and it’s unraveling for some very Larry David–esque reasons, which almost always happens, he’s also very conscious of it happening, and he’s riffing on what could happen, so it’s like three-dimensional comedy chess. He’s theorizing the quantum scenarios of consequences that could happen.” Robert Weide, who produced the first five seasons of Curb, remembers “so many times where that little book came out, and he’d write down an idea based on what could go wrong.”
And David, as Jerry Seinfeld has said, is also someone funny things just seem to happen to (even if sometimes he provokes them). Weide recalls waiting with David in a line at a bank, when, after ten minutes, David noticed that the line hadn’t been moving and started wondering aloud what was going on. “I thought, Oh no, here it comes,” Weide recalls. David began scrutinizing the teller stations and, seeing that a customer was shooting the breeze with a teller, started getting worked up. “Excuse me? Excuse me? Are you just going to chitchat all day? We’d all like to chitchat, but we have things to do.” In the 1970s, the comedian Richard Lewis brought David to group therapy with him and then to a gathering afterward at the Upper East Side apartment of one of the members. “I see Larry squirming,” Lewis remembers. “He stands up, says, ‘I can’t take you whiners, I don’t need to hear anyone’s problems, this is crap.’ I was laughing but saying, ‘Larry, sit down.’ ” David fled the apartment, pursued by the group. “He starts running down Second Avenue, then this whole group of needy Adlerian patients is chasing him, thinking we’re the Lone Ranger for him, like if he left the group, that would be it.” David took refuge in a phone booth. “There were nine people pounding on the booth, and he’s saying, ‘Leave me alone, I don’t need therapy.’ We’re screaming, ‘We love you, come back.’ ”
The convoluted border between the real David and his fictional alter egos has flummoxed even David. When the character “Larry David” organized a Seinfeld reunion on Curb and “Jason Alexander,” reprising his role as George Costanza, walked off the set, “Larry David” decided to step in and play the Costanza part, which was, after all, based on him. But during filming, real David called real Alexander and asked him to come down to the set to help him with the Costanza line readings. “The irony of which,” Alexander recalls, “was apparent to everyone but him. I said, ‘George is you, you schmuck.’ ”
By his own account, and that of others, David wasn’t a funny kid. But once he began to develop his comic voice in his 20s, finding his groove in the absurdities of social infractions and in an abiding expectation of doom, he had a wealth of childhood material to draw on. “It’s amazing such a functional human being came from that household, honestly,” David’s ex-wife, Laurie, says of the Sheepshead Bay apartment where Larry and his older brother, Ken, the children of Rose and Morty David, a clothing manufacturer, grew up with little privacy. There was an aunt next door, a grandmother upstairs, a cousin who moved in. Their father worked long hours. “Mainly what I remember,” Ken David recalls, “is his left hand sticking out of the bathroom door, perpendicular to the ground, and him saying, ‘More toilet paper, Larry!’ ”
Their mother was another story. She was “loud and overbearing and timid at the same time,” Laurie says. Once, when Morty was on a long business trip, he returned to find that his wife had retired to Florida, unilaterally. It wasn’t the end of their marriage, just a weird incident. Rose didn’t think Larry was going to amount to anything and even wrote a letter to the New York Post’s advice columnist, Rose Franzblau, seeking counsel about her younger son. Larry: “My mother used to say to me—this was after we’re No. 1—‘Do they like you? Are they going to keep you? Do they think you’re doing a good job? Did they tell you you’re good? Did they tell you you’re doing well?’ ” David’s wealth has been estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but when Larry and Laurie would book his parents first-class plane tickets and a room in a nice hotel when they came to visit L.A., Rose would downgrade the tickets to coach and, seeing the price of the room, refuse to stay there, checking in somewhere cheaper. The Davids were proud of their son, but Rose would say, “Larry, don’t spend your money.”
The success of Seinfeld was still a long way off in the early 1970s, when David was floundering with a series of odd jobs (bra salesman, chauffeur) and living in a roach-infested tenement his father owned in midtown. His mother urged him to see a psychiatrist, saying she’d pay for it. After he decided to become a comedian—he’d taken an acting class and found that when he improvised, the other students laughed—Rose was not reassured. “My mother was terribly worried about him,” says Ken, who has the more mother-friendly job of computer consultant. He channels Rose: “ ‘Larry, why don’t you get a job with the Board of Education? You’ll have a pension and be taken care of. What are you doing this for? Are you crazy?’ ”
From the early days of David’s stand-up, his preoccupation with manners and the ethics of everyday life was evident. He did a bit about Jonas Salk’s mother, imagining what an insufferable braggart she must have been about “my little Jonas.” Another bit began: “Every morning I wake up and thank God I wasn’t born a wealthy Spanish landowner,” because of the awkwardness of choosing when to use the tu form versus the usted form.
His comedy was unstudied. Peers like Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock and Ricky Gervais are deeply versed in comedy’s history. David was more like an outsider artist. “Larry has no conception of anything that preceded him in the comedy world other than Abbott and Costello and Sergeant Bilko,” Weide says.
But the purity of his point of view got him a reputation as a brilliant comic among fellow comics, who’d gather at the back of the room to watch him. Part of the draw was his chemical instability. He wouldn’t engage in the ingratiating stand-up boilerplate of “How’s everybody doing tonight?” He didn’t care how they were doing. He would get in fights with the crowd and storm off before his act was over. Once, preempted at the last minute by Rodney Dangerfield, who told the crowd that “Larry David” sounded like “a fag hairdresser,” David went on afterward, saw that the crowd was inattentive, said “Fuck you, you people are too stupid,” and walked off. “It was like watching Johnny Rotten sometimes,” Larry Charles remembers.
“I did not take heckling well,” David allows. “It upset me so much, I couldn’t be funny about it. I just couldn’t believe, just because it’s on a stage, that that separation could embolden someone to be such a prick. The disrespect was staggering. It was like, ‘What? How could you talk to me like that?’ ”
David’s sensitivity to slights was undulled even after he caught a break in 1979 and joined the cast of Fridays, a short-lived Saturday Night Liveknockoff. He moved to L.A. for the show and bought his first car, a convertible Fiat sports car (albeit an automatic, because he didn’t like to shift). He drove it out of the showroom and put the top down. Fifteen minutes later, as he pulled up at a red light, a guy at a bus stop yelled, “Your show stinks!” David put the top up and never put it down again. Later, during his one season writing for SNL, where he managed to get only a single sketch on the air (with a discernibly David-esque focus on whether elevator operators should have stools and under what conditions they should use them), he quit in a huff after yelling at producer Dick Ebersol (this was the job he’d return to as if he’d never quit).
Even back then, David had unapologetic convictions about what he thought was funny. “He was pumping out Larry David stuff,” recalls his friend Steve Adams, who worked with David on Fridays, “but it wasn’t Larry David time yet.” Although other comics loved him, and his best friend (and future wife) Laurie was a booker for David Letterman, she could never get him on Late Night. “Letterman didn’t get his humor,” Laurie says. “Larry didn’t stand up and tell jokes. He did, but it was more stories and persona and all that kind of thing.” David didn’t even want to travel for out-of-town gigs, which “is bordering on insanity,” she says. “It’s like a pilot who doesn’t want to travel.” Weide was a young development executive when David’s screenplay Prognosis Negative, about a commitment-phobic man for whom the perfect mate turns out to be a terminally ill woman, given her built-in expiration date, crossed his desk. David came in for a few meetings, whereupon a more senior executive told David he thought the script was very funny, but the main character wasn’t likable or sympathetic and could David do something to make him more so. “Larry thought about it and thought about it and said: ‘No, I don’t think so.’ So he became my hero.”
David knew where his unwillingness to compromise might lead him. Walking around New York, he’d scout grates and awnings that might prove useful should he become homeless. “I literally had conversations with other friends of Larry’s in L.A.,” Weide says, “where the subject was: What are we going to do when Larry can’t afford a roof over his head? Do we all take turns letting him stay with us, or gather funds to help him make his monthly nut?”
What changed everything, of course, was his once-in-a-millennium partnership with Seinfeld, whom he knew from the clubs and who had become a close friend. Laurie thinks the spark happened at a birthday party for the comedian Carol Leifer, where David’s gift was two pages of material he wrote for the occasion and Seinfeld read them aloud to riotous laughter. In any case, Seinfeld was a hugely successful headliner by the late ’80s, and NBC had approached him to develop a show. At a Korean deli one night, they started riffing on the random, unlabeled items near the cash register that looked like they’d been made in someone’s basement. They agreed it was exactly this kind of talk, about “nothing,” that the show should be about.
The television phenomenon that followed owes much to the ways in which Seinfeld served as insulation for David, rendering his comedy palatable to a network audience and David himself palatable to network execs. David routinely threatened to quit in the show’s early days and would flatly reject network notes. NBC didn’t want to run an early episode that took place entirely while waiting in line at a Chinese restaurant—which became one of the show’s defining episodes—but David didn’t care. Moving the show from Wednesday to Thursday paved the way for the show to become the giant hit that it did, but David was annoyed, objecting that if someone couldn’t be bothered to watch the show on Wednesdays, why would he want their patronage on Thursdays.
As the show was taking off, David’s life changed in another significant way. His relationship with Laurie had at last escaped the friend zone. “He finally made a move and leaned over and kissed me,” she says. “That had only taken him like six years.” They fell in love and got engaged, but the engagement stretched out for another three years. “Every time we talked about getting married, or even an engagement ring, his neck would break out in huge red hives. Finally, I kicked him out, he came back, he started stalking me in restaurants in L.A., moping, following me around. Finally, we got on a plane to Vegas. He wanted to go to a Las Vegas drive-through. I said, ‘You’re getting out of the car. That’s the least you can do as a concession.’ ”
David felt uncomfortable with the perks of his mounting success. In the early ’90s, Seinfeld, who collects Porsches, encouraged his co-creator to get one. “He was extolling the virtues of them,” David said, “and he told me about the Tiptronic, which was an automatic one they just made. I thought, What the hell?” He immediately regretted the purchase. “It was like a bad suit. It didn’t fit. It was a bad fit for me. I felt very self-conscious. I didn’t like what I was saying to people. When I pulled up to restaurants, I’d pull up two blocks away and park so I wouldn’t have to get out in front of anybody.” Within two weeks of buying the car, David had returned it for a $12,000 loss.
Since getting divorced in 2007, David has lived a comfortable but not overly lavish or complicated existence in a house a few minutes’ drive from his ex, who calls him “my best friend, again.”
“I wasn’t really an ideal husband,” David told me.
“He’s a creative, brilliant writer-producer-performer who lives in his head a lot,” Laurie says. “And when you live in your head a lot, that’s not necessarily the best way to have a relationship. It can be a little lonely.”
Though Laurie says he is “the best ex-husband you could possibly wish for,” David still lives in his head a lot. Jeff Garlin, who plays David’s manager on Curb, considers him a comedy monomaniac. “I could be 100 percent funnier than I am if all I did was look at the world for what’s funny and didn’t pay attention to anything else,” Garlin says. “I’m not saying that he doesn’t pay attention, but he doesn’t pay attention.” Echoes Laurie: “We’d be walking down the street in New York City, and we had to turn left, and he’d go three blocks before he realized I wasn’t with him. That’s a true story. I’d let him keep going and be amazed to see how far he’d go.”
The paradox that the most unemployable comic of his era co-created the most profitable sitcom ever is not lost on David or his friends, but while he has allowed himself certain comforts (he owns a BMW i3 electric car and belongs to a fancy golf club), David has never been a things person. He mostly enjoys his fame, though, not least because he has willed into existence a public context for his private self. Thoughts and behaviors that might once have seemed merely antisocial are now perceived as funny; Curb has given him permission to be more aggressive. Gervais suggested to David that he just say “Nah, guys, I don’t do that” when paparazzi ask him to pose, and he reported back that he’d tried it and it worked: Instead of being antagonized, the photographers just laughed. Alexander recalls watching as a friend who hosts a radio talk show in L.A. asked David to come on, and David said, “No, I don’t want to, why would I do that?” Laurie says their children yell at him to be friendlier on the street, “but he’s like, ‘I don’t have to be, ’cause everyone knows who I am.’ ” David doesn’t deny this. “Exactly,” he says. “Being Larry David on Curb was the best thing to happen to Larry David in life.”
Fame has also made dating a lot easier than it was pre-Seinfeld. I asked whether he dates only age-appropriate women. “No,” he said, laughing. “It all depends on whose idea of appropriate … Here’s the thing … When I’m talking to someone, I don’t know what I look like, you know? I know I’m old, but I don’t have a sense of being old. You know what I mean? I’m just inside my face, not being able to see. If I saw my face, I’d go, ‘Get away from her!’ but I can’t see my face, so I don’t know what I look like as I’m doing this, because nothing feels differently. It’s just a personality talking to another person. Only later, when you see a picture of yourself, you go, No, no, you can’t do that. It’s an odd sensation … that suddenly people are off-limits.”
As he said this, he was sitting near the back of a French bistro on East 66th Street, which was a loaded scenario. What vaginas were to Georgia O’Keeffe and depressive thinking was to David Foster Wallace, restaurants are to Larry David. Much of Curb played out in restaurants, including an entire season centered on his character opening one. No aspect of the restaurant experience has escaped David’s consideration. Laurie describes a restaurant meal with her ex as “major eye-rolling time … a thousand questions, what’s in each dish, then all the angst about the tipping.” (David used to argue against going on family vacations because he didn’t want to worry about the tipping challenges. “At Christmastime, who he tips, who he doesn’t,” says Laurie. “I still take care of some of it for him, the FedEx guy, the gardener. Every Christmas is just torture.”)
It was 3:30 in the afternoon, and David was drinking sparkling water but not eating. “This is a terrible food-consumption time,” he explained. “No-man’s-land.” We’d already switched tables once, to put us out of earshot of other diners. “Are we in hearing distance here?” asked David. “We’d be much better off at a noisy kind of diner.” Now David told me he’s not as inclined as he used to be to get into drawn-out discussions with waiters. “Before, if the food was cold, you know, I’d send it back without even thinking about it, and now it’s, ‘Oh, Larry David’s an asshole.’ ” Tipping, too, has been affected by his fame. “Tipping is a major obsession,” he said. “Now I have more tip pressure than I ever have … I’ve got to be tip-ready at all times.”
In the few weeks David had been in New York, he’d done little beyond rehearsing and having some dinners with friends. That coming Sunday, he’d get together with Seinfeld, with whom he’s still friendly. And he was still working on the play. Shapiro had felt there was a structural problem with the last quarter of the script, and David would spend the following day rewriting it. David had also been diverging from the script during rehearsals. Curb’s dialogue was all improvised, and now David found himself unable to stop ad-libbing during rehearsals. Some of this has resulted in improvements to the script, but Shapiro has also had to rein him in. “It’s been humbling,” David said. “But she and Scott have been pushing me.”
Suddenly, he’d lost track of whose water glass was whose. “Is this mine? Are there bubbles?” He held it up and eyed it suspiciously. “Ah, whatever.” He took a sip. “It tastes like tap water. Nah, it’s okay.”
Did Larry David just say “whatever”?
I had glanced down at my notes for a moment when I became aware of a drumming sound and looked up. David’s hands were positioned as if on a keyboard, and he was pounding his fingertips on the table, loudly, as if playing something by Rachmaninoff. He saw me looking at him. “Oh, no, no,” he said. “No, no, that’s not like a hurry-up.” I must have looked at him skeptically, because he held up his index fingers like goalposts. “That—you misinterpreted. You misinterpreted. That was not a hurry-up. It was not a yawn. It was nothing like that. I was looking at the shadow of my fingers. You know, it had nothing—it wasn’t that. It was not that. I swear to you. Children’s lives.”
*This article appears in the January 26, 2015 issue of New York Magazine.Beginning Jan. 22, 2018, Pennsylvania residents wanting to board a flight may need another form of identification than their driver's license.A Pennsylvania driver's license will not be a proper form of identification for domestic air travel starting on that date due to the state not being compliant with the REAL ID Act. Other states not in compliance include Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Washington.Delaware is compliant. New Jersey has an extension which allows federal agencies to accept driver's licenses until Oct. 10, 2017.Last week, the TSA began posting signs at airports to notify travelers of the January 2018 change.Here's how the Department of Homeland Security describes the REAL ID Act:According to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, the state does not meet the REAL ID requirements due to legislation."Our commonwealth does not currently meet these federal standards due to the passage, by the Pennsylvania General Assembly, of Act 38 of 2012, which bars the Governor and PennDOT from participating in REAL ID," PennDOT states on their website. Act 38 states:PennDOT says they are out of compliance not only because of existing state law, but due to "limited technical reasons.""PennDOT has always focused on providing a secure driver's license and supporting process and we already have made additional improvements," PennDOT Secretary Leslie S. Richards said in a statement in October. "In large measure, we are out of compliance for limited technical reasons and because existing state law bars us from fully complying. While we understand frustration with the cost of this unfunded federal mandate, our failure to comply because of the prohibition of current law will be a burden for Pennsylvanians."Speaking to 6abc Action News on Wednesday, PennDOT confirmed nothing has changed in regards to the state law preventing Pennsylvania from taking part in REAL ID.In a statement issued at the beginning of 2016, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh C. Johnson said, "So, for a license or identification card to be REAL ID compliant, the state issuing it must, for example, incorporate anti-counterfeit technology into the card, verify the applicant's identity, and conduct background checks for employees involved in issuing driver's licenses."Johnson says the overall goal of the REAL ID Act is to prevent fraudulent issuance and uses of driver's licenses and identification cards.While a Pa. driver's license will not allow a passenger to board a flight come Jan. 22, 2018, the impact of the REAL ID Act will be felt much sooner - this January.Beginning on Jan. 30, 2017, a Pennsylvania driver's license will not be a valid form of identification for those visiting a federal facility, nuclear power plant or military base. Pennsylvania residents will need a federally-approved form of identification to access those buildings and facilities."If you will be visiting a federal facility, nuclear power plant or military base on or after January 30, 2017, it is recommended that you contact that particular facility concerning any additional identification requirements," PennDOT says While airline passengers from Pennsylvania and eight other states will be affected come January 2018, every traveler from every state will need a REAL ID-compliant license, or other form of acceptable identification, for domestic air travel beginning Oct. 1, 2020.So what can you use instead of a Pennsylvania driver's license?Here's a list from the TSA U.S. passportU.S. passport cardDHS trusted traveler cards (Global Entry, NEXUS, SENTRI, FAST)U.S. military ID (active duty or retired military and their dependents, and DoD civilians)Permanent resident cardBorder crossing cardDHS-designated enhanced driver's licenseAirline or airport-issued ID (if issued under a TSA-approved security plan)Federally recognized, tribal-issued photo IDHSPD-12 PIV cardForeign government-issued passportCanadian provincial driver's license or Indian and Northern Affairs Canada cardTransportation worker identification credentialU.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Employment Authorization Card (I-766)U.S. Merchant Mariner CredentialBut for now, until Jan. 22, 2018, to be specific, residents of all states - including Pennsylvania - will still be able to use a state-issued driver's license or identification card for domestic air travel.REAL ID FAQ: https://www.dhs.gov/real-id-public-faqs REAL ID Fact Sheet: https://www.tsa.gov/sites/default/files/resources/realid_factsheet.pdf TSA to Notify Travelers: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/12/12/tsa-notify-travelers-upcoming-2018-real-id-airport-enforcement Types of acceptable ID: https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification PennDOT statement on REAL ID: http://www.dmv.pa.gov/Information-Centers/Identity-Security/Pages/Real-ID-Act.aspx Current Status of States/Territories: https://www.dhs.gov/current-status-states-territoriesAbout
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any questions please ask.By Ben White, Electronic Intifada – 1 June 2013
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ben-white/new-israeli-plan-calls-more-intelligence-gathering-disrupt-bds-movement
This week in Jerusalem, the Israeli foreign ministry hosted the fourth international conference of the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism.
As I previously blogged, this is “a gathering that has served as an important focus for efforts to fight Palestine solidarity activism and boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns.” The pre-conference agenda and working group mission statements made it clear that hasbara — propaganda — was once again going to be high on the agenda.
Reproduced below is the “Action Plan” presented to delegates by the |
. Britain believes kidnappings can be curbed if the pay-outs end. Some insurance companies offer specialist cover for ransom payments.
Internet address matching
Internet service providers and mobile phone will be obliged to retain more information and hand it over to the authorities on request, allowing the security services to match specific IP addresses to individual computers.
A new civil liberties watchdog
A Privacy and Civil Liberties Board will support David Anderson QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, to monitor the impact of counter-terrorism legislation and act as a counter-weight to the demands of the security services for greater powers.The video will start in 8 Cancel
Get the biggest Liverpool FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Liverpool striker Divock Origi has joined Wolfsburg on a season-long loan.
The Bundesliga outfit will pay all of his wages and a substantial loan fee of around £6million to secure the services of the Belgium international.
Wolfsburg boss Andries Jonker is willing to give Origi the regular game time Jurgen Klopp believes he needs in order to boost his development.
The ECHO understands that there is no option for the Germans to buy Origi at the end of the loan, with Klopp still viewing the frontman as part of his long-term plans.
Origi dropped down the pecking order at Anfield following this summer's arrival of striker Dominic Solanke from Chelsea.
The 22-year-old was a late substitute against Watford on the opening weekend but hasn't featured since and didn't even make the bench for Liverpool's past two matches.
Premier League clubs Newcastle and Tottenham were keen on Origi but Liverpool's preference was that he went abroad.
Marseille, Bayer Leverkusen and Werder Bremen were also in contention but Wolfsburg tabled the most attractive offer.
Origi has scored 21 goals in 77 appearances for Liverpool since arriving from Lille two years ago.Here we publish the election results, exit polls data, referendum sentiment across the European Union (EU) and the latest from Italian Prime Minister Mr Renzi. The Italy referendum, in which two-thirds of eligible voters or 33million Italians cast ballots, triggered a shock wave across Europe much like Britain's decision to leave the EU - otherwise known as Brexit. Mr Renzi announced his resignation 90-minutes after polls closed late on Sunday night after honouring his promise to step down if voters disagreed with his efforts to change the constitution to streamline the country's system of government. "No" won an overwhelming 59.1 per cent of the vote while "Yes" - Mr Renzi's position - lost with 40.9 per cent, according to the final count. Financial markets have taken a tumble worldwide as they brace themselves for fresh volatility amid fears his fall could spark a run on Italy's totering banks, further weakening the euro. Italian president Sergio Mattarella is now tasked with the decision over what happens next, with his options including appointing a head of government with the support of the current majority or a new enlarged majority - which is the most likely - or triggering a snap election, which is highly unlikely after recent electoral reform means the leading party has a parliamentary majority. The vote came on the same night Austrians arrived at the the polls to vote in the Austria presidential election, which saw far-right leader Norbert Hofer defeated by independent candidate Alexander Van der Bellen.
GETTY Matteo Renzi is hoping for a Yes vote in the Italian referendum
8.15pm update: The euro jumped against the US dollar after Mr Renzi's referendum loss, a defeat that traders had widely expected. Shahab Jalinoos, global head of FX strategy at Credit Suisse in New York, said: "The market had a lot of time to prepare for a no vote... there is nothing as yet imminently more negative than what the market had anticipated.” Expectations that the European Central Bank (ECB) will hint at reducing its bond purchase program when it meets this Thursday is also seen as adding to strength to the single currency. Mr Jalinoos said: "The imminence of the ECB meeting is another factor that has led to the recovery of the euro today.” The euro gained 0.96 percent to $1.0774, after earlier rising to $1.0796, the highest since Nov. 15. It briefly weakened to $1.0503, the weakest since March 2015, in the immediate aftermath of the Italian vote. 7.25pm update: President Sergio Mattarella told Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to put his planned resignation on hold until parliament had approved the 2017 budget, which could be done as early as Friday. Mattarella's office said in a statement that the prime minister had told him he could no longer remain in power. The president told him he should stay in place until the budget was passed to prevent emergency funding rules from kicking in on January 1. Once the budget is passed, Mr Renzi has been told he can hand in his resignation, the statement added. 7.04pm update: The Italian President has rejected Mr Renzi’s resignation. Mr Renzi has been asked to delay his resignation until the Italian budget is passed by Parliament. The budget is expected to be approved within days. 6.50pm update: Mr Renzi’s resignation could open the door to elections next year and to the possibility of the opposition 5-Star Movement gaining power in the heart of the single currency area. 5-Star, which campaigned hard for a 'No' vote, wants to hold a referendum instead on membership of the euro. The new prime minister, who will need the backing of Mr Renzi’s Democratic Party to take office, will have to draw up a new electoral law, with 5-Star urging a swift deal to open the way for elections in early 2017, a year ahead of schedule. "From tomorrow, we will start work on putting together 5-Star's future programme and the team of people that will make up a future government," said Luigi Di Maio, tipped to be the group's prime ministerial candidate. Opinion polls put 5-Star neck-and-neck with the Democratic Party.
EPA Renzi arrives by car at the Quirinale presidential palace
6.46pm update: The final count says ”No" won an overwhelming 59.1 percent of the vote. About 33 million Italians, or two-thirds of eligible voters, cast ballots following months of bitter campaigning that pitted Renzi against all major opposition parties, including the anti-establishment 5-Star. 6.42pm update: Accepting defeat earlier today, Mr Renzi said: “My experience of government finishes here.” But the Italian premier could be offered a lifeline. President Sergio Mattarella is expected to either accept Mr Renzi's resignation, ask him to stay on for a few days in order to pass the country's 2017 budget, or appoint a caretaker leader until elections can be held in the eurozone's third largest economy. 6.15pm update: Mr Renzi has been photographed arriving at the Quirinale presidential palace to meet Italy's President Sergio Mattarella to formally offer his resignation. Earlier today Mr Renzi said: “My experience of government finishes here.”
AFP GETTY Earlier today Mr Renzi said: “My experience of government finishes here.”
5.59pm update. More from the US now, with the White House saying the impact of the referendum remains to be seen. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said: "I would warn against painting with an overly broad brush about the potential consequences of this outcome.” He also warned against drawing too close comparisons between Brexit and Donald Trump’s election win. Mr Earnest said: "Each of these is different. There are some broader trends that are worthy of analysis but there's a risk of oversimplifying that analysis.” 5.48pm update: White House says the US and Italy maintain an important relationship. 5.46pm update: As Mr Renzi prepares to hand in his resignation, it is worth noting how he took office in 2014 promising to shake up Italy. He presented himself as an anti-establishment "demolition man" determined to crash through a smothering bureaucracy and reshape creaking institutions. However, his economic policies have made little impact, and the 5-Star Movement has claimed the anti-establishment banner, tapping into a populist mood that has swept the EU.
AFP/ GETTY Journalists wait for the arrival of Renzi in front of the Quirinale presidential palace in Rome
5.40pm update: Looking to the Italian banks after ‘No’ won an overwhelming 59.1 percent of the vote, according to the final count. Italy's banking sector - which is weighed down by more than 350 billion euros of bad loans - was down about 3 per cent at 4.10pm GMT. Monte dei Paschi shares closed down 4.2 per cent after as a consortium of investment bankers met to discuss a capital increase to raise 5 billion euros which the lender needs by the end of the month to avoid being wound down. Yields on Italy's benchmark 10-year bond initially soared to more than 2.07 per cent, but then retreated back below 2 per cent. 5.30pm update: Mr Renzi has called a Cabinet meeting after which he says he will formally tender his resignation. 5.25pm update: With speculation over what the referendum will mean for Italy's future as a member of the EU, an unlikely Twitter row has broken out. Singer Ellie Goulding has kicked off a fiery online row with Katie Hopkins over the idea of Italy leaving the EU. It appears that Miss Goulding threw the first punch, telling the columnist to "delete her account" after she posted an "Italia Exit EU" graphic with the caption: "ITALEXIT!! Another one falls - welcome back to the lira. Ciao ciao to the E.U....how's your day going Miss Merkel?" Mrs Hopkins made a personal hit back at the comment, posting: "Ellie. It is never going to happen. Stop talking now lovely, that pitch sets the dogs off." But Miss Goulding took things a step further, apparently suggesting a physical fight as she posted a picture of a rubbish bag in a tweet reading: "Taking the trash out, suitably apt #ByeKatie #Fancysomesparring."
TWITTER Katie Hopkins and Ellie Goulding got into a heated row over Italian politics on Twitter
EPA A Renzi figurine holds a suitcase and a placard saying 'I resigned'
5.05pm update: It is unclear if Mr Renzi will have enough support in his Democratic Party (PD) to remain party leader - a role that could give him a say in who becomes the next prime minister. Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan, who has pulled out of meetings with European finance ministers in Brussels this week, is viewed as a possible candidate for prime minister. Senate President Pietro Grasso and Transport Minister Graziano Delrio have also been tipped as potential premiers. 4.56pm update: Italian President Sergio Mattarella issued a statement on the referendum. He said the high turnout was a "testimony of a solid democracy and a passionate country capable of active participation." "Before us there are commitments and deadlines which Italy's institutions will have to respect in order to provide an adequate response to the problems of the moment," he added. 3.15pm update: Downing St has said Britain will "work closely" with the new administration in Italy which emerges after the resignation of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in the wake of his referendum defeat. 3.05pm update: The euro recovered from earlier weakness against the US dollar on Monday after Mr Renzi's loss in a referendum over constitutional reform was seen by traders as largely expected and recent euro weakness was seen as having run too far. The single currency tumbled as much as 1.4 percent in Asian trade to hit $1.0719, its weakest since March 2015, before recovering to $1.0709, up 0.43 percent on the day. Mark McCormick, North American head of foreign exchange strategy at TD Securities in Toronto, said: "There's not a large political implication for the euro and the euro is also very overextended."
Il Tempo Italy's Il Tempo says the country has "scrapped the scrapper"
3pm update: German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was saddened by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's defeat. Mrs Merkel had supported the referendum on constitutional reform but she added the vote was a domestic matter that must be respected. Many investors are looking to Merkel for leadership in Europe, fearing instability could reignite a sovereign debt crisis at a time when the EU is struggling with Britain's decision to leave and support for populist or right-wing parties is on the rise. The German Chancellor said: "I am sad that the referendum in Italy did not turn out as the prime minister wished because I always supported his reform policies but it is of course a domestic Italian decision that we must respect." 1.20pm update: Mr Renzi's emotional, midnight resignation announcement sent the euro lower and jolted stock and bond markets on concerns that early elections could follow, possibly paving the way for an anti-euro party, the 5-Star Movement, to come to power. Financial markets bounced back later in the morning as European officials played down the prospect of a broader euro zone crisis, but Italy's fragile bank sector had dropped more than 4.7 percent at 1.20pm GMT. 12pm update: Mr Renzi has been seen returning to the Palazzo Chigi, his official residence, after talking to President Mattarella. Italians are now waiting for the President to announce Mr Renzi's resignation. 11.30am update: Mr Renzi has gone to the Palazzo Quirinale, one of three official residences of the Italian President, for a one-hour meeting with President Mattarella in which he is expected to formally resign. 10.00am update: Jeroen Dijesselbloem, the Dutch President of the Eurogroup of eurozone ministers, was not quite as upbeat as his colleagues. As he went into today's meeting, he said political instability makes it more complicated for Italy and the eurozone. Better news though for Italy at 10am, with shares rising as investors bet against an immediate snap election and US futures pointing to a rise of about 0.5 per cent at the opening of Wall Street. 09.30am update: Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble has chipped in, saying he has spoken to his Italian counterpart and adding Italy should continue the economic reforms begun by Mr Renzi. Speaking as he arrived at the eurozone finance ministers meeting, he said he believed it was important for Italy to now have a functioning government and he saw no grounds for there to be a crisis for the euro currency. He added investors should be "relaxed" about the Italian referendum as he became the latest European politician to say the vote was a domestic issue. 09.10am update: Italy's finance minister Pier Carlo Padoan has cancelled a trip to Brussels this morning to join his eurozone colleagues. He has been heavily tipped as a potential successor to Mr Renzi, along with Senate Speaker Pietro Grasso and Culture Minister Dario Franceschini. 09.00am update: Politicians across the EU are keen this morning to let the world know the Italian referendum was NOT about the country's membership of the bloc. France's finance minister Michel Sapin is the latest, saying the Italian referendum was not about the EU as it was a domestic issue and "Italy is a solid country". Addressing the fall in the euro, he said previous strength had "not necessarily" been good for European exporters and the exchange rate largely reflected strength in the dollar.
REUTERS Matteo Renzi looks dejected as he confirms he will step down as Italy's Prime Minister
08.40 update: Italian banks are down five to six per cent this morning, according to traders. European banks were also seen down two to three per cent. Morgan Stanley wrote to clients this morning saying state aid at Banca Monte dei Pashi looked incresingly likely, adding the "No" vote made it more difficult for Italy's third-largest bank to find an anchor investor. 08.30am update: Talking ahead of a meeting of euro zone finance ministers in Brussels today, the European Economics Commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, said: "It's a solid country with solid authorities and I have complete confidence that Italy can handle this situation. "There is some political instability but the country is extremely stable and it's also a big economy. "I am confident there will be no such crisis. We have the means to resist any kind of political shock in Europe." He dismissed suggestions the referendum had been a vote against the European Union, saying: "Nothing to do with it. ”It's a domestic constitutional amendment in Italy which has not managed to get through." 08.00am update: Newspaper front pages across Europe feature Mr Renzi's resignation, with Italian papers going to town over his self-enforced downfall. Il Tempo calls him his nickname, "rottamatore", in reference to his ambition to change the constitution. The Italian daily also says voters have "scrapped the scrapper". Il Manifesto leads with "Bello ciao" - goodbye beautiful - in reference to the 41-year-old's youthful looks. British newspapers lead with the Italian Prime Minister's resignation plunging the eurozone into crisis.
REUTERS Mr Renzi delivers a speech from Palazzo Chigi confirming he will resign as Italy's Prime Minister
07.30am update: The euro has fallen to a 20-month low after Asian markets opened earlier, despite markets overnight taking some encouragement when Austria's far-right presidential candidate was soundly defeated. European markets were set to open down 0.6 per cent, with the FTSE set to start the day 0.4 per cent lower as investors brace for turbulence and political crisis in the eurozone' heavily indebted third-largest economy. 07.00am update: According to Italy's Sky TG24 who referenced Quorum pollsters, younger voters between 18-34 year olds opted for 'no' by 81 per cent. For the age group 35-54, 67 per cent chose no. Only the 55+ voters went for yes with a majority of 53 per cent. Nigel Farage wrote on Twitter: "Hope the exit polls in Italy are right. This vote looks to me to be more about the Euro than constitutional change.”
05.30am update: European Central Bank policy maker Francois Villeroy de Galhau said the Italian referendum defeat cannot be compared to Brexit. He said: "It cannot be compared to the British referendum: Italian people have been called to the polls ot vote on an internal consitutional matter, and not on Italy's long-standing EU membership." 01.00am update: Just hours after voters left the ballot boxes the euro has skidded to a 20-month low, slumping to as low as $1.0505 in early Asian trade after opening at around $1.0685, pulling back up to $1.0562. The drop was the sharpest fall since June's Brexit result in the UK. 00.46am update: If you’re just joining us, here are the headlines: Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzihas resigned after conceding defeat after exit polls showed a majority of Italians voted "No" in the country’s momentous referendum. Renzi had staked his political career on the result of the referendum on constitutional reform and promised to resign while the "Yes" vote was well ahead in the polls, but his promise has now backfired. He announced at the press conference that his “experience of government finishes here” and will step down tomorrow afternoon. Read more about what this means for Italy HERE
XE.COM The graph shows the Euro's drop in value against the dollar in the wake of the referendum result
Twitter The turnout has been high across Italy as they go to the polls
00.25am update: With almost three-quarters of the votes counted, the ‘NO’ votes stand at 59.4 per cent with the ‘YES’ votes significantly behind with just 40.6 per cent. 00.22am update: Founder of Italy’s populist Five Star Movement, Beppe Grillo, has called for an election “as soon as possible” following the announcement that the prime minister will resign. He wrote: “The response of the Italian as turnout and how indication was clear. The regime's propaganda and all his lies are the first losers in this referendum. Times have changed. Sovereignty belongs to the people, now we start to really apply our Constitution. “This vote has two important consequences. 1) Goodbye Renzi 2) The Italians are to be called to vote as soon as possible.” 00.06am update: The euro is reportedly at a 12-month low against the dollar in the wake of Mr Renzi’s resignation announcement as the world waits for more clarification regarding Italy’s immediate future. 00.03am update: "The experience of my government ends here," said Mr Renzi, with early results suggesting he may have lost the referendum by as much as 20 points.
TWITTER Mayor of Rome and Five Star Movement member Virginia Raggi tweeted that Italians have "won"
PD headquarters in Rome, hopefully gearing up for a Renzi appearance pic.twitter.com/v3IoMXa0za — Megan Greene (@economistmeg) December 4, 2016
00.01am update: During his speech, Mr Renzi said he would tell a Cabinet meeting on Monday afternoon that he intends to resign before tendering his resignation, ending his two-and-a-half year tenure as Italy’s leader. 11.39pm update: "I will resign. The whole country knows that they can count on that of the President Mattarella." - Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. 11.36pm update: Mr Renzi says he “takes full responsibility” for the referendum defeat, delivering on his promise to resign if he lost the vote. 11.28pm update: Matteo Renzi has confirmed he will resign as the Italian Prime Minister after losing a historic referendum on constitutional reform. 11.21pm update: Mr Renzi has just tweeted to thank his supporters “anyway”, writing: “Thanks everyone, anyway. In a few minutes I will be live from Palazzo Chigi. Long live Italy! “PS I’m coming”.
TWITTER/PIERO PELU A voter has complained the pencils used on the ballots can be erased
XE.COM The Euro has seen a huge drop against the Pound over the past few hours
10.34pm update: "Renzi is going to go and with him the powerful lobbies who were also defeated," said Renato Brunetta, the parliamentary leader of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party. While Matteo Salvini, the head of the rightist Northern League party, said Renzi should resign "in the coming minutes" and called for early elections. 10.27pm update: After voting Beppe Grillo, founder of the anti-euro 5-star Movement which backs a 'No' vote, said the country needed to go to new elections as soon as possible. 10.22pm update: The euro immediately fell against the dollar on the exit polls, slipping to $1.0580 from $1.0625. 10.21pm update: The lower house leader of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia Party says Italy referendum result means Renzi must resign, says Reuters. 10.18pm update: An exit poll by the Piepoli Institute/IPR for state television station RAI, estimated those voting 'Yes' to back the reform at 42-46 percent, compared with 54-58 percent for 'No'.
10.12pm update: Pollsters EMG have released the following prediction: Yes 41-45%, No 55-59% 10.06pm update: Polls are predicting that Mr Renzi will not win his vote, Reuters is reporting he will lose by a "clear margin". 9.30pm update: If those who like a flutter are anything to go by then the No vote has turned out in a spectacular fashion. Just half an hour before the polls close, Smarkets are saying that 72% of their bets were targeted to the no camp. If this is the case then it's arrivederci Mr Renzi! A Smarkets spokesman said: "After a year of shocks in political betting, could Renzi end up getting enough yes votes to win the referendum? "Van der Bellen's victory in Austria was not expected, so eyes now turn to Italy to see if they too buck the trend." 9.00pm update: Italy’s prime minister who has been in a jovial mood today will address the nation at around midnight or 11pm UK time, according to Reuters. This will be approximately on hour after the polls close. No definitive result is expected until the early hours of the morning. Mr Renzi says he will quit if the country does not back his ambitious plan.
AFP Nearly 60 per cent of Italians have voted in the critical referendum
8.24pm update: In large cities the largest turnout for the referendum was recorded in Milan, where at 7pm voted 60.9% of those eligible. In Rome, the voter turnout was 55.9%, while there was 57.3% in Turin. There was lower turnout in the south: in Naples voted 42.9%. In Palermo it went to the polls 47%. Among other capitals registering their records were Florence which had a 67.3% turnout and Bologna where 65.3% turned out. In Bari 52.2% turned out; Catanzaro turnout was 49%, in Reggio Calabria of 46.8%; Cagliari voted 54.2%. 8.19pm update: Mr Renzi has lauded the vote and says no matter the outcome he will wake up tomorrow with a smile on his face. Newspaper La Stampa quoted him as saying: “Italians have participated in decisions that affect our country and that is a beautiful thing. We will wake up tomorrow with a smile, whatever happens, because we have made our contribution to the future of Italy.” 7.55pm update: 46,714,950 voters are eligble to vote, distributed in 7,998 municipalities and 61,551 polling stations in the country.
TWITTER Martin Schulz's congratulated Van Der Bellen on his win
7:45pm update: Elsewhere, Donald Tusk has sent his "warm" congratulations to Van Der Bellen. The President of the European Council tweeted: "Warm congratulations to @vanderbellen on his election as President of Austria. Keeping European unity is essential". 7:43pm update: Sardinia, North-East and East Sicily have seen the biggest increases in turnout since 2014. While the North East, Lombardy and East Sicily report the highest turnouts 7:40pm update: Experts say the result is too close to call as pollsters predicted lower turnout numbers, so their predictions may be out. 7:21pm update: Controversy was sparked after an Italian voter claimed the pencil used to vote on the ballot could be erased. However the nation's Interior ministry has strongly rejected claims of voter fraud insaying the pencils are "indelible".
TWITTER Italy's foreign minister thinks the Van Der Bellen victory is a good thing for the EU
7:12pm update: Five Star Movement leader, Beppe Grillo, has spoken after casting his vote in Genoa. The comedian turned anti-establishment leader told Sky News: “We’ve done a great job, so if we were to lose it is important not to put the blame on anybody because everyone worked has perfectly well. "It would mean Italians have chose something different. We will respect this Government." 6:55pm update: Turnout has now jumped to 55.8 per cent nationally, with electorate numbers high in Lombardy, province of Bergamo, which now has the highest in the country at 67.8 per cent. By 7pm (6pm GMT) more than 57 per cent of Italians had gone to their polling stations, the Interior Ministry said, above the 42 per cent registered at the same time in the May 2014 during the European parliament elections, when Renzi's Democratic party drummed up high support.
TWITTER Turnout was nearly 55 per cent at 7pm (6pm local time)
TWITTER Italians are said to be fired up by the momentous constitutional referendum
6:46pm update: The former UK ambassador to Italy has said the eurozone will come under pressure if Matteo Renzi resigns in the wake of the critical vote. 6:36pm update: EU bigwig Martin Schulz has also congratulated Van Der Bellen on his win. He also took a swipe at the rise of populist politics, describing it as "backward-looking". The president of the EU parliament tweeted: "Congratulations to @vanderbellen, who won the presidential election with a clear pro-European message and campaign. "#vanderbellens victory is a heavy defeat of nationalism and anti-European, backward-looking populism #bpw16".
EPA Rome's Mayor Virginia Raggi casts her ballot
GETTY Rome's Mayor Virginia Raggi leaves the polling station after voting
6:29pm update: Meanwhile, Germany's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeir also reacted, tweeting: "The whole of #Europe has breathed a sigh of relief." 6:17pm update: Italy's foreign minister, Paolo Gentiloni has hailed Van Der Bellen's defeat of Norbert Hofer as a victory for the EU on Twitter. He tweeted:"#VanDerBellen Victory in Austria is really good news for Europe." 6:11pm update: Nearly 55 per cent of the Italian electorate have voted in the nailbiting referendum as of 7pm (6PM GMT). 5:58pm update: Embarrassing footage has emerged of Matteo Renzi forgetting his ID card as he arrived at the polling station. The Italian premier clearly had other things on his mind...
EPA Five Star leader Beppe Grillo casts his ballot in a polling station in Genoa, Italy
5:45pm update: More than 20 per cent of the electorate had not yet made up their minds in the last polls published pre-referendum. Mr Renzi called on his supporters to go to door to convince the undecided in his closing campaign rally in Florence on Friday. 5:31pm update: Rome's Mayor Virginia Raggi was pictured leaving a polling station in Italy's capital city of Rome after she voted in the constitutional referendum. Italy's eurosceptic anti-establishment party, Five Star Movement, achieved a breakthrough victory after the female lawyer made history to become the first woman mayor of Rome. The 37-year-old won a landslide victory claiming 67 per cent of the vote. The result represented a major breakthrough for the party which is harnessing public anger at official corruption.
EPA President Sergio Mattarella arrives in Palermo, Italy
5.15pm update: Five Star movement leader Beppe Grillo has cast his vote in Genoa. He hopes to make gains from a 'No' victory. Britain’s momentous decision to sever ties with Brussels was celebrated by his anti-establishment and Eurosceptic party. Five Star Movement, founded by comedian Mr Grillo, has now become the most popular party in Italy after it won a quarter of the national vote in 2013 and earlier this year clinched the mayoral seats in Rome and Turin. If Mr Renzi's proposals are defeated, opposition parties who are determined to push forward a breakaway from Brussels, and with Brexit increasing anti-EU sentiment across the continent, it is feared they will prepare for a fight to topple the Union.
GETTY A man casts his ballot in a polling station in Rome
5:11pm update: Italian President Sergio Mattarella has arrived at a polling station in Palermo, Italy 5:08pm update: Market jitters have concentrated on Italy's banks, saddled with €360 billion euros (£301 billion) of bad loans, and most specifically on Monte Dei Paschi di Siena, its oldest and third largest lender. The bank needs to raise €5 billion (£4.19billion) by the end of the year to plug a capital shortfall or risk being wound down. Government officials say potential investors may be deterred by political instability if 'No' should win. 5pm update: The result of exit polls will be announced as soon as voting ends and the count begins at 11 pm(10pm GMT). After around 30 minutes, the first projections of the result will be announced on the basis of actual votes counted. If the result is not close, the winner could be clear after the second projection, some time between midnight and 1 am. In a very close race, the winner may not be known until the count is completed, probably between 2 and 3 am.
GETTY A 'No' vote was leading in previous surveys
4.53pm update: With bookmakers' odds suggesting a 75 per cent chance of a win for 'No', speculation is rife about what Mr Renzi will do in the event of defeat. He is widely expected to resign, but some of his allies have urged him to stay in power regardless of the result. 4.46pm update: After an uexpected early vote in Austria, we're back to Italy. All surveys published in Italy in the month before a blackout was imposed on November 18 put the 'No' camp ahead. But private polls have continued in the last two weeks and bookmakers say 'No' remains the clear favourite to win. However, in the final days of frenetic campaigning Mr Renzi insisted the public mood was changing, focusing his attention on the millions of Italians who said they were undecided.
EPA Norbert Hofer has conceded
4:35pm update: Mr Hofer has conceded in a shocking Facebook message. Read here for more updates on the Austrian presidential election. 4.26pm update: Public service broadcaster ORF declared Van der Bellen as the victor having taken 53.6 per cent of the vote. While Hofer claimed 46.4 per cent. 4.23pm update: Exit polls indicate Alexander Van der Bellen has claimed victory over anti-Islam party leader Norbert Hofer.
GETTY A polling station in Rome
4:15pm update: In Austria, the polls have closed in the knife-edge election 4:08pm update: Turnout, expected to be 50 to 60 per cent, could be crucial. Pollsters say lower participation could favour Mr Renzi, as hostility to his reform is strongest among young voters and those in the poor parts of the south. A turnout above 60 percent could also make the result more unpredictable as it would suggest many voters who said they planned to abstain ended up going to the polls. Luca Di Giovanni, 36, who runs a newsstand in Rome, said: "It's very hard to decide. "Yes is a vote for change, which should be good, but the issues are complicated and I'm not sure that I trust Renzi."
AFP Silvio Berlusconi waves to the cameras
4.02pm update: Italians living abroad have voted by post over the past few days and the ballots have been flown to a hangar on the outskirts of Rome. 3:55pm update: Around 51 million Italians are eligible to vote on Renzi's plan to drastically reduce the role of the upper house Senate and claw back powers from regional authorities. By noon, 20 percent of citizens had voted, the Interior Ministry revealed. More than the 17 percent who had cast ballots by the same time in May 2014 for the European Parliament election.
EPA Silvio Berlusconi casts his vote in Rome
3.38pm update: Former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi casts his ballot in a polling station in Rome. It comes after he urged Italians to defy Mr Renzi and vote 'No' in the constitutional referendum because a 'Yes' vote would signal the end of democracy. He wrote: "We will vote for a strong and responsible ‘no’ to the reform of Renzi’s government that divides Italy in two, which will not bring useful changes to Italians. It could only give all the power to one man and one party. “We will no longer have a democracy."
AFP Matteo Renzi and his wife cast their vote
AFP Matteo Renzi casts his ballotThe Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) broke its own internal rules when it spied on Keystone XL opponents in Texas, violating guidelines designed to prevent the agency from becoming overly involved in complex political issues, a new report by the Guardian and Earth Island Journal published Tuesday has revealed.
Internal documents acquired by the outlets through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request show how the FBI failed to get approval for launching investigations into Houston-based protesters, whom the agency labeled "environmental extremists," and held a bias in favor of the controversial tar sands pipeline—currently awaiting federal approval—extolling its supposed economic benefits in one document which outlined reasons for spying on its opponents.
"Many of these extremists believe the debates over pollution, protection of wildlife, safety, and property rights have been overshadowed by the promise of jobs and cheaper oil prices," the file states. "The Keystone pipeline, as part of the oil and natural gas industry, is vital to the security and economy of the United States."
The Guardian reports:
Between November 2012 and June 2014, the documents show, the FBI collated inside knowledge about forthcoming protests, documented the identities of individuals photographing oil-related infrastructure, scrutinised police intelligence and cultivated at least one informant.....However, the partially redacted documents reveal the investigation into anti-Keystone activists occurred without prior approval of the top lawyer and senior agent in the Houston field office, a stipulation laid down in rules provided by the attorney general.
Additionally, the FBI appeared to have opened its file on the Keystone XL opponents in 2013 following a meeting between officials from the agency and TransCanada, the company building the pipeline.
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"For a period of time—possibly as long as eight months—agents acting beyond their authority were monitoring activists aligned with [direct action climate group] Tar Sands Blockade," the Guardian writes.
Dozens of activists were arrested in Texas in late 2012, although none were accused of violent crime or property damage, according to key Tar Sands Blockade organizer, Ron Seifert.
"Less than a month after TransCanada showed the FBI a PowerPoint claiming that people opposed to [Keystone XL] need to be watched, Houston's FBI office cuts corners to start an investigation; it's not surprising but it is revealing of who they really work for," Seifert told Common Dreams on Monday. "The FBI has been harassing and actively repress |
, it's sort of natural to wonder if the general manager is feeling any heat and if he might be open to some assistance in rapidly reshaping the roster and the organization's pipeline. Stalberg, who is fairly speedy despite a big frame, is a fine player who would probably thrive roving on Tampa Bay's lower lines but a potential downside is he's a relatively unknown quantity at special teams as he seen, almost exclusively, even-strength minutes in the NHL.
Jiri Tlusty (RFA)
After registering a career-high 23 goals and 38 points through all of Carolina's 48 games in the shortened season following the lockout, Jiri Tlusty's production took an anticipated percentages-driven dip this last season. He's another guy whose appeal lies in his ability to provide secondary scoring rather than any perceived defensive prowess. Between the firing of head coach Kirk Muller, and Jim Rutherford stepping down as general manger to make way for past team captain Ron Francis to take the helm, the Hurricanes organization is at a crossroads with crucial decisions to be made. What to do with Tlusty, who's in line for a sizable bump in pay, is one of them and he may very well have been deemed expendable even if Francis wasn't going to have to deal with a limited budget. Used similarly as he has been, he looks to be, with a pronounced departure here and there, a perennial 15-20 goal, 35-40 point complementary winger who does almost all of his damage at evens.
A further wrinkle in the early going here in the silly season is the latest round of speculation -- partially fueled by on-air comments made by league insider, Bob McKenzie -- that the Sharks will, or ought to, move forwards Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau, both of whom are still productive in their mid-thirties, in the wake of San Jose's latest playoff collapse. Of course, in the midst of all this, predictions as to where either will wind up began cropping up and the Lightning was linked to Marleau by a rather infamous rumor-monger.
Patrick Marleau (signed through 2016-2017)
Well-respected veteran leader? Check. Able to log key minutes in all situations? Check. Some speed and a strong skater? Check. Sure, there are some obvious hurdles, starting with Marleau's no-movement clause, that would have to be cleared before the Sharks could strike a deal with any team but, you know, you can build a decent case for passing on Callahan for Marleau. As is, Marleau's cap hit almost certainly further dilutes any potential return but his value could be nudged back up if San Jose is willing to eat a portion, say 20% ($1,333,333), of the remaining money owed. From Tampa Bay's perspective, getting a high-grade forward who is on the books for several more seasons and at a reduced price that puts him within range of the money and cap space that had previously been allotted to Martin St. Louis might just be a masterstroke.
In-House
Interestingly enough, the Lightning might just be best served by deciding not to sign or trade for anyone. The depth and talent in goal has been dramatically improved in a relatively short period of time, but it is up front where the club, with its stable of prospects whose professional careers are in their infancy supporting an assortment of players close to or already vying for NHL spots and a crop of young graduates of the farm system that helped propel the Bolts back into the playoffs last season, seems most capable of marching onward despite a prominent subtraction. In particular, J.T. Brown and Richard Panik are two possible near-term beneficiaries who played a healthy portion of last season with the Bolts.
J.T. Brown (RFA)
Richard Panik (RFA)
Perhaps individually, but more likely collectively, these two young forwards could give the Bolts most of what Callahan brings to the table. Both played very controlled even-strength minutes on a lower line last season but where Brown earned recurring penalty killing duties, Panik saw his special teams opportunities come with a number of looks on the Lightning's second power play unit.
To this point, the discussion has been arbitrarily limited to two players based on the number of games played last season. The thing is, the Lightning will almost surely have 2013 1st-round draft pick, juniors phenom Jonathan Drouin, who was immediately pinned as the heir apparent to Martin St. Louis, in the ranks as well. Drouin, then, would also factor into the equation and thus make a replace-by-committee approach -- cost-effective, flexible -- even more appealing.
Conclusion
There's no readily obvious slam-dunk when it comes to identifying how to the Lightning could best move on without Ryan Callahan but, if the club's imperative this summer should be to avoid ending up with a situation like the Leafs have with David Clarkson, it should be clear there's a spectrum of alternatives, multiple ways for Tampa Bay's brass to skin the proverbial cat, with some being much more plausible than others. Of course, how aggressively it can pursue the various options depends on what the club's ambitions for other perceived needs are and how its plans to address them.
Note: All statistics cited from Extra Skater.As part of the US PSN Store update, Sony has made all the Uncharted 2 DLC completely free.
This includes the Drake’s Fortune Multiplayer Pack (previously $2.99), the Golden Gun Pack (previously $0.99), the PlayStation Heroes Skin Pack (previously $2.49), the Sidekicks Skin Pack (previously $1.49) and the Siege Expansion Pack (previously $2.99).
In a move that’s to be applauded, it’s nice to see older games getting a little bit of a boost like this, especially given that Among Thieves was great fun online.
If you’ve got the game but not the DLC (and, of course, you’re in the States) why not give it another go, presumably there’ll be a fair few people back online again just now.
There’s currently no word on whether the same offer will be happening in the EU Update, along with the PixelJunk deal that sees most of the studio’s wonderful PS3 games down to just a dollar.
And I’m not going to ask.Generation Y, known as the Millennials is probably the most misunderstood generation to date. They have been labeled ‘entitled’, ‘lazy’, ‘unmotivated’ and many companies have trouble managing them.
People like Simon Sinek will have you believe these ‘tender little lambs’ need to be parented by the companies they don’t necessarily want to work for. This is of course complete bullshit 💩. Furthermore, it’s condescending in a way these high-potentials far from deserve.
Different Generations, Different Values. 👱🏼👴🏼
I am a ‘Millennial’, and I can tell you the problem has nothing to do with a lack of motivation. We are plenty motivated. We simply have different ambitions than the previous generation. We struggle with the mismatch between our values and the values of the job market.
Babyboomers mostly measure success in cash and the things they buy with it: a nice, big house with a white picket fence, a stable job that could impress at cocktail parties, and a better car than the neighbour. They left us with depleted resources and an unstable economy. It’s not a path Millennials are interested in going down.
As a result:
We don’t care about job security, we value adventure.
Instead of consumption, we value creation.
We don’t look to make a profit, we want to make an impact.
We’re a generation of ambitious round pegs, trying to fit into a conservative market full of square holes. Our entire lives we were raised to believe a reputable job would bring fulfilment and happiness to our lives. Now, as twenty-something-year-olds, we find that isn’t true, and we’re depressed as f-ck. Flex-working and #foodporn worthy lunches don’t change that.
You can dress a monkey in silk, but it’s still a monkey 🐒.
On the Verge of Evolution 🚀
“Happiness is not something you postpone for the future, it is something you design for the present” — Jim Rohn
No, fellow-Millennials, we were not dealt a bad hand “to no fault of our own”, as Sinek would have us believe.
Here’s the reality — We were dealt a royal flush, but we’re acting like we need to make a straight on the river. We have all the tools necessary to live life on our own terms, but we are misled into believing we are at the bottom of the foodchain.
It may sound like I’m coming down hard on the ‘boomers, but I’m not. Our parents and grandparents built a system that worked for them, not for us.
That’s why we cannot fall into the Gen X-trap of postponing and externalising happiness. We have to evolve. We have the ability to consciously design our lives, starting right now.
This is not on them, it is on us. I cannot stress this enough:
If we want to do what we love and make an impact, we have to initiate it.
The New Model:
So what’s the alternative? I don’t have all the answers, but here’s my $0.02:
We’re a generation not driven by profit and reputation, or job security. We’re driven by impact. By making a positive change in the world.
If you create a positive change in people’s lives, you’re creating value💎. And value can always be monetised💰. The first rule of business is you get paid in proportion to the value you bring to the marketplace.
So: ❤️ –> 💎 –> 💰
In his book Man’s search for meaning Viktor Fränkl writes:
“For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself (…)”
In other words, he talks about how success and happiness ensue from meaning. You should let meaning guide your life decisions. Not work, and definitely not money.
People sense this. Most twenty-somethings are very vocal about needing a sense of purpose. A personal drive that gives meaning to everything they do. No amount of pingpong-tables and bean bags and Friday drinks can compensate for that.
Instead of imagining what type of job you want, imagine what type of life you want. What are the experiences you want to have on a daily basis, and what legacy do you want to leave behind?
Inverting Maslow 🙃
Instead of chasing a job, we should create a lifestyle based on our values and monetise it. In this age of the internet anybody can be a celebrity, and everybody can create, share, and monetise value online.
Instead of trying to get fulfilment from the outside in, we have to create it from the inside out. As a colleague of mine recently put it: “The Maslow pyramid is inverted”. We use self-actualisation to drive external success.
Or, in the words of Stephen Covey:
“Internal victories precede external victories.”
We start with self-actualisation, which will create esteem and a sense of belonging, and eventually generate the means to support our basic human needs.
Again: ❤️ –> 💎 –> 💰
We intuitively know this. We’ve seen our parents value the fancy job title, the big house and the nice car — and all it has resulted in is global warming and a 50% divorce rate. So we started to value experiences over possessions.
We don’t care for owning a car so much as owning a passport full of stamps and an Instagram account full of adventurous days and wild nights 👯(#Aboutlastnight).
So instead of stepping into a job that doesn’t motivate us, let’s start creating life experiences for each other. Let’s enable one another to live the lives we want to live, and to build a better world. Instead of supporting a marketplace built for working, let’s create one made for living.
How do you even? 🤷🏾♂️
I know what you’re thinking: Jelmer (that’s my name), this sounds great, but how do we go about this? Well, I’ll tell you.
We’ve established that if you make people’s lives better, you create value and value can always be monetised. You just need the right business model. The only question that remains is: What value do you want to create? I have just the model to help you do that.
I once read somewhere that creating Venn-diagrams makes you seem more intelligent. So by the grace of that article, this is my Venn diagram for creating value:
The unique value you can bring to the marketplace lies in the overlap between your passion, your unique talents and the market needs.
Passion 🍑
Passion is about making an Impact. It’s what gets you up in the morning. It’s the change you want to see in the world and the legacy you want to leave. Part of what I’m passionate about personally, for example, is helping people embrace their Autonomy.
We’re a highly talented, highly motivated generation of world changers. In potential, we’re an army of Elons. I’m convinced that — if we tell comfort and safety to fuck off — we can disrupt this world and build a better one together.
Talent 🎸
Talents are unique skills and competencies you have.
They are the things you could, potentially, be the best at.
The best is relative. As Seth Godin put it: If you’re the only French bakery for eight blocks, you’re also the best, because nobody is going to walk more than eight blocks to get a croissant.
Of course, the internet changes things. With online business, the world is your competition. That’s why it’s important to find your unique niche. The combination of the change you want to see in the world and attacking it from the angle of your expertise, is what creates your uniqueness. It creates your niche.
Don’t worry too much about diplomas. Diplomas have become nothing more than an entry requirement. An implicit IQ test. You don’t bring your diplomas to the marketplace, you bring your skills.
There are plenty of online resources like Udemy and Coursera and Khan Academy that can teach you the skills you need. Invest in yourself. You are the only constant in your life.
Build on your talents. Work harder on growing yourself than you work on growing your income. You’ll be able to create more value, and the income will follow as a result.
Market Fit 🎯
“Make something people want.” — Paul Graham
Without a business model you’ll soon be out of money.
If you don’t align your passion and talent with the market, you can’t create value.
Market fit is about context. If your passion is “Connecting People” and you’re a talented phone maker, but you’re unable to produce a competitive smartphone, you’ll be out of business in no time (looking at you, Nokia. Love the 3310 reboot, btw).
Steve Jobs understood context better than anyone else. After heaps of touch screen PDA’s had failed in the nineties, Jobs reintroduced the touch screen when the market was ready for it. And when he did it, he did it with an impact.
It’s important to be conscious of people’s needs. You get a feel for them if you observe their behaviour, listen to their complaints, and look for the implicit need behind their questions.
Über understood that people didn’t need cabs, they simply needed a way to quickly get from A to B. That’s why they put taxi-owners around the world out of business.
Keep an eye out for the sentiments in the market. Talk to people, observe their behaviour. Find out the implicit needs behind what they’re doing. Like Jobs said:
“Sometimes people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
Where does this leave us? 🏜
Does this mean we should all be freelancers and entrepreneurs? Not necessarily. There are plenty of examples of really cool companies that are out to advance society and are in need of young, motivated talent. The above model may help you find the right one for you.
I just see too many people my age (I’m 26) going after jobs for all the wrong reasons. I want to encourage those people to do some soul searching first. Find out what the unique value is they can bring to the marketplace, before they mindlessly send out their CV to a bunch of companies where their talents will go to waste.
If you don’t want to be an entrepreneur or freelancer, that’s fine. Just realise we have the chance — one chance — to write history. You can either leave a legacy yourself, or be part of someone else’s. 👊🏼This script simply silently runs the most useful password recovery tools from www.nirsoft.net. The password recovery tools from nirsoft.net are highly valuable to anyone that has either forgotten their passwords, or wants to steal someone else's passwords. The list of passwords it can recover is very lengthy, and listed entirely at the bottom of this article. (You should only use these tools on your own computer. Never use them to recover passwords of a computer you don't have permission to do so on.)
A few of the applications this script will recover passwords from are: Chrome, FireFox, Opera, Internet Explorer, Windows Shares/Network, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, GAIM, Outlook, Wireless Passwords, RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol saved passwords), and VNC.
The easiest way to run this script is to place all of the files on the root of a USB flash drive, then simply double click on the NirsoftRecoverAll.bat file. It only takes about 1 - 3 seconds to finish the script and compile a csv file with all the passwords it finds. The main advantage to using this script is speed. Simply plug the flash drive in, double click on the batch file, wait about 5 seconds, then unplug the flash drive. That's it! All the stored passwords are now saved on your flash drive. This speed makes it easy to walk over to your neighbors computer while they are in the restroom, run the script, and analyze the recovered passwords later (but don't ever do that).
To begin, download the password recovery tools from nirsoft. Extract them to the root of the USB flash drive:
http://www.nirsoft.net/packages/passrec.zip
Now download our script that silently runs most of the password recovery tools and exports all of the data into a list:
NirsoftRecoverAll.bat
Simply connect the flash drive to the computer that you are trying to recover (or steal) the passwords from and double click on the NirsoftRecoverAll.bat file. It will only take a few seconds, then remove the flash drive. A txt file with the name of the application ran is created for each application. The txt file contains any passwords the application recovered. If you run the script again, these txt files will be overwritten. When you run the script, a file named Master_Password_list.csv is also created. It contains all of the recovered passwords from each of the applications. It also includes the time and date the script was ran. If you run the script again, this file will be appended with the latest results, not overwritten.
If you find any of these password recovery tools useful, please consider making a donation to the NirSoft.net developer here.
Here is a list of the applications ran, and the passwords they can recover:VICTORIA B.C. – Today in the legislature MLA Andrew Weaver tabled the Wildlife Amendment Act directly to committee stage, leading to an immediate vote in the House. Weaver and the B.C. NDP voted in favour of moving the bill directly to committee stage for review. The B.C. Liberals voted against it.
“This bill works to ensure that sustainable, respectful sustenance hunting in British Columbia is grounded in a science-based conservation policy and that the interests of residents hunters are put ahead of foreign trophy hunters.
“It is clear these are values the B.C. Liberals do not share - as illustrated by their vote against further consulting on this bill today. But, I am glad to see that the B.C. NDP support my initiatives on this file,” says Weaver.
The bill would restrict the practices of non-resident trophy hunters who come to B.C. to hunt large game by making three specific amendments to the Wildlife Act. The proposed changes remove grizzly bears from the list of animals exempt from meat harvesting regulations, ensures all edible portions of animals killed in B.C. are taken directly to the hunter’s residence, and requires the meat to be taken out first – before the hide or head. For non-resident trophy hunters coming to B.C. to hunt an animal solely for its hide, skull, or antlers this puts in place a prohibitive logistical challenge.
The bill also stops the government from letting non-resident hunters buy preferential access to limited-entry-hunt permits. And lastly, it bans people convicted of fisheries or wildlife offenses in B.C. and other jurisdictions from becoming fishing or hunting guides.
- 30 -
Media contact
Mat Wright, Press Secretary
+1 250-216-3382 | [email protected] would think that the Cleveland Indians would have learned a little something from the Toronto Blue Jays earlier in the week. If not, you would think that the Indians may have learned something from the CC Sabathia trade last year. Instead, the Indians are following the formula that has done so well for the Pittsburgh Pirates since 1992. Dump salary and get prospects.
What the Indians should have learned from Toronto was not to donate Cliff Lee for prospects. The Blue Jays traded offers with the Phils. AJ Happ is a major league pitcher who is young and shows potential. The Jays asked for Happ and Kyle Drabek, their #1 prospect for Roy Halladay. Philadelphia said they wanted too much. So Cleveland turns around and offers Cliff Lee AND Ben Francisco for neither of the aforementioned Phillies. They get back four prospects with the best being Carlos Carrasco who is having a terrible year. Good work Mark! Give that extra guy and get neither big gun back.
What the Indians should have learned from the CC Sabathia trade last year was to get major leaguers back in the trade. Cleveland basically gave Sabathia away to dump salary. Sabathia and Lee, both Cy Young Award Winners should command a bit more demand than what they got back. There are players on major league rosters who don’t make $10 million per year. Young players with Major League futures.
The Pittsburgh Pirates, unless they traded their name away too, are the farm system for baseball. Call them MLB’s only AAAA team. Their role in sports is not to win, but rather to draft talent, develop it, and then sell it away for other talent to raise. If you put together a team of Pirates traded away in the past five seasons, you would have half of a decent all-star team.
You know the Indians are nowhere near done. Victor Martinez will be heading away soon. Guaranteed. Kelly Shoppach is OK, but Martinez is special. Carlos Santana is ripping the cover off of the ball at Double-A Akron and is a good defensive catcher. That would make this trade more sensible, if and only if, Cleveland gets something back that they can insert NOW, not a future hopeful who might make it up someday.
I understand the economics of baseball. There are two ways to play. One is the greedy George Steinbrenner way. Buy everything and field a bunch of big names. The other way is to survive. Cut your losses and hope for a better showing next year. The Indians are reverse current on both right now. They are buying very little. Mark DeRosa was what they bought, and they already dumped him before the break. Kerry Wood is what they kept, and frankly, he sucks this year. Survival does not mean liquidation of every functional asset. It means balancing the budget. Cleveland is trying to ultimately show a profit when they do their taxes in April.In late October 2014, the FBI received an unusual email from a young man named Mohimanul Alam Bhuiya.
Bhuiya, then 25, had joined the Islamic State. Now the longtime Brooklyn resident was desperate and looking for a way out. He wanted the FBI to rescue him.
“I am an American who’s trying to get back home from Syria,” he wrote in his email, according to federal court documents unsealed last month. “I just want to get back home. All I want is this extraction, complete exoneration thereafter, and have everything back to normal with me and my family.”
He added: “I am fed up with this evil.”
The FBI was still verifying his identity when Bhuiya managed to escape about a week later. He returned to the United States, where he was promptly arrested and charged with providing material support and receiving military training from the Islamic State.
In a closed courtroom in Brooklyn, he pleaded guilty to both counts on Nov. 26, 2014, according to the court filings. He faces up to 25 years in prison.
{snip}
Bhuiya was not your average wayward Islamic State recruit. Unlike many of the people the Justice Department has charged in connection with the terrorist group, Bhuiya appeared to have a bright future. He attended Columbia University before he fell under the sway of the Islamic State.
{snip}
According to a Columbia University spokesman, Bhuiya attended the School of General Studies. He was enrolled for one semester from January to May 2013 and did not earn a degree.
{snip}
He implored Islamic State commanders not to “send me off to the front lines because I can be useful in other ways,” according to the NBC interview. “It seemed to me that it would, you know, save my skin.”
Bhuiya said he quickly became disillusioned and described the Islamic State as “dystopia.”
“You could see madness in their eyes,” he recalled. Bhuiya decided to flee. In the email to the FBI, he said he did not have a passport because the Islamic State had taken it. He asked if someone could pick him up at the border.
{snip}
Original Article
Share ThisCapes with HDT Physics
This mod is very much a W.I.P. and as such will be continuously updated as we finish.
Hot files in the first 2 days WOW! You guys are the best Thank you all so much for the support and votes!!!!!!!
Version 1.0
Version 1.1
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Version 2.0 alpha
Location
Installation
Install these 2 things first!!!
1) HDT Physics Extension
2) SKSE
Either use NMM or manually install Use 7zip or WinRar to extract the files.
Move the Data folder to your Skyrim folder.
Requirements
HDT Physics Extension by HydrogensaysHDT
SKSE by Ian Patterson, Stephen Abel and Paul Connelly (ianpatt, behippo and scruggsywuggsy the ferret)
Compatibility
"HDT Physics Extension alleviates the problems associated with animation by actually using the physics engine that is part of the retail game.Through some creative use of SKSE, HydrogensaysHDT (the author of thePhysics Extension plugin) has provided a set of tools that create gamephysics objects that interact and respond to the world around them."byVideos By RayneBlood, SkyttsTV, Hodliton and NOZI187 Thank you all for making videos showing off the new cape physicsDont let this happen to youInitial Release:Redguard cape with physicsAdded 6 new color variations for cape version 1.0. This is just a quick addon for more choices Bright Orange, Black, Blue, Green, Gold and Purple.Update adding the fixed CapeHDT.xml, better collisions, reduced cap radii, fixed weights.Update Fixed Cape position making it closer to character model. (With the exception of male model since it's fit it to a certain vanilla armor cough cough Redguards)Created a female version of the cape. To fix the floating cape issues users were having.Fitted to CBBE bodies if that makes any difference at all.Moddified CapeHDT.xml to have ground collisions. (For certain animations that require the character to lower in position causing the cape to collide with the ground.)Made new female only textures for the cape Crane print and Floral print, and 3 more for all capes a crazy design, switched the bright orange with a red version and also switched the terrible black retexture with a new dark grey Dohvakiin symbol cape.Fallbob made a 4K retexture that we wanted everyone to have thanks for making this for us.To Install the 4K version just download manually Use 7zip or WinRar to extract the files. Move the Data folder to your Skyrim folder and replace those meshes and add the new texture.You can find the Skyrim folder here: Programfiles(x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\skyrim\data24 new high res versions to choose from.White, Yellow, Red, Green, Purple, Pink, Blue, Blue-Green, Brown, Black, Grey, Black Dovahkiin, Orange and Green Fractal, Mage, Royal print, Tiger Pelt, Zebra Pelt, Burlap, Crane, Concentric deisgn, Flower print, Daedric COS cape, Snake Skin, Starry Night.Starts Now!!!Daedric Cloak (Cloaks of Skyrim)Coming NextAllLinen cloaksBurlap cloaksFaction cloaksAll compatible patches for Frostfall, Wet & Cold, among others will completed after all capes are HDT enabledTo get the new capes just go to any forge and look under the leather section for the new HDT capes requirements 4 leather pieces to craft.You can find the Skyrim folder here: Programfiles(x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\skyrim\data FOR 64-bit usersYou can find the Skyrim folder here: Programfiles\Steam\steamapps\common\skyrim\data FOR 32-bit usersPatches:This wil be changing very soon for all patches coming out with this mod.This mod should be compatible with almost everything, but it could cause issues with other HDT mods that use objects at the same collision layers.Known issues with multiple HDT type mods will be performance loss and spastic movements on the meshes.We will have a forum discussion soon on how to help with these problems.A spokeswoman for the Oregon Family Council is under fire after using an analogy about neo-Nazis while discussing the issue of whether businesses in the state should be required to serve gay weddings.
Teresa Harke, who filed a ballot initiative last week that would give religious groups the right to discriminate against gays, said that forcing Christians to provide services for same-sex weddings would be the same as expecting "a Jewish bakery to serve a neo-Nazi who wanted a cake with a swastika on it." The Oregonian reports:
That comment sparked a letter from 13 Oregon rabbis as well as leaders of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland and the Oregon Area Jewish Committee.
The letter, written by Rabbi Michael Cahana of Congregation Beth Israel in Portland, said the comment was an "insult to the memory of those who perished" in the Holocaust "to use one of history's greatest atrocities to forward your political agenda."
"It really is using an illustration that is so offensive," Cahana said in a telephone interview. "Here you're making a comparison between a hate group that supports the elimination of Jews in the world and a couple that wants to sanctify their marriage."
The Oregon Family Council, in an email from Jack Louman, the group's president, defended Harke's use of the comparison, saying the comments "were made in the context of an example of rights of individual conscience."
A 2014 ballot initiative is in the works that would bring marriage equality to Oregon.Get the biggest money 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
If you're in the market for an e-reader - but don't want to splash out hundreds on a tablet, you may find luck through Amazon's slightly more affordable kindle.
The first generation kindle device hit the US in 2007 for an eye-watering, £279 - today, you can bag one for around £50, and it's a lot more portable, ideal for on-the-go use, and slipping into your pocket.
There are four models on the market - including the Paperwhite and Fire 7 - the generations range from standard e-readers to all-round tablets with integrated cameras and on-demand TV channels.
The most popular retailers are Amazon.co.uk, Currys and eBay.co.uk for second-hand or refurbished ones. Scroll through for a full breakdown of the four types of Kindles and the best deals.
5 best deals on the Amazon Kindle
1. Original Kindle
This is Amazon's best-selling standard e-reader. Its most recent model features touchscreen technology, Wi-Fi, glare-free, and a four-week battery life. Like previous versions of the e-reader, it uses e-ink technology and has a 6'' screen.
You can buy the Kindle, 6" e-reader for £47.99 on Amazon UK.
2. Kindle Paperwhite
Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite is the advanced version of the standard Kindle - with an inbuilt light, for reading in the dark.
The Paperwhite's battery life is also pretty impressive and can last up to two months.
You can get the most-recent Paperwhite for £87.99 on Amazon (Wi-Fi only). The dual Paperwhite, with both Wi-Fi and 3G is £87.99.
3. Kindle Voyage
This 2014 device features an impressive pixel density of 300ppi compared to the Paperwhite's 212. It comes in both 3G and Wi-Fi - however, the dual version costs around £60 more.
The Voyage tablet also includes PagePress - a function which allows you to turn the page without lifting a finger.
The downside? Battery life is limited to two-weeks max.
You can buy the All-New Kindle Voyage for £135.99 on Amazon, or £229.99 3G.
4. Fire HD 6 tablet
Amazon's latest generation of flagship e-readers feature in-built on demand TV, apps and all the standard features of a modern tablet.
The pocket-sized HD 6 boasts a smaller profile, 'fast quad-core processor' with front and rear cameras, and access to the app store.
Battery life is eight-hours mixed use, or 10-hours when reading, it also features Dolby Audio, a built in microphone and up to 16GB storage.
You can currently buy the new Fire HD 6 for £99.99 on Amazon.
5. Fire 7 Tablet
The 2015 Kindle Fire 7 is an all-round tablet, and can be used to watch films, read books and browse the web.
Amazon says it has double the speed of the previous-generation Fire HD 6, with faster app launching times, smoother and richer games and videos, and ''better overall performance''.
The Fire 7 is a pocket-sized 7'' tablet with front and rear cameras and Firefly - a database with over 90 million movies and TV episodes, audiobooks and songs.
It also comes in 10 colours, and is available in 8 or 16GB. battery life is slightly less compared to the H6 6, at eight-hours mixed use, or nine-hours when reading.
You can currently buy the Fire 7 Tablet for £49.95 at John Lewis.
6. Kindle Fire HDX
The 2015 HDX display brings together almost perfect colour accuracy (100% sRGB), reduced glare and improved brightness for a clearer viewing experience.
What is HDX? The display features over 2million pixels for vivid, lifelike images that go beyond standard HD.
Kindle Fire HDX tablets are powered by the 2.2 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor. Combined with 2 GB of RAM, Amazon say they offer faster app launches, faster website loading times, smoother multi-tasking and better overall performance than previous generations.
Battery life exceeds 11-hours when mixing reading with surfing the web or watching TV shows. Just reading, battery life extends to 17-hours.
Both the 7" and 8.9" Kindle Fire HDX tablets have a front-facing 720p HD camera and 4G speeds.
You can currently purchase the HD7 7 tablet for £149.99 on the eBay Argos outlet.
7. Fire HDX 8.9
The Fire HDX 8.9 merges performance with a 2.5 GHz quad-core processor, faster Wi-Fi and stereo sound with Dolby Audio.
With a built in high-resolution 8MP rear-facing camera, plus a front-facing HD camera, you can capture high quality photos, shoot 1080p video and connect with HD video calls.
Also included is Amazon's new ASAP tool (Advanced Streaming and Prediction) which learns what movies and shows you like and gets them ready for you to watch.
The more you view videos on your Fire tablet, the more accurate ASAP becomes, dynamically adapting to your viewing habits.
Battery life is 11-hours mixed use, or 18-hours when reading.
You can currently buy the Fire HDXX 8.9'' for £329.99 on Amazon.
Where can I buy a refurbished Kindle?
If you want to save even more money, you can buy a refurbished Kindle online for around a third off the RRP.
The eBay Argos Outlet is a good place to start, as is the Tesco eBay Outlet. If you're quick, and can handle an auction, eBay.co.uk is a good place to start too. See our guide on how to win an eBay auction here.
Other sites to try include Preloved and of course the Amazon Warehouse. You can also keep an eye on our eBay deals page for the best Kindle voucher codes.
How can I spot Kindle sales before everyone else?
(Image: PA)
For sales news, keep an eye on the Amazon Lightning Deals page, or our Amazon voucher codes guide here.
Currys PC World also occasionally hosts Kindle sales, but you'll have to be quick, as they sell out fast. Voucher code websites like VoucherBox are also worth keeping an eye on.
For more tech sales, tips and tricks, keep an eye on our tech deals page, or to see our round up of the best iPads on the market, see our deals guide here.Poet Michael Symmons Roberts asks why Byron's illegitimate daughter Allegra, who was only five when she died in an Italian convent, came to haunt her father's imagination.
The poet Michael Symmons Roberts tells the story of Lord Byron's illegitimate daughter Allegra, who was only five when she died in an Italian convent. Michael goes to Ravenna to find out how Byron came to abandon her, and how |
and defensive stopper Iman Shumpert (right wrist) are expected to heal by mid-month, but in the meantime James is powerlifting the Cavs. He has already dunked more times in half-court sets than he did all last season, according to in-house stats, and he leads the league in scoring in clutch situations. He has been the best player—and his Cavs the best squad—east of Oakland. “All things considered, our record is pretty good, isn’t it?” James asks. “Well, I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”
He barks at center Timofey Mozgov for trying to turn a post feed into an alley-oop instead of bringing the ball down first. He points at his temple when power forward Tristan Thompson commits an offensive foul. He rails against the Cavaliers’ effort after a double-overtime loss on the second night of a back-to-back in Milwaukee. He chides teammates at a players-only meeting after a three-game winning streak is snapped in Toronto. When third-string point guard Jared Cunningham makes an errant pass against the Hawks, James stalks to the bench, never mind that the Cavs are leading by 26 and the play is ongoing. It is hard to tell which of these outbursts are caused by rage run rampant—“Competitive emotions,” he calls them, “that I’m still working on”—and which are caused by his compulsion to inject that rage into others.
James turns 31 on Dec. 30 and has already logged more minutes in his career than Magic Johnson or Larry Bird, but instead of pacing he is pushing: telling reporters he plans to play all 82 games, skipping regular fourth-quarter respites, taking late-night jaunts to the St. Vincent–St. Mary High gym for free throws. (His alma mater gave him the key.) “The most important thing in his life is winning a championship here, and he feels incredible pressure to deliver,” says general manager David Griffin. “He is consumed by it.” Gregg Popovich and the Spurs, masters of the NBA marathon, might question the sprinter’s rationale. Maybe James is racing because he doesn’t know how many title shots he has left. Maybe it’s because he wants to set an example for young teammates who can someday carry him when he can no longer carry them. Or maybe it’s because of that team on his TV.
The Warriors do not play with rage. They play with unhinged joy, which spills off the screen in the James house past 3 a.m., as they unleash rainbows on the Raptors and improve to 12–0. James sees urgency in the Warriors. He yearns to see it in the Cavs. He lied to Savannah. He seethes himself to sleep.
Todd Rosenberg/SI
***
LeBron James gathered close friends in a suite on the 58th floor of the Wynn hotel in Las Vegas on July 10, 2014. “I want to put on a coat again,” he told them. “I want to grind again.” To James, the Heat was a Fortune 500 company, the Cavaliers a sentimental startup with talent and resources. “Coming back has been everything I thought,” he says, 16 months later, “only a lot harder. I can’t tell you it’s been comfortable. But that’s O.K. I don’t really like to be comfortable.”
Failure is a poison, and when James reentered the Cavs’ headquarters last fall, he found an organization infected. “Great young players but part-time pros,” says swingman James Jones, who followed James from the Heat. “They’d be locked in for an hour before practice, an hour after practice, but the discipline and commitment weren’t there.” Players rolled in late for treatment sessions, bagged extra shooting, left plates of food sitting around the cafeteria. “Leniency,” James says, “which was very different from the structure I’d grown accustomed to.”
There was no individual to blame. The coaching staff was new. The front office was revamped. When James bolted in 2010, the Cavaliers wisely shifted their priority from contention to player development, and the moment he returned they had to reverse course again. James fumed every time he saw a one-on-one dribbling exhibition, a contested jumper, a smile in a losing locker room. “He was kind of sizing everybody up,” Thompson says. “You could tell he was frustrated.”
James, in his first turn as a sole leader, searched for the most effective approach. “First, I tried to be patient and kind of measure them,” he says. “But you experiment with different styles. ‘This doesn’t work. S---. Well, maybe that will work.’ Sometimes you think it does, and then the next day you realize that it doesn’t.”
On Nov. 4 at Portland, James stood in the corner, letting Irving lose a senseless individual duel with the Blazers’ Damian Lillard. The following night, in Utah, Irving scored 34 points without an assist, and James warned him that he could never finish a game without an assist again. He deployed multiple methods to teach the same lesson, hoping one would resonate. On Nov. 17, James missed a shootaround before a game against the Nuggets because he was sick, and the Cavaliers acted as if their teacher ditched school. They tossed dirty gear onto the locker room floor, ignoring the hamper in the middle of the room. Equipment manager Mark Cashman took a picture of the slop and after practice the next day showed it to the group. “I’ve worked here 15 years,” Cashman says, “and that was the maddest I’ve ever been.”
• GALLERY: Sports Illustrated covers of LeBron over the years
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After Cashman tore into the team, James provided a graphic exclamation point. Cashman was transported to 2003, when James was a rookie and Cleveland played the second night of a preseason back-to-back in St. John’s, Newfoundland. The Cavs landed in St. John’s at 5 a.m. and were scheduled to face the Raptors in front of a sellout crowd that night. But shortly before tip-off at an arena that housed a minor league hockey team, officials noticed condensation from the ice on the court. The game was canceled, the Cavs were sent to their bus, and irritated players flung jerseys and shorts in Cashman’s direction. James handed him a neatly folded uniform. “I didn’t have a lot growing up,” he explained to Cashman then. “I have to take care of it.”
Fast-forward to 2014, when James became the custodian of the franchise. He took postpractice ice baths alongside Jones and swingman Mike Miller, another running mate from Miami, and discussed what elements of Heat culture could migrate north. But Jones and Miller were role players. James had to be the conduit. “Leading takes energy, and you can’t get tired of it,” Jones implored. “You can’t do your work at home. You have to do it here. You have to show them what it looks like.” James tried to demonstrate how he trains and recovers, but his knee and back wouldn’t let him. “That was the toughest thing,” he says. “I was teaching and preaching—telling them how hard I’m going to work, how I’m going to bust my ass—but I couldn’t really do it because I was hurting.” He fretted for the team but also for himself. “Why can’t I get to that spot anymore?” he asked Mancias, his longtime trainer. “I used to get to that spot.”
James heard observers talk about him as if he were Tim Duncan, his prime suddenly past. “What is your prime, anyway?” James wonders. “Seriously, when is it? I have no idea. Is it 27 to 30? 27 to 31? Who set the number on that?” Injury, James acknowledges, is a symptom of age. But health did not explain why he ran so much isolation and took so many difficult shots. In Miami, James and Dwyane Wade played a game within the game. If one of them shot over 50%, he was the winner. If one shot under, he was the loser. The Heat could win by 30 points, but if James went 7 for 15, he berated himself for one ill-advised fadeaway. In Cleveland, nobody played that game.
Jason Miller/Getty Images
“For three years my team was on the same page, the same wavelength,” James says. “We just had to look at each other. It’s hard to trust people when you’ve never been in the bunker with them. At times you do feel a little alone.” He was adjusting to a new roster while the Cavaliers were acclimating to a new world, where every sentence is a sound bite and every sound bite is a story. James is comfortable in that construct. It’s all he knows. But in becoming the metaphor for an entire region, he added even more to his load. When James seemed scattered early last season and a former coach was asked why, he did not point to the back or the knee. He pointed to the head.
“I think about a lot of s---,” James agrees. “Sometimes too much. But then I try to remember what I learned from the great Pat Riley: What is the main thing? Because the main thing has to be the main thing.”
***
James returned to the Cavaliers on Jan. 13 in Phoenix after a two-week mental and physical sabbatical that included recovery from an anti-inflammatory injection in his back. The Cavs lost their sixth straight game that night, but James was rejuvenated, and afterward comedian Frank Caliendo visited the locker room. Caliendo performed an ice-breaking impersonation of actor Morgan Freeman reading James’s “I’m Coming Home” essay for SI. Then he mimicked Charles Barkley ripping newly acquired gunner J.R. Smith.
Caliendo took credit for the Cavaliers’ turnaround—they went 34–9 for the rest of the season—but the true catalysts arrived a week earlier. James knew the Cavs were trying to pry Mozgov from the Nuggets, but he was skeptical that they could. Likewise, he understood they were attempting to land Shumpert and Smith from the Knicks, but that sounded like another long shot. The twin trades, consummated less than 48 hours apart, did more than fortify the rotation. They validated James’s faith. “It reassured me,” he says, “that Griff was in it just as well as I was.”
There is nuance in the relationship between stars and GMs, stars and coaches, stars and other stars. With James there is even more nuance, because no other franchise is as synonymous with one player. Of course, Griffin queries James about potential moves, and of course James contacts free-agent targets. “[But] people have this vision of him making all these demands of us and he’s never done that once,” Griffin says. “It’s a narrative everybody wants to believe because he’s LeBron and because he can. And sure, if he goes to Dan Gilbert and says, ‘F--- Dave Griffin, he’s got to go away or I’m not re-signing,’ then I’ll go away. But that’s not what he does. That’s not who he is. It’s not what he wants to do. He wants to be the best player on the planet and the best leader he can, and that’s what he invests all his time in.” Thompson’s free-agent negotiations this summer could have been awkward, given that he is represented by James’s friend and agent, Rich Paul. But they were not, at least as far as James was concerned, because he essentially recused himself from the process.
James doesn’t like to reference power—“People confuse that word way too often,” he says—choosing opportunity instead. According to James, coach David Blatt gives him the opportunity to change plays based on what he sees from the defense, and he takes advantage when he thinks an edge can be gained. “Coach is the captain,” James says. “I’m one of his generals.” Specific military rank notwithstanding, some executives outside the Cavs’ walls chuckle at depictions of James calling more audibles than Peyton Manning. “All we want is for our star to take ownership, to be invested in our success,” says another GM. “Being too invested, which I understand is the knock on him, seems like an O.K. problem.”
In the past two months James has extended public olive branches to Blatt (“As great as any coach” in the league) and Love (“The focal point” of the offense), a reversal from subtle tweaks of last season. “Some guys you have to get on, and some guys you have to put your arm around and slap on the ass,” Love says. “You have to understand people and how to deal with them. LeBron is incredibly smart. He knows how to get the best out of us.” Marginalized on the perimeter for stretches of his first campaign in Cleveland, Love met with James at an L.A. hotel pool in June. Love had already decided to re-sign with the Cavaliers, but he still wanted to chat. “One of the first things I told him was, ‘Over the next five years we are going to get to know each other better, and that’s going to make for a better relationship and a better product on the floor,’ ” Love says. They discussed how to accelerate the process. “Anything you need from me, let me know,” James said. “If you need to tell me what to do, tell me.”
Jason Miller/Getty Images
When James declares he is riding Love’s coattails, he may be overstating matters, but the praise is not hollow. Despite spending the summer rehabbing from left shoulder surgery, Love was averaging 19.8 points and 11.8 rebounds at week’s end, his performance and his positioning more in line with how he played in Minnesota. “There are still games I find myself shooting 10 threes and thinking, What is that?” Love says. “But I’m in the paint more and rebounding more.” Love is a hoops savant and it takes a while to appreciate every element of his expertise: the outlet passes, hockey assists, ability to exploit space. “There were times he got down on himself, and things I wish I understood,” James says. “He keeps a little more to himself than some other guys, but now I feel like I can go to him and have a real conversation about what needs to be done, and he can do the same with me. I want him to believe in himself and understand how important he is to this movement.”
• MORE NBA: Cavaliers at No. 3 in SI's latest NBA Power Rankings
James craves camaraderie. It is no coincidence, he suggests, that his first season in the NBA, his first season in Miami and his first season back in Cleveland were his most challenging. In Year Two, the Cavaliers say, he is more likely to fling an arm around Blatt at practice and parrot his postgame message to the press. “It’s refreshing to come every day and know you’re about the same things with your best guy,” Blatt says.
Recently, James walked past the Cavs’ training room, spotting Irving and Shumpert inside. “We can’t be ready until you are!” he shouted. James is an affable teammate, playing cards on the plane, arranging group dinners and ordering everybody’s sides. “Guys like him,” Griffin says. “He’s one of them in almost every way. But when he’s in the heat of competition, there’s no one like him. He is a very intense human being. He’s unrelenting. It’s not acceptable to blow an assignment. He’ll let you know. And then he’ll be playing cards with you again on the plane.”
Growing up, James hung a Kobe Bryant poster on his bedroom wall, and this season he is monitoring every Lakers game for fear it will be Bryant’s last. James and Bryant are nothing alike. James loves to share, while Bryant prefers to shine. Bryant is a loner, and James needs a group. But their iron fists overlap. “The little guy with the hammer,” James calls himself. He has edited his leadership style once again, turning more vocal, which the Cavaliers prefer to last year’s occasional silent treatments. “I think he made guys feel like he was doing this for them,” Griffin says. “Now he’s making them feel like he’s doing it with them. He’s empowering them. He’s brought a sense of togetherness to it.”
Juan Ocampo/Getty Images
In a meeting to start training camp James told the Cavaliers, “The organization gave us everything we need. There are no more excuses.” He has since suspended the team’s high-fiving pregame introduction routine, as the Heat once did, so players can’t claim they’re not ready for the tip. “I’ve cut the patience in half,” James says, a testament to the team’s progress.
“What he’s done has worked,” Jones adds. “The atmosphere here is a little tougher, a little more disciplined, a lot more focused, a lot more committed. These are full-time pros now. They come in for multiple film sessions, multiple treatment sessions, shoot by themselves. They’ve watched him.”
***
An era is ending. Bryant will retire after this season, and Kevin Garnett and Dirk Nowitzki will follow soon. Then James, the eternal prodigy, will be the godfather. He wonders if players will stop him for advice. “I don’t think my face is very approachable,” he says. Actually, as global icons go, he is rather accessible, which the Cavaliers have discovered. Teammates pepper him with starry-eyed questions. Can you go to the mall? Yes. Do you drive yourself? Sometimes. Do restaurants close when you go there? No.
James has become a bit of a foodie—sashimi and tuna tartare replacing steaks and burgers—and he marvels at new eateries in the Flats and in the suburbs. He reserves a private room at a spot like Dante, an upscale Mediterranean set in a former bank building in Tremont, and stays for hours with friends and family. He drinks cabernet, usually Mayacamas or Silver Oak, while Mims plays music on a Beats Pill portable speaker. DJ Montage, as James calls Mims, spun for the Cavs in their San Francisco hotel ballroom during the Finals.
James still hits up St. V games and watches his 11-year-old son, LeBron Jr., dissect AAU defenses. Junior is already receiving attention from college recruiters and scouting services, a source of pride and dismay for his dad. “He doesn’t want people to know who he is,” James says. “He hates when they ask him for pictures and autographs. He won’t even wear my number.” Junior chose 0, same as Love.
Ethan Miller/Getty Images
James hopes the bubble of Northeast Ohio will insulate his daughter and two sons just as it insulated him. “There is a comfort and a shadow and a protection here,” James says. “This city protects me and my family. I can’t explain it, but when I was a kid and I’d walk the streets or be out late or play on outdoor courts, I felt like people were watching me and thinking, Let’s protect him. I could feel that. I still feel it.”
His life is rich but complicated. He is a business owner, an actor and a philanthropist. This summer The New Yorker called him “the funniest person” in Trainwreck, a movie filled with comic luminaries. The University of Akron partnered with his foundation to fund full scholarships for all the at-risk students he sponsors in the city’s public schools who qualify for college, a number that could reach into the thousands. He is the rare American athlete regularly asked about current events.
He treasures his many roles, but they bring him back to Riley’s main thing. “The homes I live in, the cars I drive, the schools my kids attend, the movies, the shows, the businesses, it’s all because of basketball,” James says. “That’s the main thing. It always has to be the main thing.”
When James was in high school and players were ranked by magazines, he was forever No. 1. He would scan the names below his and imagine those faceless kids, where they were and what they were doing to eclipse him. In the NBA he can more easily track his pursuers. Derrick Rose was on his heels in 2011, Kevin Durant in ’12, Paul George in ’13. None caught up. Calling James the greatest player in the world was so obvious, it became a cliché.
But here comes Steph Curry, for the second year in a row, putting the NBA in his personal incinerator. “I hear the chatter about who is the best player in the league,” James says. “I see the guys who are barreling down. That locks me in even more.” So he logs 39 minutes against the Knicks and 45 the next night against the Bucks. He plays the whole fourth quarter against the Raptors. He undergoes daily back therapy to make this possible. He talks longingly of 70 wins. “If I’m able to link up with Pop in the afterlife, we can sit down and drink some wine and I can ask him how to pace,” he says. “The Spurs know how to pace perfection. I haven’t figured that out yet.” He ticks off personal shortcomings. “Don’t box out sometimes, allow guys to get offensive rebounds, allow guys to backdoor cut on me....”
• MORE NBA: The case for Steph Curry for SI Sportsman of the Year
James wants to harness his “competitive emotions”—the fits of anger that often produce those errors—but the truth is he’d rather keep them than lose them altogether. “Once I stop having those moments,” James says, “I will be like, Oh, man, I might need to figure out if this is it for me.” He is a long way from that conversation. Fourteen hours earlier he poured in 27 points with nine rebounds and six assists against Milwaukee. The Cavaliers won, and James shot 69.2%, so Wade would say he won twice. Afterward James dressed at his corner locker, the stall adorned by a blue paper crown with glitter given to him by a terminally ill girl he met in Indiana. “That will stay up there forever,” James said.
His eyes wandered to a TV in the corner, showing the Warriors-Clippers game. Golden State would rally from 23 down to reach 13–0, raising the bar, rousing the King. A week later the reigning champs would break the record for the best start in league history, 16–0. (Through Sunday the Warriors were 18–0, the Cavs 13–4.) Much can happen between December and June, but Golden State and Cleveland appear to be on a six-month collision course, with Curry and James behind their respective wheels.
For the first time in nearly a decade, James’s transcendence is being matched by another’s. “I’m great,” he says, a crack that recalls his press conference after Game 5 of the Finals. “I’m the best player in the world,” he said then. He is asked if he ever needs to remind himself. “No,” he replies. “I don’t need to be reminded.” He flashes a broad smile, eyebrows incredulously raised.
Do you?Whether you’re working through Christmas or already enjoying a few days off, chances are your schedule is packed.
And while your Fitbit Charge 2 won’t be able to help you to do the last minute shop, or roast the turkey, there are now 11 new ways it can help keep you on track and relaxed this festive season!
Below, all the features you’ll be getting when you update your Charge 2 firmware. Think of it as an early Christmas present from the Fitbit engineers to you.
6 Big Upgrades!
Workout Pause Function:
Stuck at a traffic light during your run? Just press the button on the side of your tracker to pause any multi-sport exercise mode. The screen will flash while your workout is on hold. When you’re ready to resume, simply press the button again.
Guided Breathing Vibration Cues:
While in Relax mode, you can now close your eyes or look away from your tracker; a light vibration will signal when you need to inhale and exhale during the stress-busting guided breathing sessions. Try it during one of these unnecessarily annoying situations.
Do Not Disturb Option:
You now have the ability to turn notifications (calls, text, calendar alerts, reminders to move) on or off directly from your Charge 2.
There are two ways to do this. Firstly, while in the main clock face menu on your device, press and hold down the side button.
Or click the side button until you come to the notification screen and then press and hold down that same button to turn notifications on or off.
Improved Heart Rate Zone Display:
A new, more dynamic visualisation makes it easier to identify which heart rate zone (fat burn, cardio, or peak) you’re in during an exercise session.
This quick-glance gauge allows you to adjust your intensity on the fly so you can complete every workout with precision. New to heart rate training? Here’s to make it work for you
On-Device Battery Life:
Here’s one that we know will be popular! You’re always busy and Fitbit wants your tracker to be, too. That means no unexpectedly drained batteries.
Now you can see the percentage of battery life you have left directly on your Charge 2 display.
To add this screen to your device, go to the Fitbit app and select Account. Tap on Charge 2 and then Menu Items. You can then click the checkbox for Battery. You’ll need to sync your device before this change takes effect.
New Clock Face:
If you want to make every second count, this new clock face—with the hour, minute, and seconds—will help. To add it to your device, open the account setting on your Fitbit app, select Charge 2, and then “Clock Face.”
You’ll find the new Seconds Ring option there. Select it and then sync your device.
Plus 5 Bonus Features!
Intuitive Intervals:
If you’ve set up and used your Charge 2 interval timer, you know that your devices vibrates when it’s time to transition between intervals. But now the dimmed display screen will also light up, making it even easier to follow along.
Workout Recaps That Last Longer.
On-screen exercise summaries will now be available for one hour after your workout wraps up. You’ll still be able to view your complete exercise history on your dashboard whenever you want too.
Smarter Notifications:
To catch your eye when you’ve got more than one unread notification, you’ll now see a plus sign (+) indicator on your tracker display.
Unknown Caller ID: Callers are now identified as “unknown” if the number doesn’t match a name in your contact list.
Message Prioritisation: The sequence for text notifications has changed. Now the message scrolls first, then the sender’s name.
Have an idea for a new feature? Share your wishlist with the Fitbit Development Team via the Feature Suggestions Board.Former Alabama quarterback Blake Sims was in Green Bay, Wis., over the weekend for the Packers' two-day rookie mini-camp on a tryout basis. But according to ESPN's Rob Demovsky, Sims will not sign a contract with Green Bay at this time.
#Packers not signing QB Blake Sims at this time per his agent, but will keep tabs on him. Sims to attend Redskins rookie camp as an RB. — Rob Demovsky (@RobDemovsky) May 11, 2015
Packers head coach Mike McCarthy said Sims "did some nice things" and "made some throws" Saturday in the team's second of two mini-camp practices. The Green Bay coaches also looked at the former Crimson Tide quarterback at other positions while he was in town for a tryout, according to McCarthy. That is what Sims will focus on in his next NFL stop.
According to Demovsky, Sims will attend the Washington Redkins' rookie mini-camp this upcoming weekend as a running back, not a quarterback. He rushed for 350 yards and seven touchdowns on 83 attempts last season and spent the early portions of his Alabama career as a tailback before moving under center.
Washington's rookie mini-camp will begin Friday, May 15 and will end Sunday, May 17.
For more news on Alabama sports and recruiting, follow BamaOnLine on Twitter.Jar with a Twist logo Inventor Michael Bissette
Stephen Smith
Spencer Vaughn
Sean Echevarria Manufacturer Jar with a Twist Available TBA Website https://web.archive.org/web/20160707060235/http://jarwithatwist.com:80/ Notes
Production not currently scheduled
Jar with a Twist (also stylized Jar-with-a-Twist and Jar~with~a~Twist) is a peanut butter jar. It has a rotating bottom which functions similar to a deodorant stick to bring the contents of the jar up towards the top for easier access.[1]
History and design [ edit ]
The creators of the jar, Michael Bissette, Stephen Smith, Spencer Vaughn, and Sean Echevarria, developed the concept for the jar during a senior design project while at North Carolina State University. Their original plan was to create a squeegee knife that never got dirty below the handle, but soon realized that the primary problem was in retrieving peanut butter from nearly empty containers. Their concept was feasibility-tested using PVC pipe and a makeshift plug, and then prototyped utilizing the university's 3D printers; the team exhausted many prototypes and spent thousands of dollars in the process. A patent was filed for the finished concept in June 2013.[2] The university newspaper, Technician, described the finished product:
The finished Jar with a Twist design will have a tamper-proof seal on both the top and the bottom of the jar. When you twist the jar’s bottom, no residue will be left behind from the product inside. That’s because the inner-piece and the cylinder meet to form an air- and-watertight seal—the same basic design principle used in the pistons of a car’s engine.
The finished product will be entirely injection molded using PET plastic. The company claims that the shelf life of its contents, once opened, will match that of a normal peanut butter jar at 3 to 6 months.[3]
The team is planning on introducing the jar into the peanut butter market and then expanding their design to jelly, salsa, and mayonnaise containers. Each jar is expected to cost $0.13 to manufacture, which is three cents more than the manufacturing cost of a typical peanut butter jar. One cent of each unit's manufacturing cost will be a licensing fee for the Jar with a Twist company.[4]
Press coverage [ edit ]
Jar with a Twist was covered in North Carolina State's Technician article on August 22, 2013.[2] It was on The Huffington Post website, which claimed it was "a brilliant idea".[5] Gizmodo published a story about the jar with the title "The Peanut Butter Jar Has Been Perfected".[6] Nadine DeNinno of the International Business Times said the product's invention was "a stroke of genius".[1] The jar has also been featured on ABC News,[7] Foodbeast,[8] the Winnipeg Free Press,[9] Slate,[10] and the Daily Mail.[11]ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey and Ukraine have agreed to share technology in order to jointly develop and build satellites, Turkish military officials said.
Turkey's state-controlled military software company Havelsan and Ukraine's weapons systems concern Ukroboronprom signed a memorandum of understanding to join forces on satellite technology with a view to joint development and production, the officials said, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A military official said the memorandum of understanding also involves cooperation to advance aerospace industry work in the future.
"We are pleased to observe that Ukraine is keen to share and develop technology with a NATO member state," a Turkish procurement official said. "We think we can efficiently cooperate in developing international [NATO] standard systems."
In February, the two countries, both Russian adversaries, have pledged to build a "strategic" cooperation in the defense industry with a view to co-design, co-develop and co-produce gear.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu visited the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, on Feb. 15 to bolster the regional anti-Russian bloc. On the sidelines of that visit procurement, and defense technology officials from Turkey and Ukraine met and agreed to boost their defense industry cooperation.
Turkey's top procurement official, Ismail Demir, said that defense industry cooperation with Ukraine was of great importance and would progress even further.
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A Turkish government official said that Turkey and Ukraine aimed cooperation primarily in turbojet aircraft engines, radars, military communications technologies and navigation systems.In the banned advertisement, a man is seen scooping up dog faeces with a copy of News Corp's Courier Mail. The man tells viewers: "It was great when you could pick up a paper and get, well, news. Recently, the Courier Mail and the Daily Tele have been using their front pages to run a political campaign instead." The man says it is "fair enough" for Murdoch to hold a personal opinion about Prime Minister Kevin Rudd but adds: "Political bias presented as news is misleading crap". In an email to GetUp, a Seven sales executive said the network had "decided to make a stand" against the "distasteful" and "potentially offensive" ad. A Seven spokesman told Fairfax Media: "We can choose whether to run a television commercial or accept a booking. We chose not to."
Network Ten has refused to comment but is aware of the complaint made against them. A Nine spokeswoman said the ad "was never supposed to run... there was an error in coding and the wrong ad went to air". She would not specify why Nine cancelled it but said the station would charge GetUp only for the ads that had aired. Fairfax Media rejected the video as a paid advertisement for its Age and Sydney Morning Herald websites but confirmed it had no issue with showing it in a news story. It was great when you could pick up a paper and get, well, news. Darren Goodsir, editor-in-chief of The Sydney Morning Herald, said: "I felt that The Sydney Morning Herald should continue to focus on its own independent editorial attributes rather than take money from a lobby group to attack another news publisher.
"I think we are better off promoting our own values during this election campaign: that Fairfax is the home for independent and balanced political journalism." GetUp's national director Sam McLean is now calling on the group's members to phone and email the television stations in protest. "This is censorship, pure and simple," he said. "Channel Seven says it's about taste but I don't buy that for a second. Channel Ten told us they don't want to criticise another media network – but this is about Rupert's son Lachlan being [chairman] of Channel Ten. And Channel Nine's response about the coding error is interesting but the real question is why they're refusing to play the ad, which they're not answering." Last year, all three networks banned a GetUp ad that criticised the gambling interests of major sponsors Coles and Woolworths. In February, independent senator Nick Xenophon proposed a law to prevent TV stations rejecting political advertisements they don't like.Under the plan, Australia would have been sending unwanted refugees to resettle in one of Asia's poorest nations with one of the world's highest rates of crime. Philippine President Benigno Aquino III in Paranaque, south of Manila, on Tuesday. He said his government was "challenged to meet the needs of its own people right now". Credit:Aaron Favila Mr Aquino's rebuff to Australia came as Australia's controversial US$55 million agreement to send refugees to Cambodia has faltered after hundreds of refugees on the Pacific island of Nauru refused to accept offers of housing, training and other benefits to give up their hopes of reaching Australia. Only four refugees have agreed to go to Cambodia from Nauru and one of them quit the country and returned home to Myanmar this month. Mr Aquino said the Philippines would still consider taking refugees from Australia but only if they do not resettle permanently in the country.
"If this proposed agreement…is not one of just being in a transit point but actually relocating these people we think we are not in a capacity at this point in time to afford a permanent residency to these people," he said. "I think Australia can recognise that we do have a significantly bigger population than they do…we would want to assist but there are limitations as to how far we can assist." Australia has not disclosed details of its proposal but is believed to be aimed at refugees having to live permanently in the Philippines without the possibility of being relocated to a third nation. Mr Aquino said the Philippines agreed to host Indochinese refugees after the Vietnam war in the 1970s with the understanding that the country would only be a transit point. But he said the Philippines was swamped with hundreds of thousands of refugees who stayed for up to 15 years.
Australia's Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton told reporters in early October that high-level talks on the plan had been underway with the Philippines for months. Australia has been pressing for several years for a regional solution to help solve its festering problem of off-shore detention, without appearing to waiver on its tough border protection stance. The Philippines confirmed that foreign minister Julie Bishop had met her Philippine counterpart Albert del Rosario on the sidelines of UN meetings and discussed "irregular migration and migrants in distress," among other issues. Australian officials were hopeful that a deal could be reached with the Philippines as part of a strategic partnership agreement and a strengthening of co-operation between the armed forces of the two countries. The Philippines is one of the few Asian nations that have signed the 1951 Refugee Convention.
Some refugee advocates in Australia said sending refugees to the Philippines was a better solution than them being kept on Manus in Papua New Guinea. But human rights groups and Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young criticised the plan, saying Australia was once again passing its responsibility to care for refugees on to another poor nation. More than 27 percent of Filipinos live in poverty on incomes of less than $AUD |
activated personal assistants, includingandAs estimated during the discovery of this devastating threat, several IoT and smart devices whose operating systems are often updated less frequently than smartphones and desktops are also vulnerable to BlueBorne.BlueBorne is the name given to the sophisticated attack exploiting a total of eight Bluetooth implementation vulnerabilities that allow attackers within the range of the targeted devices to run malicious code, steal sensitive information, take complete control, and launch man-in-the-middle attacks.Triggering the BlueBorne exploit doesn't require victims to click any link or open any file—all without requiring user interaction. Also, most security products would likely not be able to detect the attack.What's even scarier is that once an attacker gains control of one Bluetooth-enabled device, he/she can infect any or all devices on the same network.These Bluetooth vulnerabilities were patched by Google for Android in September, Microsoft for Windows in July, Apple for iOS one year before disclosure, and Linux distributions also shortly after disclosure.However, many of these 5 billion devices are still unpatched and open to attacks via these flaws.IoT security firm Armis, who initially discovered this issue, has now disclosed that an estimated 20 million Amazon Echo and Google Home devices are also vulnerable to attacks leveraging the BlueBorne vulnerabilities.If I split, around 15 million Amazon Echo and 5 million Google Home devices sold across the world are potentially at risk from BlueBorne.Amazon Echo is affected by the following two vulnerabilities:Since different Echo's variants use different operating systems, other Echo devices are affected by either the vulnerabilities found in Linux or Android.Whereas, Google Home devices are affected by one vulnerability:This Android flaw can also be exploited to cause a denial-of-service (DoS) condition.Since Bluetooth cannot be disabled on either of the voice-activated personal assistants, attackers within the range of the affected device can easily launch an attack.Armis has also published a proof-of-concept (PoC) video showing how they were able to hack and manipulate an Amazon Echo device.The security firm notified both Amazon and Google about its findings, and both companies have released patches and issued automatic updates for the Amazon Echo and Google Home that fixes the BlueBorne attacks.Amazon Echo customers should confirm that their device is running v591448720 or later, while Google has not made any information regarding its version yet.Am I heartbroken about Pablo Sandoval? Not really. I feel a bit betrayed but that's the little kid inside me. I'm glad he grew up in a Giants uniform and wish him nothing but the best.
Wouldn't Jon Lester look good in a Giants uniform? I think so too. I don't know what the Giants offered him but I hope he takes it over going to LA. The Kershaw-Lester-Greinke combo is daunting for any team to face.
Today Henry Schulman found out the Giants are talking to Chase Headley to fill the 3rd base position. We also learned that means left field is not a focus this offseason. That's probably why Travis Ishikawa was inked to a one-year $1.1 million contract.
That probably means goodbye to Michael Morse. He's suited for a DH role and many AL teams would be willing to give multiple years. He was a good Giant and a big part of the team in 2014. Love that guy's energy.
Come on back Melky Cabrera. If it wasn't for second chances most of us would be somewhere else in life. If the guys in the clubhouse are good with it, that's good enough for me.
If you've been keeping up with my non baseball life I've got good news. We're moving next week to a safer area of town. The expenses are still building so any help or sharing of our GoFundMe campaign is appreciated. Thank you very much. Here's the link: Our Modern Family
Plenty more baseball to come during the winter, thanks for sticking around!
-Eric
The last few weeks have been a roller coaster. I'm glad to be back here writing some thoughts about the San Francisco Giants.First, I have to talk about the 2 guys that just left the Giants organization. The reality is that Pablo Sandoval could always choose another team. Then he actually did. It wasn't a shock.It was the news that Tim Flannery would no longer be the 3rd base coach that really surprised me. So many people have their reasons for falling in love with Flannery over the years. For some its the tremendous work he's done in support of Bryan Stow. For others it's the exuberance he brings to the 3rd base coaching position. For me it's a little bit of everything.In August of 2013 I obtained my first press pass for an MLB game down here in Florida when the Giants took on the Tampa Bay Rays. It was "my cup of coffee" I felt so out of place and was freaked out by the whole thing. After Joe Maddon and Bruce Bochy wrapped their pregame interviews guys were just milling around the dugout. I ended up just standing there listening to Shawon Dunston talk. I had no idea what to do with myself.That's when I spotted Flan leaning against the dugout rail. I mustered my courage and introduced myself. I mentioned his music and our conversation took off running. Over the next few minutes we talked about Jackie Greene, Bob Weir, the Lunatic Fringe and others. Then the Rays got off the field and he had to go hit fungoes.The conversation totally disarmed me and made the rest of my night easier. Some talk about music is what made me comfortable at a baseball game. Who knew? For the rest of the night I felt like I belonged.That's why I'm gonna miss seeing Tim Flannery down the 3rd base line. Whether he knew it or not he had a big hand in my confidence that day. Of course I'll also miss the arm swinging and knees pumping as he sent a runner home. I'm glad he decided to go one more round with Bochy. Those 3 titles were a lot of fun.Now the rest of what's been going on in Giants land.by ·
Here we are marching head long into spring and we have yet to see the top-water bite heat up. However, that doesn’t mean that we haven’t been using some of the new products that are now available. Today’s review is on one of those top-water baits, the Flip In The Bird Topwater Bait. Yes the name says it all.
This is not a frog but a bird! When we were first made aware of these, our minds started clicking in terms of where and how to fish it. The first thing that came up was some smaller lakes that just happen to have lots of bulrushes in different areas of the lake.
Having fished these lakes several times in the past and remembering the bird population that inhabits these reeds, we decided that this was the first place we were going to Flip In The Bird. Before we get to the actual results, let’s take a few minutes to give you the low down on the bait itself.
Flip In The Bird Construction
This Bird is 3 inches in length and weighs 5/8 of an ounce. Okay, very similar to a lot of frogs out there so what are the real differences? Let’s take a close look and find out.
In terms of the construction of the Bird, you’ll notice that there are molded hook slots on the top of the body which are very effective for keeping the hooks hidden. This allows the angler to throw this thing into the thickest slop one can find with absolute confidence that you’re not going to hang up. Since we obtained this bait, we have yet to get it fouled on anything and believe me, we have tried!
The hollow body portion of the Bird is indeed designed to mimic the body shape of small birds. It is elongated with the head coming to a rounded point. Again, much like a small bird. There are four individual groupings of rubber strands on each side of the body that make up the “wings” as well as one group on the rear end of the bait for the “tail”. The material used for these appendages moves very well in the water with little effort from the angler.
This is one of the coolest parts of the bait in our opinion. Just twitch the rod tip ever so slightly and the wings fold and spread just like a bird as does the tail. This occurs whether you’re moving it slow or fast. Incidentally, this bait is a cinch to walk the dog with. Much better than a lot of frogs out there although, you may not want to employ this type of retrieve for reasons we’ll get to shortly.
When you get your bird, much like tuning a frog, you will need to do some trimming of the wings and the tail. You can get the information for the optimum length from their website which is, flipinthebird.com.
Hooks
Since the Birds introduction, the creator of the bait has made some changes. They have replaced the hook with a hook that lowers the center of gravity which helps the Bird land on its belly much more consistently as well as making it easier to roll over if it does happen to land upside down.
The old hook used side barbs, barbs that are on the outside of the hook shank, versus the new one which uses standard barbs. They have also reformulated the rubber of the body to be softer but still be as durable as the older version. So with these upgrades in mind, let’s get down to the nitty gritty and talk about how the Bird performs.
Personally, I have watched small birds fall into the water as well as birds coming out of the reeds landing in the water just to bathe. On occasion, I have seen these poor lost souls wind up being a quick meal for hungry bass. With that in mind, we decided to try a few different retrieves to see if we could imitate what happens when either of these conditions occur.
Fishin’ The Bird
First up, the bird that just falls in. If you’ve ever watched this happen then you know that they really don’t do much other than periodically flapping their wings like crazy in an attempt to get back on something dry. So we tried to do just that. Cast the Bird right into some dense stick-ups, making sure to hit the reeds just above the water level, and then let it fall into the water.
Pause a few seconds, give the rod tip several short, quick twitches and then dead stick it. If nothing happens repeat the process altering the number of pops you give the Bird. Sure enough, we have been rewarded with several strikes on this retrieve.
In thinking about a bird bathing, we did the same kind of thing but not in the same area of the lake. For this, we chose water that had over-hanging tree limbs or bushes. Throw the Bird into the area directly below the overhang, let it sit motionless for a few seconds and then give it several pops without moving the bait to much in the water. Here again, we have gotten some good strikes using this technique.
Finally, what about open water or using it where traditionally you would use a frog like over slop or through lily pads? We have found some pads and thrown the Bird in there. However, we just haven’t gotten many strikes. Probably due the fact that it isn’t really top-water season yet! Yeah, I know thats a no-brainer but this is one of those lures that is just flat out fun to fish. And of course, we haven’t found any dense slop to throw the Bird into either but as soon as we do, we won’t hesitate.
Our hook-up ratio has been about 75% with the Bird which is right in line with what they advertise. Another little tip here, this is a lure that is designed to be fished on braid. In our testing, braid is certainly the way to go.
The Flip In The Bird Topwater Bait is not just a modified frog. It is a new class of bait that I would be willing to bet will see other companies introducing their own versions in the near future.
If you’ve been on the fence about this lure, give the Flip In The Bird a try. It has proven to be a versatile, well-made bait that will garner a permanent place in our tackle boxes both for right now and definitely for the coming summer months.
For more information on this lure, and to make a purchase, visit www.flipinthebird.com.
Flip In The Bird Overall Rating Outside the box design that really works!
See ya’ on the water …Americans are increasingly tired of Donald Trump's presidency. More than half of the voters polled in June by the Democratic-aligned firm Public Policy Polling said they believe the president is an inveterate liar. Forty-seven percent said they would back Trump's impeachment and removal from office.
Which is why, as the evidence grows that the Russian government helped the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, Trump's critics are expressing outrage that Republicans in Congress continue to defend the president.
"How long can the rest of the Republican Party prioritize partisanship and agenda over decency and patriotism?" the Washington Post's editorial board asked on Tuesday.
The comedian John Oliver seemed to answer that question the next day when, talking about the revelation that Trump's son Donald Jr. met last summer with a Russian agent, he said: "It seems serious, but do we live in a world devoid of consequences now? I forget where we are in human history."
The answer to both WaPo's and Oliver's questions: be patient.
There are indeed still consequences in today's political world, but it takes longer for them to come about, thanks in part to the fracturing of the media into partisan camps. Some Republicans are as unhappy about this as Democrats.
Trump certainly does retain significant support from GOP members in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. But that support is probably as thin as it is wide.
From the outside, Republican backing of Trump appears monolithic, so much so that it can be easy to forget that a lot of GOP leaders really don't like the president. Consider: Sen. Ted Cruz this week did verbal jiu-jitsu to avoid criticizing Donald Jr. for his apparent willingness to conspire with a hostile foreign country to help elect his father. Facing questions about the Trump administration's relationship with Russia, Cruz offered nonsense answers. "I think that we have had eight years of [President] Barack Obama showing nothing but appeasement towards Russia," he said, responding to a question about whether Trump was too cozy with Vladimir Putin's government.
Cruz, remember, is the man Trump labeled "Lyin' Ted" during last year's Republican presidential primaries, whose wife Trump threatened to "spill the beans" on, whose father Trump accused of helping Lee Harvey Oswald assassinate President John Kennedy. Cruz once called Trump a "sniveling coward."
Why would the senator from Texas defend Trump, considering their ugly history? It's called self-preservation. (In the political world, self-preservation can usually be safely filed under Moral Cowardice.) It comes down to this: Being a member of Congress is a good gig. Few people who've enjoyed the perks want to give up the job. Sen. John McCain was just re-elected at age 80. The legendary Strom Thurmond didn't retire from the Senate until he was 100, five months before he died.
Cruz is up for re-election next year.
So is Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Back when Trump was on the verge of securing the GOP presidential nomination last year, and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton looked like a safe bet to win the election, Ryan made a big show of saying he was "not there yet" when asked about endorsing Trump.
Then he found himself stalked by angry Trump supporters every time he returned to his district in Wisconsin.
He's now very much "there." When pressed last month about Trump demanding loyalty in February from FBI Director James Comey and telling Comey to go easy on former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Ryan's response was that the president "is new at this. He's new to government. And so he probably wasn't steeped in the long-going protocols that established the relationships between DOJ, FBI, and White Houses." (Trump, of course, fired Comey for refusing to back off on the Russia election-conspiracy investigation.)
This week, when Ryan was asked whether he would accept a meeting with an agent from a foreign government who offered damaging information on a political opponent, as Trump's son did, Ryan responded: "Look, I am not going to go into hypotheticals."
Ryan is thinking about the 2018 mid-term election, which he knows is not hypothetical. Every Republican holding elected office is afraid of Trump's diehard supporters. Driven by class resentments and, in some cases, racial animus, these "Trumpkins" make up somewhere around a quarter of the electorate, and they are not moved by traditional GOP stands on economic and social issues. They see Trump as their hero, as the only person in Washington, D.C., who has actually taken their interests to heart.
Cruz, Ryan and their colleagues know these pseudo-Republicans will turn out to vote in the 2018 primaries. They dare not anger them. So they fall back on one or more easy responses: Democrats are being hysterics; it's Obama's fault; Trump is new at government and doesn't know how to act; Russian meddling in the U.S. election is serious, so let's give Special Counsel Robert Mueller the room he needs to do a proper investigation.
That last answer is the important one. (And flying under the radar, by the way, is New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who's reportedly investigating Trump and the Trump Organization for financial crimes.) If Mueller eventually comes forward with smoking guns even hotter than Trump Jr.'s meeting -- and backs them up with indictments -- we might finally see Fox News turn away from Trump, thus knocking down the president's popularity among Republican voters. Right now, the cable-news behemoth is floating the notion that Trump campaign collusion with Russia, if it actually happened, wouldn't be criminal, that it actually wouldn't be a big deal. Its audience isn't entirely buying it. Seventy-two percent of GOP voters support the president, according to a late-June poll from CBS News. That's down from 83 percent a month before.
Fox News, like Trump himself and the GOP majority in Congress, will keep a close eye on such poll numbers. If the conservative press starts backing away from the president, then it's Katy bar the door. Republican members of the House suddenly will be quite interested in fleshing out articles of impeachment.
-- Douglas PerryDespite heightened security, 143 incidents, including 22 sexual assaults have been reported during the first night of the annual Carnival in Cologne. Up to 2,000 police officers were on alert during the celebrations, twice the number deployed last year.
Of the 22 sexual assaults, two reported on Friday were called “serious,” according to the DPA news agency. Among the two victims was a Belgian female journalist, who was groped while reporting. The second victim was attacked on her way home and apparently raped, police said. 11 policemen were slightly injured defending themselves.
In addition to incidents of bodily harm, 30 thefts were also reported at the festival.
Read more
The number of sexual offences more than doubled compared to the Carnival in 2015, police said. During last year’s carnival only nine sex crimes were reported.
The rise in the number of sexual complaints might be attributed to the women’s “willingness” to report incidents, Michael Temme Cologne's police director said. He explained the rise may have been influenced by the sexual assaults reported in Cologne at New Year’s Eve, when hundreds of women were harassed.
"I don't want to play that down, but that shows that the willingness of women to report has changed," Michael Temme Cologne's police director said as quoted by Deutche Welle.
The sexual assaults in Cologne sparked wariness in Europe and resulted in even greater anti-migrant sentiment after it emerged that most suspects were men of Arab or North African origin. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has recently started to change her pro-refugee rhetoric and said that asylum seekers are expected to return home once conflicts in their homelands are resolved.Scoot McNairy as Gordon Clark, Mackenzie Davis as Cameron Howe and Lee Pace as Joe MacMillan in “Halt and Catch Fire.” (James Minchin III/AMC)
“Halt and Catch Fire,” a new show about the rise of personal computing that premiered on AMC on Sunday, wants us to think, as its title implies, that it is a story about the risks involved in reaching beyond your own capacity and rushing to do everything at once. But just as the leads are attempting to reverse-engineer a personal computer originally manufactured by IBM, “Halt and Catch Fire” feels as though it was constructed in response to other shows. And it faces the same challenge as any new product: How do you find your slot in a market that is already crowded with strong entrants?
Through the first episode, the strong suit for “Halt and Catch Fire” is not the characters. The show has a leading man, Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace), who has a Don Draper-like gappy backstory, a tendency to pontificate and a deep dedication to irritating his less creatively inspired supervisors. The series’ creators are aware of the Skyler White problem — the tendency of audiences to turn on female characters who question anti-heroes. The solution? Eliminate the questions. “Build it!” Donna Clark (Kerry Bishé) coos to her husband, Gordon (Scoot McNairy). “Whatever it is you’re dreaming of, build it. I know you can make it great.”
The biggest hurdle for “Halt and Catch Fire,” though, is that it has arrived on television at a moment when many shows are already offering sharp takes on technology and its place in society, with much greater sophistication and much less credulousness. Next to “Silicon Valley,” “The Americans” or “The Good Wife,” “Halt and Catch Fire” looks less like the Macintosh 128K or the Altair 8800 and more like a Commodore PET: neither first in its class nor visionary enough to move personal computing forward.
Mike Judge’s “Silicon Valley,” which ended its first season on HBO as “Halt and Catch Fire” premiered, is the sharpest contrast to AMC’s new bid for a prestige drama, and not just because Judge has made a brightly lit comedy about smart people doing trivial work rather than a drab show about supposed geniuses.
On “Halt and Catch Fire,” MacMillan closes a sales pitch by declaring: “I’m not going to apologize for caring about your business, even if the people who work for you don’t. I’ll ask you one more time: Are you ready to be more?” That may be hyperbole. Even in private, the characters talk like Sterling Cooper employees without the business-hours bourbon and sense of the ridiculous. “This is an industry built on people ripping off each other’s boring-ass ideas,” declares the woman who will become MacMillan’s first hire. “Computers could be more, they should be. You build counting machines, the same thing you’ve done for the last 70 years?”
“Silicon Valley,” set three decades later, is about characters doing precisely that. The series finale involved scrappy engineers from a start-up hoping they could build a better version of their own compression algorithm, which was itself reverse-engineered by employees of a giant tech company. “Halt and Catch Fire” is premised on the idea that something important is coming, a rise of the machines that will transform the way we live and work without taking over for us entirely. This is simultaneously a modest and a pretentious vision, and “Silicon Valley” is there to remind us of precisely how it turned out.
The technical advances we see on screen in “Silicon Valley” are not unimpressive or unimportant. But Judge has a fairly precise sense of how much it actually matters to be able to shrink your files for storage, when it comes down to it. He and his collaborators never miss a chance to mock aspiring inventors who see themselves on some sort of world-historical mission.
“The Americans,” FX’s Cold War drama about deep-cover Soviet spies, is a period show like “Halt and Catch Fire,” and although its characters are not techies by nature, they are drawn into cutting-edge research by their work. Last year, the titular married KGB agents raced after the tools behind the Strategic Defense Initiative, only to find out that the program did not actually work. This year, they were assigned to learn more about the Arpanet, which a professor described as “sort of like God, without the big beard and the flowing white robes,” even as it is housed in a series of mundane academic labs.
The strength of “The Americans’ ” approach to technology is the show’s dual ability to make big advancements feel genuinely vertiginous and strange, while recognizing how many of these wild dreams flare out into failure. People are actually dying over technology in “The Americans,” giving the show weight that “Halt and Catch Fire” so far lacks. “The Americans” intensifies that tragedy by suggesting that sometimes they die for nothing. Technological progress, in the show, is not a clear and consistent forward march.
Like “The Americans,” “The Good Wife,” CBS’s contemporary political and legal procedural, has focused more and more on technology as the seasons have progressed, moving away from murders and toward copyright disputes and the National Security Agency. In an approach “Halt and Catch Fire” might learn from, it has meticulously deepened our sense of the consequences that can come from seemingly mundane technological advancements and tech policy.
Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) enters the world of tech law when she represents a Mark Zuckerberg-like innovator who is displeased with a movie about his exploits. “The Good Wife” worked its way up from that small-scale, ripped-from-the-headlines entry point to more serious questions.
What do tech companies owe their clients when their privacy policies conflict with the practices of authoritarian regimes? What impact does the Internet have on our morals? Why are governments suspicious of efforts to build new currencies? How should we handle conflicts of interest as search engine companies develop new lines of business? Can online communities counterbalance failures of justice, or is vigilantism always destabilizing?
Tellingly, many of the conflicts “The Good Wife” identifies and explores so sharply are rooted not in hardware development, where “Halt and Catch Fire” has invested its attention, but in software and database issues. “Silicon Valley,” too, is focused on software and app development, rather than on hardware.
“Halt and Catch Fire” has some sense that its characters are in the wrong business, or at least in a preliminary one. “Computers aren’t the thing,” MacMillan tells Gordon, quoting an article Gordon wrote back at him. “They’re the thing that gets us to the thing.” “Halt and Catch Fire” will need to convince us that it is focused on the right “thing” in that equation to make its mark as a show and to make a clear and convincing argument about the importance of its characters’ work.Vim can be a challenge to learn. But for many first-time users, just exiting the program can be a problem.
Last month, the Stack Overflow blog published an article on "helping one million developers exit Vim," a testament to the then-recent milestone of a million views on a popular question on the developer help site: how to exit the Vim editor? Based on the traffic, Stack Overflow says that during peak hours on weekdays, 80 people an hour were reading about how to get out.
In fairness, if you're not familiar with Vim, getting out can be a little unintuitive. Mashing Escape, hitting Ctrl+C, typing "quit" or "exit" alone won't yield you anything. Vim does try to give you some helpful hints along the way, even showing you how to get out right when you load the program for the first time.
Unfortunately, by the time you're using a search engine to find the answer, you've probably mashed a handful of other keys on the keyboard, entered insert mode, and have no idea that you need to hit Escape to be able to enter the commands to exit. What's worse, you may have made some changes to the buffer, meaning now Vim wants you to confirm that you wish to exit without saving your changes, requiring a whole different keystroke pattern than the one you just figured out.
Further, the way many people are introduced to Vim for the first time is from the Git command-line client, when they make a commit but don't specify the commit message along with the Git command. They have no idea where they landed, what they're doing there, or how to get back out.
Vim isn't hard to learn if you're willing to commit a little time to it, and its ubiquity makes it worth the time. If you want some help, we've got 5 tips to help you get started learning Vim.
But today, in celebration of Vim's rather well-known propensity to stump casual users just trying to exit, here are five more ways to exit Vim. I recommend none of them.
Hit the x
That's right, just use your GUI to kill the whole terminal window and give up. Surely there wasn't anything else you needed that window for, anyway, and you didn't want to save any potential changes you may or may not have made to that document you had open. Technically, with a graphical version like GVim, it's not the end of the world, but if they point of Vim is to keep your finger on the keyboard, if you're using the GUI to exit you're still missing the point.
Kill it automatically
Why worry about whether you'll remember how to exit Vim after you launch it? Instead, just start it up with a built-in kill switch using timeout.
$ timeout 60s vim
Your Vim instance can be gone in sixty seconds. Hope you remembered to save!
Kill all the Vims
What do you do when any other program runs amok? You throw open another terminal and kill it. Use your preferred method: ps + kill, find it visually in top or htop, or my favorite, because it makes me sound like a renegade, killall.
$ killall -9 vim
Goodbye, Vim(s).
Close it remotely
I haven't tried this personally, but apparently, Vim's client-server capabilities mean you can access a remotely-running instance of Vim by ssh'ing in, and politely ask Vim to save your file before you exit. The Vim Wikia has full instructions. Your mileage may vary, and this may actually not be a terrible idea, if you're the sort of person who leaves unsaved changes sitting in Vim after you leave a machine—but that, itself, is probably not the best idea.
Smash your computer
No, really, please don't do this. There are better ways. But if your level of frustration is nearing that level, just head over to your favorite video or gif site and let off some steam by watching others play a real-life edition of Super Smash Brothers with their machines.
Can't wait to get out of Vim? Let us know in the comments. Of course, Emacs users don't have this problem. I assume the solution to exiting there involves switching to exit-mode and writing a little bit of Lisp to initiate exiting.Kantar has released their market share numbers for the 3 months ending February 2016.
Market share numbers for the OS has continued to slip, with Windows Phone now holding only 5.9% market share in Europe, down from 10.1% last year over the same period and 6.4% last month.
UK numbers have slipped further to 6.2% and even in Italy, which used to have the highest market share for the OS, its down to 6.7%. The OS held 14.4% a year ago.
There is not much encouragement elsewhere, with US remaining steady at 2.6% and China at 0.9%.
With Microsoft not set to release any more handsets this year it seems either Microsoft’s new OEMs will get some traction with Windows 10 Mobile or these numbers will start looking like the good old days in 6-12 months time.
See the table below.
Source: Kantar.comOB's home. Photo via Junos Website.
As proud Canadians, you understand the gravity of the annual Juno Awards. The presentation of the prize shaped like a glass vase and named after the former president of the CRTC and CBC is one of the most prestigious gifts that can be bestowed upon a Canadian artist, and ever since its inception in 1970, the award's recipients have been hotly debated amongst the Canadian art scene. With every passing year, the Juno Awards seem to grow increasingly competitive, which in turn makes them more valuable for an artist to attain. Since 2010 and the introduction of Arcade Fire and Drake into the mainstream, not to mention Justin Bieber and an electronic music scene that seems to get exponentially better with each passing year, the panel has had to face tough decisions now that they simply can't give every Juno to Bachman Turner Overdrive and expect people not to notice.
The 2015 Juno Awards will be hosted in Hamilton, Ontario and features stiff competition in every field. Last year the awards nominated Robin Thicke for more Junos than he deserved, but the eventual winners seemed to be the artists who showed actual artistic maturation. Arcade Fire made the Album of the Year, Drake won for Rap Recording, Tegan and Sara won for Group of the Year, and Serena Ryder was Artist of the Year. For the most part, the Juno Awards got it right in 2014. But this year's award show will be different, since the pool of talent has grown in depth over the calendar year. 2014 had albums come out from (possibly under-rated rock group) Nickleback, Leonard Cohen, Sarah McLachlan, and Bryan Adams. Those four names alone would be enough to pack an enjoyable CanCon playlist, but there were also a flurry of releases by new bands and artists who are just as deserving of the prize as the veterans they're nominated against.
In an effort to make sure that there are some checks and balances implemented between now and March 15, we're going to run through the list of nominees and decide who deserves to win, while also acknowledging which white bearded bro will actually win.
Nominees:
Arkells
Chromeo
Mother Mother
Nickelback
You+Me
Should Win: Arkells
Will Win: Nickelback
What a stacked category to start off with! Let's just go ahead and remove You+Me since Pink! isn't Canadian and their continued inclusion is irksome both for grammatical and logistic reasons. Mother Mother had a great year, but since this is their first nomination as a major label act, this may be their buffer year before dominating all future Junos. Chromeo is too cool to care about being labelled a group, so they're out on principle. That leaves us with Nickelback and Arkells. Although Arkells have home court advantage with the award show being in Hamilton, you can't discount the fact that they're going up against the pop rock dragon sleeping in a cavernous mountain peak on top of a pile of treasure: Nickleback. Advantage, Nickleback.
Nominees:
Bryan Adams
Deadmau5
Leonard Cohen
Sarah McLachlan
The Weeknd
Should Win: Deadmau5
Will Win: Leonard Cohen
God bless Sarah McLachlan, who deserves to win everything every year, but likely won't since she's stayed relatively quiet this year. Bryan Adams has a chance if people confuse him for Ryan Adams. The Weeknd isn't the artist of any year, especially a year when he put out two and a half songs. Of the possible selections, Deadmau5 is the only artist whose every public move is scrutinized and blogged about incessantly, whether it was about his car being problematic or his opinion of Paris Hilton being problematic. However, Leonard Cohen wrote "Hallelujah", which is the Adele of songs. It doesn't matter if he wrote it in 1984, or if the song didn't really take off until Jeff Buckley blessed it, it's still the Adele of songs. Leonard Cohen is the artist of the year, and he has been since 1985. Sorry Mr. Mau5.
Nominees:
Bobby Bazini - Where I Belong
Hedley - Wild Life
Leonard Cohen - Popular Problems
Nickelback - No Fixed Address
Serge Fiori - Serge Fiori
Should Win: Nickelback
Will Win: Leonard Cohen
Serge Fiori was the lead singer of an influential and progressive French Canadian rock band, so he's out. Hedley technically won their career in a talent contest, so they're out. Bobby Bazini sounds like the name of a loan shark, so he's out. This leaves us with Nickleback—who need to be rewarded every year so that the Faustian contract they signed at the dawn of their career remains valid—and Leonard Cohen. Advantage Leonard Cohen, because he's Leonard Cohen.
Nominees:
Jim Head - Zoetrope
Kirk MacDonald - Vista Obscura
Lenny Breau - LA Bootleg 1984
Marianne Trudel - La vie commence ici
Owen Howard - Drum Lore Vol. 2–More Lore
Should Win: Lenny Breau
Will Win: Lenny Breau
Canadian Jazz really comes in every shade of white. Wasn't Lenny Breau Frank Ocean's pen name when he was remixing all those R&B songs? Frank Ocean should definitely win a Juno.
Nominees:
Avril Lavigne - Avril Lavigne
Down With Webster - Party For Your Life
Lights - Little Machines
Nikki Yanofsky - Little Secret
Magic! - Don’t Kill the Magic
Should Win: Magic!
Will Win: Avril Lavigne
Nikki Yanofsky is only allowed to be relevant once every ten years, as per the K'Naan "Waving Flag" clause of 2009, and Lights is out because she might say something wild reckless on stage while accepting her award. It's a lot to ask for the judging committee to be able to tell Magic! and Down With Webster apart, as they're both stocked with musicians who resemble rowdy Hollister employees. And outside of the heavy-handed racism, Avril's project wasn't terrible when looked at through the pop lens—just when looked at through every other lens. Magic! should win because their album is a pun on their band name, and you just don't see that anymore.
Nominees:
Dallas Smith - Lifted
Jess Moskaluke - Light Up The Night
Kira Isabella - Caffeine & Big Dreams
Mackenzie Porter - MacKenzie Porter
The Road Hammers - Wheels
Should Win: Jess Mokaluke
Will Win: The Road Hammers
Who is the Canadian Sam Hunt? The Canadian Florida Georiga Line? Let's find these people and then give them the |
set new September records on Thursday.
Outback regions will be even hotter.
The Bureau of Meteorology predicts Queensland will hit a new September record on Wednesday, with Birdsville in the far west Channel Country expected to reach 43 degrees.
That would equal the hottest September day ever recorded anywhere in Australia.
Records set to fall as mercury rises
After smashing its own temperature records at the weekend, western New South Wales is tipped to do it again.
Bourke is predicted to hit 42 degrees on Wednesday, which would be the hottest September day ever recorded in NSW.
It was one of five sites across NSW to break the 40-degree barrier on Saturday, the first time on record the state has topped 40 degrees in September.
The series of significant temperature records are "quite exceptional", according to forecasters.
It is an "unusual, intense, early season event", according to Scott Williams, senior forecaster on the Bureau of Meteorology's extreme weather desk.
"Some [of the predicted temperatures] would break records by as much as two to three degrees, so it's very significant," he said.
"Normally when records fall it's by a few tenths of a degree, whereas we saw on Saturday, particularly as it dipped into Victoria, records smashed by two to three degrees.
"We're likely to see a repeat of that, only this time it's further north."
Why is it so hot, so early in the year?
Mr Williams said the extreme heat was the result of a low pressure system dragging heat down from north-west Australia.
While that pattern brought heavy rain to south-west WA last weekend, it rained itself out before hitting the hot, dry air over the Northern Territory and South Australia.
"There will be a 48-hour period where there is a wind change moving across from western NSW to the east of NSW and south-east Queensland," Mr Williams said.
"Ahead of that, we've got high pressure in the Tasman, we'll have north to north-westerly winds that will bring that heat down ahead of that trough, into northern NSW and southern Queensland."
This week's extreme heat is not expected to hit Victoria, which also set new September records for Mildura and Gippsland last week.
How long will it last?
While there will be some reprieve from the extreme heat by Friday, the Bureau of Meteorology warns the heatwave could stick around for weeks.
Mr Williams said if a low pressure system developed far enough to the north, it could pull moisture down from the Gulf country, bringing rain and cooler conditions.
But there was no sign of that on the immediate horizon.
"Quite often [heatwaves] go for two or three weeks, as it did in the lead-up to the Victorian fires in 2009," he said.
"Late next week there's some hope that we might get such a system, but we'll probably still see at least one more surge of heat [coming] south next week."
Long, hot summer ahead?
After record September heat and a warning from the nation's fire chiefs of a dangerous bushfire season, how concerned should Australians be about the summer ahead?
Mr Williams said there was no need to panic — record heat in early spring did not necessarily guarantee a record hot summer.
"There's been plenty of years when we've had springtime heat and we've got an early monsoon and a decent wet season," he said.
"The climate outlook for the next three months suggests conditions of about 50-50 probability of wetter or drier, and hotter or colder, than average."
Sorry, this video has expired Video: The spring heat continues to build in Queensland and northern NSW (ABC News)
Topics: drought, climate-change, weather, sydney-2000, bourke-2840, birdsville-4482, brisbane-4000, ipswich-4305
First postedAfter officially announcing that WWDC would take place June 13th through June 17th in April, Apple today has officially invited members of the press to its kickoff keynote address. The keynote will take place on June 13th at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. Like usual, the keynote will commence at 10AM PT/ 1PM ET (via TechInsider).
Sylvania HomeKit Light Strip
This year’s keynote is slightly different from those of previous years as it is being held at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. Typically, Apple holds all events at Moscone West, but this year all first day festivities are being held at Bill Graham. The rest of the week, except for the WWDC Bash, is held at Moscone West. The Bash, which is typically held at Yerba Buena Gardens, will this year also be at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.
At WWDC, Apple is expected to show off the latest versions of its software for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Watch. The company is expected to give the first look at iOS 10, which is said to include a redesigned Apple Music that brings support for lyrics. Mac OS X 10.12 will also be unveiled and as we reported earlier this year, one of its tentpole features will be support for Siri.
It was reported last week that Apple will unveil a Siri SDK at WWDC, as well.
Apple will stream much of WWDC, including the kick-off keynote, on its WWDC website and in the WWDC app. Sessions will also be available after the fact to watch on-demand, which is nice especially for the fast-moving developer-centric talks.
As always, we’ll have wall-to-wall coverage of everything Apple announces during WWDC right here on 9to5Mac. You can read our guide of everything you need to know about the event here, as well as everything we expect Apple to unveil here.
What are you most excited to see during WWDC this year? Let us know in the comments!The bicycle highway: Plans unveiled for £220m 'Skycycle' that lets riders commute far above the railways of London
'SkyCycle' is a proposal for a series of three-storey-high paths
It has been proposed by renowned architect Sir Norman Foster
Each of the 10 routes would be used by estimated 12,000 cyclists per hour
Cyclist safety in London is a key concern following a spate of deaths
Plans for a network of cycle pathways high above the streets of London have been unveiled by one of the world's most prominent architects.
SkyCycle is a 135-mile network of roads that would be constructed above existing suburban rail lines to create new cycle routes throughout the capital and has been developed by cycling enthusiast Sir Norman Foster, who designed St Mary Axe, known as 'The Gherkin', and the new Wembley Stadium.
The three-storey high routes would be accessed via ramps at more than 200 points.
The first phase is a four mile stretch from east London to Liverpool Street Station would cost an estimated £220m.
I want to ride my bicycle: The SkyCycle, as proposed new network of cycle paths built above London's railways
Each of the 10 proposed routes can accommodate 12,000 cyclists per hour and will improve journey times by up to 29 minutes, it is claimed
The developers say almost six million people live within the catchment area of the proposed network, half of whom live and work within 10 minutes of an entrance.
Each of the 10 proposed routes can accommodate 12,000 cyclists per hour and will improve journey times by up to 29 minutes, the developers added. They also claim the scheme, which would be built over 20 years, providing capacity at a much lower cost than building new roads and tunnels.
Lord Foster said: 'Cycling is one of my great passions – particularly with a group of friends. And I believe that cities where you can walk or cycle, rather than drive, are more congenial places in which to live.
SKYCYCLE BY NUMBERS
Three storeys high 10 mph - average cycle speed in London 15 mph - estimated speed after SkyCycle
20 feet wide decks 20 years to build 29 minutes less journey time
135 miles over existing railway services 12,000 cyclists per hour 5.8 million people live close to proposed route £220 million to build first four-mile stretch
'To improve the quality of life for all in London and to encourage a new generation of cyclists, we have to make it safe.
'However, the greatest barrier to segregating cars and cyclists is the physical constraint of London’s streets, where space is already at a premium.
'SkyCycle is a lateral approach to finding space in a congested city. By using the corridors above the suburban railways, we could create a world-class network of safe, car-free cycle routes that are ideally located for commuters.'
The developers - Exterior Architecture, Foster + Partners and Space Syntax - added that London’s railway lines were originally built for steam trains and as a result follow contours that naturally reduce the amount of energy expended and avoid steep gradients, a boon for cyclists.
Sam Martin of Exterior Architecture Ltd said: 'SkyCycle is an urban cycling solution for London. A cycling utopia, with no buses, no cars and no stress.
'We are incredibly excited at how, together with Foster + Partners, our idea has been developed and now more recently turned into a truly world-changing scenario by Space Syntax for revolutionising cycling in London and possibly the world.'
However, cycling charity CTC has raised concerns over the wind exposure cyclist would face at such a height, and the steepness of the ramps required to reach the SkyCycle.
Cycling in London is on the rise as a result of increasing congestion and rising fuel costs. File pictures
A cyclist receives emergency medical treatment after being involved in an accident with a lorry in Camden, east London, in November. Six cyclists died in a two week period that same month
Road safety in London recently came to the fore after six cyclists were killed on the capital's roads in the space of under two weeks in November.
Brian Holt, 62; Francis Golding, 69, Roger William De Klerk, 43, Venera Minakhmetova, 24, a 21-year-old man from St John’s Wood and a man believed to be in his 60s all died between November 5 and 18.
A spokesman for Network Rail said: 'We welcome the proposals which have been put forward by Foster + Partners and Exterior Architecture and are always happy to look at ways we can contribute to improving travel and transport in London.
'We will continue to liaise with all involved as the aspiration for this innovative scheme develops.'While everyone has been preoccupied with whether and how Russia meddled in the U.S. presidential election, Russia has been continuing its bid to regain power and influence in the Middle East, this time in Libya.
This month, Russia made its largest display of support for a Libyan general who stands in opposition to the western-backed government in Libya. Gen. Khalifa Haftar boarded a Russian aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean to video-conference with Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu. They discussed the arming and training of Haftar’s Libyan National Army. Russia reportedly agreed to press the United Nations to drop an arms embargo put in place in 2011, while Haftar gave the Russians a list of equipment his army needs.
Haftar and the Russians have been courting one another for months now. In November, Haftar made a trip to Russia, meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. At the time, Russia was noncommittal, although an exchange of arms for Russian military access in Libya was allegedly discussed. In December, Russian officials said Haftar should have a national leadership role in the country.
Russia’s increased involvement in Libya is another sign that President Vladimir Putin seeks a resurgent Russia that holds sway with allies throughout the Middle East.
Obviously, We’re Fighting ISIS
In the years since the Arab Spring came to Libya and strongman Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown, Libya has devolved into chaos and civil war. Today, two rival governments vie for power. The Government of National Accord (GNA), the unity government based in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, is backed by the UN, United States, and European Union. Haftar backs and essentially controls the government in the eastern city of Tobruk. The Tobruk government is supported by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, and now, apparently, by Russia.
So how does Russia justify its support for the eastern government? Easy: they claim they’re fighting ISIS, although the GNA has also been fighting ISIS in the west of the country, mostly notably in Sirte. One of Haftar’s aides used this now-familiar pretext for why Russia is aiding Haftar’s rogue regime.
Fighting ISIS is the same justification Russia has been using for its involvement in the Syrian civil war and its backing of the Assad regime, despite the manifest evidence that Russia has primarily been using its air power and arms to attack Syrian rebels and civilians. This thin excuse provides Russia with cover, however unconvincing, for its meddling in war-torn Syria.
Haftar’s army has also been fighting Islamists in Libya, as well its other rivals in the region. His forces largely defeated ISIS in Benghazi, besieging them in their stronghold in the city. But then earlier this month, a massive convoy of ISIS fighters managed to escape and get past several of the general’s check points unimpeded. Something similar happened in early 2015 in the city of Derna. This raises questions about Haftar’s ultimate aims regarding the Islamist group.
There are a number of reasons he might want to fight but not defeat ISIS. One is to keep his opponents in the west busy. Another is to give Russia a legitimate cause for aiding his military rule. Both would help him gain national power, something he is widely thought to be seeking.
What This Scheme Gets Russia
If Haftar does eventually rise to power with Russia’s help, Russia would have a strategic alliance in the region and increased sway there. Russia, of course, wants to reclaim the influence it held in the Middle East and North Africa throughout much of the Cold War. This would be a major step toward its goal to take America’s place as the primary power broker in the region.
President Obama laid the groundwork for Russia’ growing power and belligerence abroad. Obama’s foreign policy has been one of appeasement and withdrawal. He pulled the United States back from the international stage in an effort to see a realignment of the international order, coupled with a theory that showing kindness to our enemies would bring about authentic détentes. This thinking guided his concessions to Iran, his weak reaction to Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine and Crimea, and his passivity in Syria.
Russia has taken advantage of the outgoing administration’s penchant for leaving behind power vacuums. Obama’s withdrawal of troops in Iraq allowed ISIS to gain territory there and across the border in Syria. Similarly, Obama’s refusal to follow through after his chemical weapons red line in Syria made it clear that the United States wouldn’t act to prevent Assad from slaughtering his people in a brutal civil war. Russia stepped easily in to become the primary outside influencer in that war.
Libya is just more of the same. The United States supported the NATO intervention in 2011 that led to Gaddafi’s ouster (and eventual execution), but had no plan for what a post-dictatorship Libya should look like. With no leadership, the country descended into a civil war that continues today, despite the establishment of the so-called unity government in Tripoli. We’ve taken no interest in rebuilding that country or in following through on a mess we helped create. But Russia won’t be so timid. They will step into yet another U.S.-created power vacuum and strengthen their position in the region.
Obama’s action (or inaction) in Syria has also allowed Russia to test its military equipment and practice tactics and maneuvering there, a rehearsal that it can now take on the road, both in eastern Europe and elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa. This brings to mind German and Italian aid to the fascists in the Spanish civil war in the 1930s. Their support ensured them a fascist ally with French borders during World War II and gave them the opportunity to test their newly rearmed militaries and air forces.
Will the Trump Administration Improve Things?
Donald Trump seems poised to continue Obama’s mistakes when it comes to Russia, namely in his belief that they aren’t a threat to us, our interests abroad, or the sovereignty of other nations. So far, he has shown little to indicate that he would oppose Russia in any meaningful way in foreign conflicts. This includes his stance on NATO, which just last week he reiterated by calling the organization “obsolete.”
Trump appears unnaturally open to Russia, and Moscow is getting the message loud and clear. Earlier this week, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Russia is ready to talk to the new administration about both Syria and nuclear weapons, something they were resistant to in the waning months of Obama’s second term.
Trump’s remarks since announcing his run for presidency have also smacked of an isolationism reminiscent of Obama’s foreign policy. Trump’s call for an “America first” policy hearkens back to American isolationism of the 1920s and ‘30s, when there was a general feeling that we shouldn’t have anything to do with troubles abroad. This emboldened belligerent countries, who took this as a sign that the United States wanted nothing to do with Europe’s problems and wouldn’t intervene in any renewed conflicts.
One sign of hope is that Trump’s cabinet picks have shown a willingness to diverge from his pro-Russia stance. His prospective ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, called Russia’s actions in Syria war crimes and said she doesn’t trust the Kremlin. What’s unclear is whether Trump will allow his cabinet members to act on their own, or whether, like Obama, he will centralize foreign policy decision-making in the Oval Office.
Russia’s implicit support of Haftar is yet another example of the former Soviet power’s irredentist posture in defiance of international norms. It would be a mistake for the United States to continue its policy of appeasement toward aggressive foreign powers. The incoming Trump administration would do well to remember what happens when you try to pacify a hostile country: You get played.Who Are the Emmy Voters?
Every year when the Primetime Emmy nominations are announced, one question arises: Just who votes on these things, anyway? Usually it’s asked by the fanbase of an overlooked actor or show who want to know why Tatiana Maslany/Nick Offerman/”Fringe” could have possibly escaped a nomination.
Jaunt on over to the official site for the Emmys, and it will tell you in plain English how nominees are determined: “The Emmy award is a symbol of peer recognition. The Academy has over 15,000 members, divided into 28 peer groups of specialized fields. The members of each peer group vote on the nominees and winners for categories pertaining to their area of specialty. If you are a professional in the television industry you be eligible for membership, and those voting.”
OK, I’ll try to translate that. The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS) is in charge of the Primetime Emmy Awards. As opposed to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), which handles what is more commonly referred to as the “Daytime Emmys”—i.e., the awards for soap operas, even though they include news and documentary programs. But let's just focus on Primetime here. To be a member of ATAS, you apply and pay a fee. You have to be endorsed by two members of the peer group you’re asking to be put into (makeup, acting, directing, etc.) Unless you’ve received an Emmy nomination in the last four years, in which case the recommendation requirement is waived. But not the fee.
The first step to getting a nomination is being submitted. If your show is eligible (aired between June 1 – May 31 of the previous year and was seen in markets representing at least 51 percent of the TV viewers in the US) you can submit yourself—and pay another fee. Each peer group determines who the initial nominees will be in their category—actors vote on actors, writers on writers, and so on.
Then things get serious. Judges are chosen from each peer group to cast the final vote on who wins. Just who are these judges? No one will tell you. The Academy selects them in a secret process, and they are only allowed to serve two consecutive years as a judge in a category. The acting categories have between 50 and 75 judges. Acting nominees get to choose one episode from the season to submit to judges for consideration, and we take it on faith that they watch them. They rank their top choices in each category, with the actor they think is “best” getting a “1” vote. The second best gets a “2,” and so on. Every actor has their number tallied, and the one with the lowest final number wins. The series category works similarly, though there are three different judging committees, each made up of between 250 to 300 voters. Series get to submit two episodes for consideration.
So in the end, it really comes down to a small percentage of the Academy's 15,000+ members to determine who the winners are. And we have no idea who this mysterious cabal is. I've asked around and never met anyone who admits to voting in the acting categories--apparently, Emmy judges are like leprechauns. I'm not entirely convinced they exist.Here’s an important story we’ve been following from Athens, Ohio: the student senate president at Ohio University dumped a bucket of fake blood over her head to commemorate the massacre victims in Gaza and supported boycott and divestment from Israel. There has been a giant backlash against Megan Marzec for creating that video (a takeoff on the ice-bucket challenge trend to raise money to fight ALS); and last night four angry Israel supporters were arrested at a student senate meeting for disruption and refusing the order to stop speaking. One of those students approached Marzec in what observers said was a physically-threatening manner.
In our first post on this story, we mentioned death threats against Marzec. Well thanks to Louis-Georges Schwartz, a professor of film studies at the school, here are two of them. Both use obscene language and say that Marzec will be killed– by terrorists or Islamists.
First, this anonymous email was sent to Marzec two days ago, saying that her life is over.
And second, here is a thoroughly-repellent letter that was sent last week to the president of the university, Roderick McDavis, and to others; Louis Schwartz also received a copy of it and posted it on Facebook with the aim of protecting Marzec. McDavis is black. The letter contains a threat to Marzec. The author of the threat is Debra Halborn, a writer.
The threat is not actually the worst of the threats directed at Marzec. She has received multiple death threats, Schwartz told us.
Halborn, the self described “”badass JEW LADY” who wrote President McDavis, is a storyteller for children. Her website is called, The Starcat Cluster.
The threatening nature of Halborn’s text prompted the University to contact local security and law enforcement. Schwartz posted an image of Halborn’s threat on his Facebook page, and Halborn wrote another email (below), to OU President McDavis and his wife, including a graphic from her Facebook page and an invitation to share the graphic “for those who strive to forge a better world.”
Halborn then wrote an email to Schwartz. The subject line on the email was “Chain of events: BDS matter and Atonement” and referenced her email to Davis and his wife as “an apology”. Perhaps it is her offer to share her artwork that she sees as her atonement. And Halborn describes her first communication as the “BDS letter.” Here is the content of the email with a name removed ——. The words in brackets [] were written by Halborn.
Louis: Yesterday, I presented my apology to Dr. McDavis [attached], and copied Miss—–; the contents of which, she deemed not to “share” with you as she did my [regretfully written] BDS letter, perhaps because it is not as controversial, as inflammatory; so I am sharing my Apology with you, today – for you also chose to pour gasoline on a most delicate and hurtful matter by spreading this issue on your Facebook page – rather than to email me on your own, to telephone me on your own, or write to me on your own, and discuss your feelings. As a Jewish man, you know that Erev Yom Kippur – The Day of Atonement, is nigh; and on Kol Nidre, the Holiest of Holy Days, I will stand before G-d, declare to Him my terrible act, and await His Judgement and His Forgiveness. Do you remember the Aveinu Malkaynu, Louis? Our prayer of Atonement: Avienu Malkaynu, Our Father our King, We stand before you – Avienu Malkaynu, We have sinned before Thee...we ask Thy divine Forgiveness... L’Shanah Tovah Tikatayvu : A Happy New Year to you, Louis. May G-d grant you a Good Year. Shalom Debra Halborn
The case suggests that the battle over Israel and Palestine is coming to American shores, as well it should. Though the tactics are extremely concerning.NEW YORK (Fortune) -- There's no need to fear a Wall Street brain drain -- despite the crackdown on pay by Washington.
On Thursday, White House pay czar Kenneth Feinberg outlined compensation restrictions at seven firms that got special bailouts, and the Federal Reserve proposed to review pay practices at 28 unnamed giant banks.
Critics warn that reining in pay makes it hard to keep talented employees. Hemmed in, institutions like AIG (AIG, Fortune 500),Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) could lose their best people.
These firms would then perform even more abysmally, if that's possible, leaving them hard pressed to repay tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer-backed loans.
Still, we say Godspeed to this "talent." After all, the traders and suits in the corner offices don't exactly have an unblemished track record. In 2008, Citigroup, BofA and Merrill Lynch (since acquired by BofA) posted a grand total of $51 billion in losses.
Yet even as they were running themselves into the ground, the firms managed to pay out more than $12 billion in bonuses -- including 1,606 million-dollar-plus bonuses, according to a report from the New York attorney general's office.
"Even a cursory examination of the data suggests that in these challenging economic times, compensation for bank employees has become unmoored from the banks' financial performance," the report said.
Meanwhile, it's hard to imagine that defection-hit firms would have a lot of trouble finding qualified replacements in the current job market.
Unemployment has doubled nationally since December 2007, when the recession started. Securities industry employment has fallen 10% nationwide and 14% in New York from a mid-2008 peak, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, costing some 90,000 jobs in the U.S.
And Goldman Sachs' (GS, Fortune 500) charm offensive notwithstanding, it looks like the official response to runaway pay is just starting.
The Fed's plan to weigh big banks' compensation plans against their potential for undermining the economy could eventually put pressure on pay at all the big banks.
"This could be a game changer," said Simon Johnson, an economist at MIT. "There will be a lot of pressure on them in Congress to stick it to the big firms."
But maybe the best reason not to fret about talent flight is one familiar to cubicle dwellers everywhere: just because someone has a big, high-paying job doesn't mean they're good at it.
Take Bank of America, for instance. The bank's longtime CEO, Ken Lewis, unexpectedly announced his retirement this month, while agreeing to give back his 2009 salary.
Lewis didn't say why he was leaving, but it seems that criticism over his empire building, mishandling of the Merrill acquisition and outsize pay got to him. The Charlotte Observer reported he had grown tired of the "mud being thrown on him day by day."
Another helping or two of that mud could be just what Wall Street needs.THE NHS is spending millions of pounds a year on running chaplaincy services which offer spiritual care and religious support to patients.
Health boards collectively spend about £3.7m a year on the internal departments, including paying salaries of full-time "generic" NHS chaplains who are tasked with providing support to all who ask for it.
In addition, the NHS has made payments of almost £600,000 to churches to attend to the religious needs of individual patients in the past three years, figures obtained by The Herald under Freedom of Information laws revealed.
More than 85% of spending on the external bodies went to the Roman Catholic Church, largely in exchange for priests to come in to hospitals and perform sacraments such as the last rites, which NHS chaplains are not able to carry out.
Scotland's largest health board, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, said its in-house chaplaincy department was allocated a budget of £632,665 in 2013/14, with the service "providing non-denominational support to our 38,000 staff and all our patients".
It also pays £75,000 per year to the Archdiocese of Glasgow and the Diocese of Paisley in exchange for "on-call" priests, "to provide the Sacramental ministry that Roman Catholic patients and families expect".
It previously also paid money to the Church of Scotland and the Episcopal Church, before the arrangements ended after March 2012.
Spencer Fildes, chairman of the Scottish Secular Society, called for payments to external churches to be scrapped and for budgets for internal chaplaincy services to be re-examined urgently.
"We believe chaplaincy services are essential, but we don't support their funding by the NHS," he said. "The cost of £3.7m a year is quite astonishing, particularly when frontline services are being cut and there's a desperate need for more healthcare professionals across the country.
"I would urge the NHS to engage with religious bodies with a view to drastically reducing the cost or removing it completely from the budget. It's absurd that such money should be spent without evidence of benefit."
The Catholic Church said the payments it received, which were made to dioceses rather than individuals, were expenses for priests and the cash it was paid paled in comparison to the overall chaplaincy service budgets. However, Mr Fildes accused the Church of "draining the NHS of badly needed funds".
He said: "As the Church affirms that, for believers as a whole, such sacraments are necessary for salvation, surely the financial burden of performing such sacraments lie with the church itself."
Nine of Scotland's 14 health boards have made payments to churches since April 2011, while the remainder, including NHS Highland, which covers the largest geographical area of any of the organisations, paid nothing.
The spending on spiritual care follows updated guidance issued to health boards by the Scottish Government in 2009 which states that the NHS, rather than churches, had responsibility for providing a spiritual care service.
Previous guidelines, finalised in 2002, ordered health boards to set up spiritual care committees, appoint managers of the service and "spiritual caregivers".
While NHS spiritual care employees are expected to "deliver and facilitate spiritual and religious care as appropriate" across the board, faith specific chaplains are not generally direct NHS employees.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said the "vast majority of the work NHS chaplains do with patients, carers and staff is non-religious in nature", with chaplains mainly "attending to the spiritual and emotional needs of those on a journey of injury, illness or loss."
Other external religious organisations to receive payments from the NHS in recent years include the Episcopal Church, which received £43,000 from three health boards since 2011/12. NHS Tayside, which provided the number of pastoral calls made in exchange for £72,000, paid on average £6.31 for every call from a Catholic priest compared to £163.90 for every visit from a member of the Episcopal Church. NHS Tayside was the only health board to make a payment to a Buddhist religious organisation, paying £81.60 in return for 20 pastoral calls last autumn. NHS Lanarkshire, which paid £77,500 to the Diocese of Motherwell for a denominational chaplain at its three acute hospitals in the period, said the arrangement would be reviewed to "ensure equity".
Humanist Society Scotland chief executive Douglas McLellan said: "We do chaplaincy as part of our vocation and it's disappointing that others see it as a way of raising funds".
A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland defended the organisation against claims it was exploiting the health service, saying it "does not charge the NHS anything" but that the health service "has always provided expenses for those religious bodies which have acted in a chaplaincy role in hospital".
In Lothian, he said, 50% of calls for spiritual care services come from Catholics but only 5% of the spiritual care budget was set aside for members of the religion.
The spokesman added: "The vast majority of spending on spiritual care in the NHS is not on reimbursing the expenses of visiting pastors, of the various denominations and religions, but on full time salaried spiritual care co-ordinators paid for by the NHS even though they cannot offer spiritual care to all patients as is evidenced by the calls which other clergy still respond to.
"The Church does not raise funds from the NHS. Priests freely respond to sick calls whenever they receive them, they are not paid for such services. The cost is a small part of the overall amount spent by the NHS on the provision of spiritual care."Thirteen American states, five Canadian provinces and its first-ever visit to Slovenia. The Stanley Cup will soon embark on a busy summer tour with the Los Angeles Kings.
One of the greatest rewards that come with winning the iconic trophy is getting the opportunity to host it for a day.
Rookie defenceman Slava Voynov will have the honour of doing it first July 3 when the Stanley Cup travels more than halfway around the globe to his hometown of Chelyabinsk, Russia — a full 13 time zones from Los Angeles. From there, it will make a quick stop outside Moscow with Andrei Loktionov before adding another country to the long list it has visited.
Anze Kopitar's day with the trophy is arguably the most anticipated of the summer. He's the first player from Slovenia to play in the NHL — Detroit's Jan Mursak became the second this year — and a number of their countryman hosted parties in the middle of the night to watch the Kings chase the Stanley Cup.
One can only imagine how enthusiastic the celebration will be when they finally have a chance to touch the trophy July 6.
After leaving Europe, it will eventually find its way to Quebec, where Jonathan Bernier is scheduled to bring it to Laval while Simon Gagne hosts it in Lac Beauport.
Few will get a chance to savour their time with the trophy more than Darryl Sutter. He's scheduled to spend three days with the Stanley Cup in Alberta in late July — a fitting reward after finally winning it in his 28th NHL season as either a player, coach or general manager.
Conn Smythe-winning goalie Jonathan Quick (Stamford, Conn.) and captain Dustin Brown (Ithaca, N.Y.) will bring the trophy to their hometowns on consecutive days before it makes a trek across Canada in August.
After visits with Willie Mitchell and goaltending coach Bill Ranford in British Columbia, the Stanley Cup will travel west to Saskatchewan for stops with Dwight King and Jarret Stoll, make its second visit to Winkler, Man., with Dustin Penner and move into Northern Ontario when Mike Richards brings it in Kenora on Aug. 18.
It is scheduled to spend more than a week in the province, including back-to-back days in London as Drew Doughty and Jeff Carter each get their turn to show it off.
Following two weeks back in Los Angeles in early September, the Cup's journey will end fittingly with a visit to Quebec with Luc Robitaille, the consummate King. He gets it Sept. 19 — the last day before the trophy is sent away to be engraved with the names of the newest NHL champions.
The Hockey Hall of Fame will chronicle the Stanley Cup's travels throughout the summer by posting photos and stories to an online journal.
A look at some notable stops on the Stanley Cup's summer tour:Untitled a guest Dec 20th, 2016 3,759 Never a guest3,759Never
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rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 5.15 KB Omry Skene > hola Kitt Killipps > you guys are complicating my life so much lol Omry Skene > lol how so? Kitt Killipps > too afraid to undock Omry Skene > where u tryin to go? Kitt Killipps > 2 days in from a 8 mo hiatus Kitt Killipps > just trying to enjoy space Omry Skene > haha but your in the middle of horde space and brave space lol. id find some quieter space. Omry Skene > horde is in 7rm, brave is in DO now Kitt Killipps > iv been trying but no1 knows where to send me since im so green Kitt Killipps > they said log off and watch porn Omry Skene > hahaha thats not helpful Omry Skene > can u fly a travel cepter out to your staging? Kitt Killipps > i have no idea what those worfds mean, nor do i know if my corp would take kindly to me talking to you guys lol Omry Skene > then just join horde Omry Skene > <url=fitting:11202:2048;1:8517;2:2281;1:31788;1:11577;1:1405;3:31358;1::>Taxi</url> Kitt Killipps > that would burn my bridges here and complicate the buzz i got going atm Omry Skene > lmao Kitt Killipps > not to mention my role in horde wouldnt be much different than what i am now Kitt Killipps > in this corp Omry Skene > lol. well seems your stuck inbetween a rock in a hard place. porn doesnt seem like a bad idea lol Kitt Killipps > sigh.... Omry Skene > hah what do u wanna do out here Omry Skene > other then horde and brave take 20,000 people and leave Kitt Killipps > my gf is a virgin and iv been understanding to that, so porn isnt much of an option since my lib |
infringement and an invalidation of Apple's patent.
The case is number 12-03483, filed on July 3.
Martyn Williams covers mobile telecoms, Silicon Valley and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Martyn on Twitter at @martyn_williams. Martyn's e-mail address is [email protected] Infowars’ Alex Jones live streamed a report while walking down the streets of Seattle, a pudgy, angry, dirty looking man began calling Jones names. When Jones confronted him and asked him to speak into the camera, the goblin-like creature attempted to physically intimidate Jones before dumping his coffee on Jones’s head.
He then promptly ran away.
Rather than doing the smart thing and maintaining his anonymity in the age of the Internet, he promptly went to Facebook and bragged about assaulting a national celebrity.
The alleged attacker’s name is Jake Stratton, and he is exactly as terrible as you might imagine.
While we were writing this article, Stratton finally had the good sense to lock down his Facebook profile, but not before Department of Memes and countless others were able to take relevant screen shots.
Stratton is a low ranking singer and actor who was featured in a 2012 issue of Seattle’s City Arts Online publication.
From the article:
“The Indiana native built his following in the mid-’90s as the owner of before-its-time Capitol Hill arcade High Score and frontman for Blöödhag, the world’s only death metal band committed to performing songs about science fiction books. He added to his cache by emceeing the Seattle Semi-Pro Wrestling League as well as the Rat City Roller Girls.”
Frankly this is a shocking development, as literally nobody expected this fat loser to be employed, let alone be talented enough to have people pay to watch him moan into a microphone.
Truly, Stratton is a prime example of Left Coast degeneracy, and exactly what Jones was talking about when he referred to “pot belly goblins” and the “scum” he goes out and faces.
Assuming Seattle has any decency or semblance of law and order left, Stratton will hopefully pay for his crime, because as Jones says, he “got it all on video tape.”
Comments
commentsSome of you who have successfully reached middle age and feel the yearning for a new sense of adventure in life may be considering purchasing a motorcycle. Before you do, consider this FACT: you will die.
You'll get that beautiful chopper, you'll take it out on the open road, you'll open up that throttle and feel the wind in your hair and a heart-bursting sense of freedom and declare that you've never felt more alive. Then you'll get distracted or hit a pebble or feel a momentary wobble in your front wheel driving over some oil and before you even know what's happening you're sliding along the asphalt right into a fucking guardrail and you're dead. DEAD, STEVE.
You were an accountant, Steve. Not a god damn Hells Angel.
Imagine your wife explaining your sudden, violent death to all of your family friends. "I didn't even know he rode motorcycles," they'll say. Yeah, you rode a motorcycle—right into the afterlife, my man.
Was it worth it?
Don't take my word for it. Look at the cold hard facts: old folks like you are going out and buying motorcycles and then launching themselves over the handlebars and straight into hell, now more than ever. From the Wall Street Journal:
Though the overall U.S. motorcycle toll appears to have leveled off in recent years, deaths have risen among older riders as more of them hit the road. Those 55- to 64-years-old accounted for 16.3% of motorcycle crash deaths in 2013, the latest year for which that breakdown is available. That was down from 17.2% in 2012 but up from 9.3% a decade earlier and less than 3% in the early 1990s.
That Harley sure is handsome. That Triumph sure is grand. That Kawasaki sure is fast. You've worked hard, done all the right things, and reached middle age. Don't you owe it to yourself to have a little fun once again?
Sure. Until you die. Because you will—die, that is (on a motorcycle, gruesomely).
[Photo: Flickr]I’ve been making maps of fantasy subway extensions for a decade now. Ever since I was a freshman at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston I began dreaming up plans after spending hours combing over old maps and plans. Over the years I’ve tried to research as much as I could to try and get a better idea as to what the future system, in this case Boston’s MBTA, could use to be improved. At this point it’s safe to say most of the plans on the table have been though up generations ago but it’s still fun to think about. I stopped updating the FutureMBTA a long time ago as I feel that I’ve distilled the best ideas into what I consider the best possible options (though now and again I go back and rethink things).
The MBTA is a legacy system, the oldest subway in the US that has been reworked more than a few times over the decades. Still, there are some basic problems with the system that need addressing if it is to stand up to 21st century needs. One of the biggest of these issues is the Central Subway or more commonly known as the Green Line. This is the oldest section of the system, the original subway which ran from two portals in the Public Gardens at Pleasant St to Park St via Boylston St station. The subway was not designed with modern commuting patterns in mind because the subway changed the way people commuted. Originally a way to remove the bevy of trolley traffic from the city streets the multitude of different trolley routes eventually became the four that we know today, the B,C,D, and E lines. The subway expanded where demand required it to go but the tunnels were never reworked to allow for efficient operations.
The Green Line was originally a balanced system designed to allow for trolleys from the west and south to terminate at Park St while trolleys from the northern suburbs would terminate at Scollay Sq (now Government Center). Ridership patterns quickly changed and more trolleys were routed between the two terminals. This created a bottleneck as the Green Line has 4 tracks between Boylston St (where lines from the west and south merge), originally 4 tracks between North Station and Gov’t Center, but only 2 between Park St and Gov’t Center. The Green Line morphed as higher ridership from the west required am extension to Kenmore St but ridership drop off from the south closed the southern portal at Pleasant St in 1963. Likewise ridership from the north changed and through a series of projects the Green Line from Gov’t Center to Lechmere was restructured to become a 2 track line.
As ridership from the west increased new branches of the subway were built but due to budgetary constraints their connections were built in such a way that created additional bottlenecks. The Green Line extension to Kenmore Sq had two western portals, one along Comm Ave (B Line) and another along Beacon St (C Line). When the Huntington Ave Subway (E Line) was built the connection was a simple at grade crossing meaning trains would have to wait for other trains to cross over before continuing. When the Riverside Branch (D Line) was added it was fused to the system with a similar at grade crossing on the C Line before Kenmore Sq. Modern subways use what’s known as a flying junction. If you’ve ever driven over a multi-level highway interchange it’s the same basic idea just with trains. This shortsighted way of expanding the system troubles the Green Line to this day. If a train gets stuck the whole thing is backed up. Ridership is only increasing as the Green Line is extended into Somerville and Medford.
Interestingly a plan was put in place when the subway system was still being constructed 100 years ago that tried to address the growing ridership demand from the west headed into Park St. It was known as the Riverbank Subway and, as the name implies, would have ran along the Charles River where Storrow Dr is today. At the time the Charles River edge was not the landscaped jewel we know today but more a grassy embankment and promenade. The idea was to bypass traffic from Kenmore Sq to a terminal at Park St station. The subway would have most likely run above ground along the river which is why it faced stiff opposition. The plan was dropped in favor of the Boylston St Subway, the Green Line we know today.
What brings me to talk about this is a plan developed by Wentworth students that would resurrect the Riverbank Subway by extending the Blue Line from Bowdoin station to Kenmore Sq and then overtake the Riverside Branch, converting it from light rail to heavy rail. The plan is actually based on a previous plan proposed after World War II which would have converted most of the Green Line to heavy rail like the Blue Line (which itself was once a light rail line converted to heavy rail). These students have recently presented their proposal to MassDOT and worked out that it would ring in at around $3.3 billion. I would very much love to see the actual Power Point presentation of the plan but right now I’ve only read about it via BostInno. I commend these kids for doing what I never did, which is to meet with engineers and planners to see what it would take to get this going. However as someone whose looked at this concept for the better part of a decade I would like to offer my critique.
Firstly, if you are going to use my maps in your presentation have the professionalism to not Photoshop my copyright off the image. Isn’t plagiarism a huge problem in schools these days? Amazing. Also I was taught both Photoshop and Illustraitor at WIT so there is no excuse for the hideous map they produced.
Secondly, and more to the point, is that the Riverbank Subway only looks good on paper because the idea is to find a compromise between easing congestion while saving money which this plan to extend the Blue Line fails at both.
The subway itself would require digging up Storrow Dr to build a tunnel which would require extensive waterproofing and then weave through the Charlesgate to run along the Mass Pike before connecting to the D Line at Fenway station. Due to the fact that there does not seem to be a transfer at Kenmore nor Hynes station this would effectively cut off D Line riders from the Back Bay central business district (CBD) and require them to double back at Park St. At the very least a transfer at Kenmore Sq would have the intended effect by allowing anyone trying to get downtown from the west, whichever line they use, to bypass the Back Bay and anyone along the D Line would transfer to continue through the Back Bay. What good is added capacity if the capacity doesn’t help where it is most needed?
What’s more is that this plan does not even address the bottleneck issue other than removing D Line trains from merging at Kenmore Sq; E Line trains still back up the Green Line at Copley. The most this plan would accomplish would be to finally connect the Red and Blue Lines at Charles/MGH, a plan which has been studied to death at this point until some politician can come through and find the funds for it.
Then there is the cost. $3.3 billion actually seems like a reasonable estimate for such a project however it misses some very obvious costs related to converting the D Line to heavy rail. A quick estimate says the subway tunnel itself would be a bit over 2.5 miles long including three stations (Charles/MGH, Dartmouth St, and Yawkey Way). The students claim that this would not be another Big Dig except that most of the tunnel would require digging up Storrow Dr to build a tunnel under it… literally what the Big Dig did with the Central Artery. Traffic into and out of the city would be disrupted costing the city much more in lost revenue. Then there is something which it appears the students didn’t take into account: the D Line stations through Newton are not designed for heavy rail trains. Originally the Riverside Branch was a commuter railroad using steam engines. When it was converted for subway transit the line was electrified via overhead catenary wires which the Blue Line also uses. However, the original stations along the line were not built with high level platforms required for heavy rail. Thus all the stations would need to be rebuilt. Then there is the fact that when you have trains you need to store and service them somewhere. The Riverside Yards are the largest facility along the Green Line and until the new yards in Somerville are built for the Green Line Extension cutting off these yards would be devastating to the system. The yards themselves would need to be upgraded for heavy rail and new, albeit temporary, yards would need to be built somewhere else. Concurrently, you would also need to buy new trains for the Blue Line. Suddenly the price tag of $3.3 billion seems very low.
An Alternative Plan
Looking at these students plan it seems to me that they weren’t asking the right questions. When I sit down to concoct a new subway line I ask myself what can be designed to connect the most number of people with where they need to go via the most efficient route possible; a route that also addresses any congestion concerns and cost concerns by using existing infrastructure where possible. In this case you have thousands of commuters coming from the western suburbs funneling through a congested two track tunnel which offers neither express service nor redundancy.
Extending the Blue Line (with a connection at Kenmore Sq) would add capacity through the Central Subway but would also require a large amount of new infrastructure along the route (as I explained above). The alternative would be to then expand the Green Line itself. Creating a parallel Green Line tunnel through the Back Bay would provide the same intended relief to the Green Line by doubling capacity while at the same time utilizing existing infrastructure to save on costs.
Stuart St Subway
When you are traveling through Boylston St station you’ll notice two outside tracks which are now only used to store historic trolleys or the occasional work train. These tracks are part of the original subway and continue south under Tremont St to Eliot Norton Park where once existed a portal. This is the only instance along the Green Line where a flying junction exists for efficient operations and due to shifting traffic patterns has lain dormant for 60 years. Any new Green Line tunnel should use this junction to connect with the Central Subway. A new subway should run THROUGH the Back Bay, not around it, since this is the second heart of the city home to a major business district, intercity train station, and an ever growing area of high rise residences. Congestion here will only continue to rise so why should you build a subway to make working and living in the Back Bay harder? A subway under Stuart St from Tremont to Huntington Ave; such an alignment would mean extensive road work due to utilities under the street but using the street grid pattern of the Back Bay Stuart St itself could be closed off to traffic while construction occurs and auto traffic could be easily diverted. As Stuart St is not a major retail corridor the area would not be as adversely affected by construction as other major streets.
Huntington Ave Subway Extension
When originally planned the Huntington Ave Subway was meant to extend to Boylston St via Stuart St and then further west to an underground terminal at Brigham Circle. Due to shortages of money and material during World War II the subway plan was cut back to the short, awkward tunnel we have today which causes so much back up. The E Line was cut short in the 1980s when the MBTA stopped running trolleys to Arborway and ridership dropped. Even today many trains terminate at Brigham Circle instead of continuing on to Heath St.
Extending the subway to Brigham Circle and building an underground loop would remove all grade crossings along Huntington Ave, a corridor which over the last 20 years has grown considerably as the colleges of the Fenway expand. College students clog the trains and street grade crossings slow down trains which has a rippling effect on the rest of the system. Building a subway down Huntington Ave would improve traffic for all users and the median could also be opened up for bike and pedestrian traffic.
Brookline Village Tunnel
The final piece of this plan would to connect the Huntington Ave Subway to the Riverside Line via a new tunnel under Mission Park, the Muddy River at the Riverway, and Brookline Village. Between Brookline Village and Kenmore Sq would run a light rail shuttle to serve Longwood and Fenway station using the part of the Riverside Branch which is now cut off from the D Line. All traffic on the D Line would be rerouted along Huntington Ave and anyone needing to get to Kenmore Sq (especially for games at Fenway Park) could transfer to the shuttle. This connection would allow flexibility and redundancy along the Green Line.
A Better Bypass
This new subway routing would solve all the problems that the Blue Line extension sets out to address but would do so at considerably less cost. While stations along the new tunnels would be expensive the savings would come from not needing to rebuild all the Riverside Branch stations or needing additional train yards. Instead of creating a commuter nightmare by sending riders around the Back Bay the new subways would connect riders to two of the most important business districts in the city, the Back Bay and Longwood Medical Area. The subway would take street running trolleys off the road and streamline operations as it would remove two of the major bottlenecks along the Green Line. Service could then be increased along the B and C Lines without compromising the D or E Lines. B and C Line trains would terminate at Park St using the inside tracks while D and E Line trains would continue north using the outside tracks at Park St, thus full utilizing the 4 tracks under Tremont St. Additionally, as the tunnels themselves would be built in sections each one would have an individual effect on the system while a Blue Line extension would need to work all at once.
Serving the most amounts of riders by running through two growing employment centers in the city while using existing infrastructure where it can means a much lower cost of construction and higher return on investment.WASHINGTON -- On Jan. 20, the government's top lawyers are scheduled to square off against the team representing an Alaska moose hunter who has spent a small fortune fighting for what, to him, is the spirit of the Last Frontier.
For others, it's about the core spirit of conservation and preservation -- protecting the most pristine of the nation's natural beauty.
In court, it'll come down to questions about the legislative intent behind Alaska's federally protected lands and arguments over legal precedent.
In the end, either John Sturgeon will once again be allowed to ride his 10-foot hovercraft down the shallow waters of the Nation River, hunting in and around the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve near Eagle, or he won't. But one thing is certain: The case is no longer solely about one man and his boat.
The case raises questions about the scope of federal authority on public lands across Alaska, pitting some of the nation's most expansive conservation legislation to date against the state's ability to exploit natural resources. And now, several court rulings in, some argue that an adverse ruling for Sturgeon could have much wider impacts -- for flights in and out of parks and preserves and new restrictions on all-terrain vehicles all across the state. The appeals court ruling against Sturgeon has already been cited in proposed new oil and gas regulations released in October.
Tension between Alaskans and the federal government is nothing new, from personal squabbles to conflict over hunting rules on preserves that override state regulations. In recent years, some of the remaining residents in the tiny town of Eagle and those who hunt near the small border town have had run-ins with park service employees, including a well-publicized spat with an elderly man who was arrested for not stopping for an in-river safety inspection.
"All they're doing is seeing how far they can push," said Bo Fay, former mayor and longtime gas-station owner in Eagle. Fay has an easy time detailing decades of what he says are transgressions from some park service employees, whom he calls "very bad neighbors" who subject residents and visitors to harassment.
Similarly, arguments over the ownership of waters in Alaska, and what regulations apply, have been bubbling since President Jimmy Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) in 1980.
In recent years, the Supreme Court has taken an interest in cases relating to ownership of state and federal waters, so it's not entirely surprising that the Supreme Court would opt to hear Sturgeon's case.
An encounter with rangers
On September 2007, Sturgeon stopped on a gravel bar in the Nation River to repair the steering cable on the 10-foot hovercraft he'd been using to navigate during his moose hunts since 1990. Sturgeon has been hunting in the same area around Eagle, off the Yukon and Nation rivers, since 1971, a year after he arrived in Alaska.
A couple of park employees pulled up and engaged in a friendly manner, Sturgeon said, asking questions about his hovercraft. The vessel's fan boosts it just above the water, making it ideal for navigating shallow stretches of river along his favored hunting grounds. Hovercraft are notoriously noisy.
Sturgeon said his conversation with the park employees took a quick turn when one whipped out a rule book, read a line and demanded he put up his hovercraft for good.
The regulation reads: "The operation or use of hovercraft is prohibited."
But though he was in a national preserve, Sturgeon says the federal government shouldn't have any authority over the water he was in. Nevertheless, he loaded his hovercraft on a motor boat and it remains in his yard in Anchorage, the engine mothballed for safe-keeping, more than eight years later.
"After a year or so, the more I thought about it, the more it upset me," Sturgeon said. After consulting a few lawyers, he decided to take the government to court.
"This is Alaska; this isn't Yellowstone National Park," Sturgeon said. "That's not the deal that was cut" when ANILCA was passed, he said. "The federal government and the state of Alaska already made an agreement how these parks are supposed to be managed and how they're supposed to be run."
So far it hasn't gone well for him. More than $300,000 later, two courts -- a federal district court in Alaska and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- have ruled against Sturgeon.
The Supreme Court is his last chance. He's backed by a long list of supporters who say his case is not only indicative of federal overreach, but amounts to the first step down a slippery slope that could interfere with development on 19 million acres of Native lands in Alaska.
Sturgeon's supporters -- including the state, several Native groups, members of Alaska's congressional delegation and others -- also argue that the appeals court decision gave the National Park Service more than it asked for, ruling that the federal government has authority over not just waters, but state and private land enclaves within national park boundaries in Alaska.
Ramifications through Alaska
"That decision has significant social and economic ramifications that will reverberate throughout the State of Alaska," Sturgeon's lawyers told the Supreme Court in a legal brief. "Alaska Natives depend on this land for economic support, which will be denied to them by NPS regulations that destroy its economic value and deny to these landowners the right to make productive use of their property."
Half the state's regional Native corporations and two village corporations, including Bristol Bay Native Corp. and NANA Regional Corp., filed a friend of the court brief urging the Supreme Court justices to hear the case and overturn the appeals court decision. With millions of acres of land within the boundaries of federal parks and preserves, they say they have a lot at stake.
The core statutory and regulatory claims raised in the case -- Section 103(c) of ANILCA and a regulation barring hovercraft in national parklands -- were both relative afterthoughts in larger, more expansive efforts.
The hovercraft rule was part of a 1983 update to general regulations governing national parks.
"A few" people who commented on the draft regulation "recommended that the Service prohibit the use of hovercraft in park areas. The National Park Service has adopted this suggestion," the government wrote in an explanation published in the Federal Register on June 30, 1983, provided by the NPS.
"The Service has determined that hovercraft should be prohibited because they provide virtually unlimited access to park areas and introduce a mechanical mode of transportation into locations where the intrusion of motorized equipment by sight or sound is generally inappropriate.... Hovercraft shall only be permitted pursuant to special regulations and only following a thorough analysis of their effect on park resources."
Nobody said much about it in Alaska for the next 34 years.
Who controls the rivers?
"I doubt many members of the public were aware of, or paid any attention to, the 1983 revisions to the national regulations for NPS units." said Tina Cunning, a longtime ANILCA expert in Alaska. "Even those of us who were working alongside NPS in the implementation of ANILCA believed those regulations did not apply in Alaska."
Sturgeon started using his hovercraft in 1990, seven years after the rule was put in place, and at times provided his hunting license to park employees without hearing mention of the hovercraft.
Sturgeon said the reason the hovercraft regulation should not apply is section 103 of ANILCA, which says that, "No lands which, before, on, or after the date of enactment of this Act, are conveyed to the State, to any Native Corporation, or to any private party shall be subject to the regulations applicable solely to public lands within such units."
From there, the dispute revolves around the meaning of the word "solely." Does it refer to Park Service regulations just for those particular areas? Or does it exempt state lands from all Park Service regulations, even if those lands fall within a park or refuge? And if so, are the waterways considered "state lands?"
"This is a jurisdictional power struggle," Cunning said. "The issue needs to be resolved."
The Justice Department told the Supreme Court this month that "Section 103(c) does not control the treatment of navigable waters, which were never conveyed to the State, Native Corporations, or private parties."
Congress went out of its way to make clear its desire to protect many of Alaska's rivers, the Park Service told the court. The Park Service said the state and Sturgeon's interpretation of the law would create a "patchwork of jurisdiction... There is no indication that Congress intended such an unworkable approach."
"Mr. Sturgeon's case has turned into a debate about whether or not the federal government is shutting down access to public lands, and that's really not the issue in that case," said Valerie Brown, legal director for Trustees for Alaska, which plans to intervene in the case on behalf of the Park Service.
Alaska parks allow hunting
"The national park where Mr. Sturgeon was asked to stop using his hovercraft is still open to hunting today... You can hunt with your motorized boat. The only thing Mr. Sturgeon can't do is use a hovercraft to do that," Brown said.
Sturgeon argues the NPS reading of section 103 is "utterly illogical," protecting private land in Alaska from only Alaska-specific National Park Service regulations, rather than granting those lands the benefit of more relaxed regulations for hunting, camping and "motorized access."
The Arctic Slope Regional Corp. agreed, telling the high court that the appeals court decision "dramatically upsets the balance Congress struck in ANILCA."
"The Ninth Circuit's decision reaches far beyond one hunter and one hovercraft on navigable waters of the State. Its reading of ANILCA section 103(c)... affects private land ownership rights on millions of acres in Alaska," ASRC wrote to the court.
Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, along with Rep. Don Young, said in their own brief filed with the Supreme Court that the Park Service has "improperly asserted" that it had the right to impose restrictions on all nonfederal lands within its conservation system in Alaska..
When it comes to the compromises struck with ANILCA, "I don't think what was intended is what we've got at this point 35 years later," Alaska Gov. Bill Walker said in an interview when he was in Washington, D.C., earlier this month to testify about the law. To Walker, the crux of the case is access to land -- a major challenge when so much of the state is owned by the federal government, he said.
So far, Sturgeon and his supporters have spent nearly half a million dollars on the case. Donations from Native corporations, outdoor groups and others have raised about $240,000, Sturgeon said. A fundraiser in Fairbanks headlined by Murkowski netted $67,000 in about 15 minutes, he said. Safari Club International is planning a raffle.
The rest he has split about 50-50 with his friend Ed Rasmuson. "I knew that it was going to be expensive, but I thought I could get help from a lot of people, which I have," he said.In the late 2000s, some researchers had a novel idea: They would "crash" a few dozen high school reunions and interview more than 300 people.
The goal was to figure out why people returned to their rural hometowns after leaving for whatever reason.
But John Cromartie, one of the researchers, noticed a trend as he and his colleagues — Christiane von Reichert and Ryan O. Arthun — attended the gatherings.
The people who stayed in their hometown were less likely to show up.
And even when they did, Cromartie said asking them why they never left was "a difficult question to even broach."
"There's perhaps a stigma associated with not leaving," he told me. "And high school reunions tend to be places where the people who come are relatively more successful."
We often talk about the rural-urban split in America — between country folk and city folk. But this distinction misses a nuance: Americans are some of the most frequent migrants in the world; we don't attach ourselves to a set geography.
This cartoon is about a different split — the clear and emerging disparities between people who left home and those who didn't, especially outside the metro areas.
Those who stayed in their hometown tend to be less educated, less wealthy, and less hopeful.
They tend to be less open to other cultures and less open to immigrants.
Ultimately, they tend to be more likely to support Donald Trump.
But putting those sentences next to each other implies there is something wrong with people who don’t leave home. After all, there’s nothing wrong with people who want to stay close to their family and friends — people who “really value kinship and close ties," as Cromartie put it.
Still, there are real disparities — political and economic — that emerge from the decision to move away from home, or not. And like so many other disparities, this split is the culmination of several systemic factors that sort us into these groups.
More insular, more scared, more Trump
During the presidential campaign, Dan Cox and his colleagues at the Public Religion Research Institute were interested in the attitudes of people who had lived in the same community most of their lives. They were working off a body of research showing that exposing yourself to different people and cultures can change your perspective — make you less insular.
That's why they devised a question about whether respondents lived in their childhood hometown.
But the responses showed very little demographic difference between people who left and people who stayed — even along partisan lines.
It was only when they looked at the split between Trump supporters that the split began to reveal itself:
And when they drilled down more and looked at just white respondents, the split became very, very apparent:
They also designed a question to understand how afraid people were of "otherness," and found that the white Trump voters — specifically those in the working class — have far more isolationist political views than everyone else. (“White working class” is defined as those without college degrees who work for an hourly wage.)
So when they published these polls, the narrative seemed pretty clear: Staying in your hometown makes you insular. You aren't exposed to other people, other cultures, other experiences — and that otherness scares you. This fear aligns with Trump's worldview.
It fell in line with the research showing it was racism and sexism that drove Trump's rise, not economic dissatisfaction. And it paints the picture of people who are so insular that they won't leave their hometown, even when economic conditions are subpar.
This isn't necessarily wrong. But Cox pushed back a bit. He told me, "There is a value judgment often made with people who don't leave their hometown — that there's something wrong with that decision. Sometimes people don't have opportunity to leave."
How we sort our people
In 2001, sociologists Patrick Carr and Maria Kefalas moved to rural Iowa to understand what was happening to Middle America. They talked to hundreds of people about how they ended up where they were. And in their 2009 book, Hollowing Out the Middle, they outline some systemic factors that sort people into various groups.
In the book, they categorize people into four basic groups:
What they found was that rural communities spent a lot of resources on the achievers — the kids who show promise early on, and are pushed to leave town so they can reach their full potential.
School administrators basically admitted that's what happens: "This is the job we set out to do."
Ken Johnson, a University of New Hampshire demographer, told me, "It's a theme that runs through a lot of the historical research on rural America. Rural communities lose the cream of the crop — lose the brightest kids — who go away and don't come back."
And we can see this rural “brain drain” in several data sets, although it impacts other non-urban areas as well.
The first is looking at migration patterns over different age groups. It shows people in their late teens and early 20s are the most likely to migrate — and they generally leave their smaller towns and suburbs to live in the urban core, whether for school or work. And rural communities are hurt most by this movement:
We can also see this in the demographics of college freshmen.
Those who attend more selective schools tend to be farther from home, and those who attended private schools tend to be farther from home. This means higher-achieving students, or those from wealthier families, are being sucked away from these towns, often never to return:
This means the people who are left behind are either not attending college or attending less selective colleges — which means it’s less likely for them to attain an advanced degree.
Over the past 50 years, this is the group that has been punished most:
As Trump reiterated on the campaign trail, there used to be good jobs for low-skilled workers in these towns — for coal workers, in manufacturing plants, in the auto industry. But these jobs have gone away, despite Trump's desperate efforts to prop them up on the backs of future generations.
We can see this trend viscerally in survey data. People who left the community they grew up in tend to be more educated and earn higher incomes:
In addition, Cromartie points out that people who have low-skill jobs don’t need to move as far to find other opportunities. This is yet another mechanism that pushes certain people out into the world and keeps others close to home.
It's a sorting that happens before many of us have even decided what we want to major in, before many of us have even had our first sip of beer.
Cromartie said, "Someone who gets out of high school, settles down, and gets married versus someone who decides to see the world have very different life trajectories."
The people who go back home
One way to think about leaving home is that it puts you in a position to accrue more economic and intellectual resources.
So the primary way non-urban towns benefit from those resources is when people come back home.
In fact, this phenomenon — called “return migration” — was the reason Cromartie and his fellow researchers visited so many high school reunions. Cromartie said he wanted to know if cultivating return migration could be an economic development strategy.
So they ventured out to these high school reunions and asked people whether they moved away from home, why they moved away, and, if they chose to come back, why they did.
The researchers learned that these return migrants come back to fill professional jobs that are hard to fill. They come back with life experiences to spur economic growth. And they come back because they care about the people at home.
"Those social bonds played a differentiating role," Cromartie said.
The researchers found that almost all the returnees still had family in town, and when they came back, they felt the need to give back to their community with the skills and experiences they accrued elsewhere.
One of the respondents told the researchers of the decision to return, "I think it was going away, coming back, and seeing that need, that people really needed to be helping in the community."
In addition, some returnees felt they were bringing back new perspectives to people in their hometown, which in most cases were well received.
One return migrant told researchers:
A lot of our current leaders … have never … lived abroad to experience that. … There is a different idea base and different ways to look at things … and I think it is something that we can bring to the table.
In raw numbers, this phenomenon of return migration isn't common, but that's the most common type of in-migration for small towns. You don't often get random people moving to these places, so it's returnees who fill that role. And research shows it typically happens in the late 20s to early 30s, after young people decide they've had enough of the city and move to the suburbs or back to their hometown.
But that migration pattern is swimming against the tide of broader forces — most notably, the recent trend of fewer millennials moving.
As a nation, the United States is at an inflection point: After 100 years of Americans moving more and more, we're now moving less.
In this low-migration period, virtually all age cohorts have been less mobile. And that includes people in their peak migratory years which, right now, happens to be millennials. These are the people who would normally return.
To be clear, this doesn’t mean millennials are doing something different that any other age cohort. They’re just caught in an era of dampened migration:
"Here's the snag with the millennials," Johnson, the demographer, said. "Every thing that normally would happen in your late 20s and early 30s has slowed down."
Sure, millennials are less tied down than before; compared with previous generations, they are less likely to be married, have a child, and own a home. But as Pew Research Center's Richard Fry points out, one of the main reasons people move is to buy a home. And since the recession, Americans as a whole are much less likely to do that.
Ultimately, while we don't yet have the granular data to back this up, Cromartie spec |
. We knew what the take of the movie was, we knew what the character was going to be. We don’t take these decisions lightly. We thought about everybody brand new people, established people. Ben is the perfect guy to play this role.”
“They both will be wearing suits, there are capes involved, there will be action, there will be excitement,” he added.A fun camera, but we can't help feel it fails to live up to its promises, and with the falling cost of models such as the Canon Powershot G16/G15 and GX1 and the Panasonic Lumx DMC-LX-7, it might find standing against the competition rather difficult.
With the guts of the X20 and a new f/1.8 zoom lens, Fuji's XQ1 promises high image quality and great low-light functionality
There seems of be an insatiable appetite for premium quality compact cameras, with camera buyers happy to part with healthy amounts of cash to secure a well-built body that gives the impression of detailed control, a high-performance lens and some additional features that make it stand out from the crowd.
A super-wide aperture is an excellent example of the kind of 'additional feature' that users are looking for, and maximum openings of f/1.8, as presented here by the Fuji XQ1, have been a fashionable attention-grabber since Samsung's EX1 was launched in 2010.
But the XQ1 can offer more than that. It also includes that second most-desired additional feature – a larger-than-usual imaging sensor, plus the processor of a camera much further up the range than itself.
It's a heady mix, but one that experience tells us does not have to produce the fine results one would hope from the sum of so many advanced parts.
Features
The Fuji XQ1 is a pocket-sized compact camera that features a 25-100mm (35mm equiv) lens with an aperture range of f/1.8-4.9. The camera uses the same 2/3in X-Trans CMOS sensor and processor as the company's advanced and stylish X20 compact camera – a camera that cost almost one and a half times as much when launched as the XQ1 does now.
The benefits of this connection, beyond the prestige, is that the sensor is twice the size of that used in many compact cameras, and 1.3x the size of those used in more premium models such as Canon's Powershot G16. Possession of a larger sensor, of course, means that the camera's 12 million pixels can be larger and can, in theory at least, collect more light. This in turn should lead to less image noise at higher ISO settings and in long exposures. Indeed, the camera has been allowed a maximum ISO rating of 12800.
Fuji claims that the size of the sensor isn't the only aspect of the camera that is working towards reducing imaging noise, as the high-powered processor has a hand in matters too.
Proving its premium credentials, the XQ1 offers the simultaneous saving of images as raw and JPEG files, and the exposure mode dial on the top plate houses positions for aperture and shutter priority modes, as well as full manual and fully automatic point-and-shoot functions.
Those who remember the film days will be glad to know that Fuji has included image settings to simulate the colour and contrast characteristics of Provia, Astia and Velvia transparency emulsions, as well as the black and white tones of Neopan. If you choose to record your images in raw format you have the chance to apply these 'looks' post-capture, as the camera is capable of a degree of raw processing independently of a computer.
Of course, physically plugging a camera into a computer is considered very third-world these days, and Fuji has rightly included wireless connection so that you can transfer files either to a hard drive, a smartphone or a tablet.
If we were to look for what's missing, perhaps some form of touch-screen capability for selecting at least a focus point might have been useful.Two men who raped an 11-year-old girl in Luton have had their "unduly lenient" sentences more than doubled.
Roshane Channer and Ruben Monteiro, both 21, were originally jailed at Luton Crown Court for three years and four months for the July 2011 rape.
The sentences were changed to seven years by three Court of Appeal judges who agreed with the attorney general they were too lenient.
Channer and Monteiro will also be on the sex offenders register for life.
At the original hearing in February, Channer, of no fixed address, and Monteiro, of Luton had admitted raping the schoolgirl in a block of flats in Luton.
The court heard the that pair had carried out the attack while two other youths watched and a video recording of part of the incident was taken on a mobile phone.
'Strong message'
Presiding judge David Farrell QC had said the case was "abhorrent" and that the pair had shown a "casual attitude to sex and relationships".
However, he also said there were exceptional features to the case which led him to reduce the sentence for each to 40 months.
He said the prosecution accepted that the girl had not objected to what was happening, and the men had pleaded guilty at the earliest stage and did not have previous convictions for sexual offences.
That sentence was regarded by the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve QC, as "unduly lenient" and the case was referred to the Court of Appeal.
In a statement after the ruling he said he was pleased that the Court of Appeal had given clear guidance in respect of sentencing these kinds of sexual offences.
"The law is clear that children under the age of 13 are incapable of giving consent to sexual activity," he said.
"I hope that today's sentence sends out a strong message to anyone who commits terrible crimes such as these - that you can expect to spend a substantial time in prison."
Baljit Ubhey, from Thames and Chiltern Crown Prosecution Service, said: "The original sentences of 40 months imprisonment in no way reflected the severity or seriousness of their crime. Today's increased sentences do."Soul Sacrifice Delta Comes With An Early Access Freedom Wars Demo
By Sato. February 4, 2014. 11:35am
Soul Sacrifice Delta is an updated version of the original dark action game by Keiji Inafune, featuring new twists to familiar stories straight out of Grimm’s fairy tales. Famitsu’s latest issue gives hunting game fans something to look forward to, as it reports Delta will also come with a demo for Freedom Wars on PlayStation Vita.
According to the magazine, those who purchase Soul Sacrifice Delta will receive an early access ticket for the upcoming demo of Freedom Wars, the upcoming Vita action place that takes place in a dystopian setting, where mankind has to fight giant enemies and other groups of society to acquire resources to keep on living.
Those who preorder Soul Sacrifice Delta will get additional costumes for the game. Additionally, players who have save data from the first Soul Sacrifice can use it to get a Toukiden collaboration costume.
Soul Sacrifice Delta will be hitting stores in Japan on March 6 for PlayStation Vita.“There’s a degree of argument among scholars as to whether the Liesse Rebellion was the underlying cause of the Uncivil Wars or the first of them. I was there, though, and I can tell you this: the seeds that were sown in Liesse are what we reaped in the years that followed.”
– Extract from the personal memoirs of Lady Aisha Bishara
I’d have thought they would do this in Whitestone, with all the sprawling avenues and gardens there to use, but I’d severely underestimated how many people would be there for the ceremony. Half the city must have been packed around Fairfax plaza, filling every nook and cranny Marketside. Merchants were selling chilled wine and ale as well as something that smelled like those spicy sausages from Hedges. I was more interested in the grilled fish on sticks from the lake, though watching some man obviously devoid of taste scarfing down one macerated in the Southpool way instead nearly put me off my appetite. Ratface had told me that in Praes the designated idiots in all the jokes were the people from Nok, but here in Callow it was the Southpooleans. Too much mud in their part of the Silver Lake, it clogged the brains. The old rumour that their people mated with giant carps was a fond a well-polished assertion in the rest of the country.
The Fifth Legion was out in force, today. They’d opened a cordon from the Green Gate to the plaza and kept it open by liberal use of clubs when the crowd got too enthusiastic. Which it had, much to my surprise. I’d been at the heart of the force that had ended the Liesse Rebellion in fire and steel, but by the way people were cheering as I rode through the streets you’d think I’d restored the Kingdom. Some people actually threw flowers: bell lilies, the same blooms Eleanor Fairfax had once worn a crown of. A symbol of victory old as the Kingdom, now used to praise the girl who’d made sure that same Kingdom would not rise in her lifetime. The irony of that was cloying, and I would have told Hakram as much were he not three steps behind me to my left. Apprentice, to my right, had somehow gotten his hands on a chariot pulled by two pale silver winged horses.
I’d seen Warlock use a similar one back in Summerholm, running over the Lone Swordsman as his way of joining the fray. The horses were likely a pretty picture for the celebrants – they’d bring in mind the old tales about unicorns, now gone from Callow and into the Waning Woods – but from where I sat I could see the melded at the base of the wings. Clearly, those horses hadn’t been born with wings. I supposed that I should count myself lucky they didn’t breathe fire, like the flying pig had. Masego clearly had no idea how to actually guide a chariot, much to my amusement, but there seemed to be spells on the reins that did the work for him. Still, now and then his hand jerked out of his control and he tried very hard to pretend he’d meant to do that all along.
Behind us the Fifteenth filtered through the streets, the Gallowborne in front. The name had been officially sanctioned, and the paint on their shields depicting a golden noose was still fresh. The same emblem was on the banner Captain Farrier carried, gold on red with the embroidered motto they’d picked themselves: best of the worst. Robber already had several limerick couplets unflatteringly relating the words to their abilities in bed, which inevitably had spread like wildfire in my legion. Behind my personal guard, Juniper and her general staff were at the head of the column. The orc was looking unusually cheerful today, which more or less meant she wasn’t actively scowling at anyone. I even knew why, since Black had passed one that bit before official word could come in: she was, today, to be made the youngest general since Reforms. Before those didn’t count, in my opinion, since there’d been quite a few High Lords and Ladies barely into their teens granted that authority for political purposes. Marshal Grem One-Eye had only been granted the position officially in his twenties, though he’d ascended to the office of Marshal the same year. Still, she might yet beat that record too. There was always another war around the corner, and the old guard was beginning to be more old than guard.
I caught a handkerchief floating through the air, thrown from a balcony. The pretty blond girl who’d tossed it flushed deeply when I looked in her direction. Nice dress, I noted, and quite revealing. It was satin, so she was likely from lesser nobility or wealthy merchant class. I tucked it into one of the pockets sown inside my cloak. It was still the same pitch-black garment Black had gifted me last year, but it had undergone… modifications. There were three strips of cloth bordering the bottom of it now. Taken from three banners: the Silver Spears’, Marchford’s and Liesse’s. Hakram had procured and sown them himself on the march to Laure, since he was apparently a deft hand with a needle. I liked the effect, and it did not escape my attention he’d left room for many more stripes.
The procession was slow, but eventually we arrived to the plaza. I dismounted from Zombie the Second, who for now remained a living creature, and let a sigh of pleasure out at finally standing on my feet again. Adjutant and Apprentice flanked me as we waited for Juniper to join us, her perfectly polished armour reflecting the glare the noonday sun. The four of us stepped towards the platform ahead of us. There might have been wood under it, but it was out of sight: the entire structure was covered with a red woven carpet, the style of it Callowan if not the colour. The Empress had likely ordered it from Laure weavers to reinforce ties there. Malicia herself was seated on a throne, an ornate thing made almost entirely out of gold. The arms of it were shaped as lions holding bells in their mouth, a rather bold statement. Lions were a symbol associated with the throne of Praes, while bells had been the symbol of the Fairfax dynasty the Empress had overthrown.
Apparently the lions were a recent change, as it had been previously been tigers who’d served as the emblematic animal. They’d gone out of style after the sentient tiger army fiasco, Aisha had told me.
The Dread Empress was still absurdly beautiful, and I privately decided that having gotten a good look at her was half the reason the people of the city were cheering. The crown on her head was ivory inlaid with lapis-lazuli with a perfectly spherical sapphire as the centrepiece. Her dress was white bordered in thick braids of gold, revealing the beginning of her breasts and her bare shoulders. Splendid gold armbands with scenes of the Imperial civil war held from her upper arms and a heavy necklace shaped a dozen Towers linked circled her neck. None of it held a candle to Dread Empress Malicia in the fullness of her glory, sitting in the shade of her red pavilion. The four of us came to stand half a dozen steps down from her throne and stopped. She smiled, and the world felt like it had gone bright. Just a quirk of the lips, and I knew men would have killed their own siblings to get another one. They probably had.
Even Hakram was blushing, and I knew for a fact he found humans unattractive. Masego seemed a little surprised at himself for being affected at all, which made sense to me. I’d never seen him display any interest in anyone from either gender, and wasn’t sure he had that in him at all. The Empress rose, and for the first time I noticed that Black was standing to the right of her throne. He looked shabby, compared to Malicia. His plate was without ornament, his sword undecorated and his cloak looked almost threadbare. Until it caught the light, anyway, and then suddenly it looked like it was made entirely of crow feathers. It wasn’t enough to make him look like anything but a sworn sword guarding his ruler. At my side Masego and the two orcs knelt as Malicia took a step forward.
I remained standing.
“Rise,” the Empress ordered, and they obeyed.
Malicia’s words reverberated across the entire plaza without her ever raising her voice and the silence that ensued was so absolute you could have heard a pin drop.
“Order has been restored to Callow,” she said. “Procer’s attempt to place a puppet on the throne has been thwarted, the misguided rebels of the south shown the errors of their ways.”
Or a grave, for those who hadn’t been nailed to a cross. So that was the angle she was going to take on this whole thing. Poor Callowans had been tricked by the wicked Procerans, made to bite the hand that fed them by bribery and coercion. The Empire would, of course, be merciful. But no so merciful as to spare the nobles who’d masterminded the rebellion.
“Laure remained loyal,” Malicia said, her voice caressing the city’s name in a way that almost gave me a shiver. “As did so many of our subjects. For this, there will be reward.”
The anticipation in the plaza was palpable.
“All taxes in cities that remained loyal with be halved for a year,” she announced. “And in this greatest of Callowan cities, I declare a week-long festival to honour our victory.”
The crowd went wild. Halved taxes, huh. Good call. Trade had slowed when the blades came out and this would get it started again. As for flattering the ego of Laureans, it was hard to go wrong with that. I was honest enough to admit that the people of the city I’d been born in thought of themselves as the only part of Callow that really mattered. Apprentice looked bored out of his skull, but Hakram and Juniper were listening with sharp eyes. The Hellhound had already pressed me privately on the subject of what the Fifteenth would be doing in peace time, and the Empress’ current focus on Callow was revealing. I knew my legion would be on assigned duty to a city, I just didn’t know which one. Black had been even vaguer than usual, implying there were plans being hatched higher up in the ranks.
“Though I reward loyalty, I must also reward service,” Malicia continued when the cheers died out. “Legate Juniper of the Red Moons, step forward.”
The Hellhound did, and knelt when the Empress elegantly gesture for her to do so.
“For your resounding victories at Three Hills, Marchford and Liesse, I name you a general of the Empire. As of this moment, the Fifteenth Legion is granted full status as a Legion of Terror and the ensuing right of recruitment.”
The cheers at that were more sporadic, though I got the impression the crowd would vocally approve of pretty much anything Malicia would say today. Greenskins still weren’t popular in Callow, though in cities that was beginning to change as they spent time in garrison duty. Juniper remained kneeling.
“Lord Apprentice,” the Empress said, after Masego also knelt. “For your distinguished service in the pursuit of peace, I grant you Imperial sanction to raise a mage’s tower anywhere in the territories of the Empire.”
The history behind that was a little more complicated. A mages’ tower was essentially a fortified laboratory warded so heavily it would make a fortress flinch, and after having to put down a dozen rebellions springing from those the Tower had restricted their raising. The only person currently sanctioned to have one was Warlock, who had linked the three dozen laboratories he actually had through a pocket dimension to get around the technical restriction of one. Now Masego could raise one as well, and I knew where he would: Marchford. He’d already told me that after the ceremony he would be leaving the Fifteenth to go study the thinning of the borders between Arcadia and Creation where we’d fought the demon. He’d be missed, but I knew if I really needed him he’d come. We were friends. How odd, that I actually had those now.
“Hakram of the Howling Wolves,” Malicia said. “I welcome you as the embodiment of the ties between the Clans and the Tower, the living proof that our people are united as they never have been before. You have served well and faithfully, proving the worth of your Name. For this I grant you all the attending the dignities of a lord of Praes.”
But not, I noticed, the actual legal title. Black had been trying to push the recognition of clan chieftains as nobles in their own right for decades to no avail. The reasons for that involved the Clans not technically owning the steppes they lived in and the justifications behind the whole tribute system, which had apparently been even more of a clusterfuck before the Empress had reformed it. Still, this was not a meaningless gesture. Hakram could now own land, raise a retinue and would be tried in the noble courts of Praes should he ever commit a crime. That last part was admittedly largely irrelevant as long as he served in the Legions, since he answered only to military tribunals while in service, but should he break the law as a civilian he might be the first greenskin ever taken to trial in the noble courts. He could technically style himself Lord Adjutant in public, now.
“And lastly, Catherine Foundling.”
The Empress dark eyes were on me, her red lips quirking fondly. It was a lie, that fondness. I’d done little to earn personal affection from the ruler of the Empire. And yet, looking at her smile, I almost wanted to believe in the lie. Some people could be dangerous without ever holding a blade. I barely noticed the crowd going quiet again behind me.
“Our Squire was born in this very city,” the Empress said, and there was a rumble of approval. “In Callow’s hour of need, she led soldiers from all parts of the Empire and scattered the forces of disorder.”
Only true if I counted as a Deoraithe, but it painted a pretty picture.
“For her valour, she now stands before me as the Lady of Marchford.”
For a moment I thought I’d gone deaf. The clamour from the crowd filled the sky, as they stomped the ground and screamed themselves hoarse. I met Malicia’s eyes and inclined my head, hiding my surprise. My mind was already spinning. What the people had heard was a no-name orphan becoming a noble, granted the rule over one of the oldest and richest holdings in Callow. A promise that the old nobility was dead, and under the rule of the Tower anyone could rise. What I’d heard, though, was different. The Empress had granted me a Praesi title, ruling over Callowan land. It was a statement. We’re here to stay. No rebellion will ever sweep us out. I closed my eyes and let the crowd’s approval wash over me. I’d have to think on this, on what it meant, before the day was out. But just for a moment, I allowed myself to enjoy it.
—
The suite in the Royal Palace was the same one I’d been given after becoming the Squire, though this time I was conscious when moving in. There would be festivities tonight and I’d need to change for them, so I took a bath in that same Miezan wonder I’d already sampled once. When I emerged scoured clean and smelling like lavender I dried myself, tying a towel around myself. I felt something more than heard it, and reached for the knife I’d left by the bath.
“That won’t be necessary,” Black’s amused voice informed me.
I sighed. One of these days, the two of us were going to sit down and have a nice talk about the wonders of knocking. I returned to the room to catch the familiar sight of my teacher lounging in a chair by a Proceran bureau. He was idly thumbing through a book of Kilian’s, a treatise on fine elemental manipulation by Dread Emperor Sorcerous. I’d tried to read through it a few weeks back and emerged from the attempt more confused about how magic worked than when I’d started. Whatever the transitional phasing of energy was, it was fiendishly complicated. And also possibly not real? How something could simultaneously not exist and be considered a basis for spellcrafting was beyond me. I ignored my teacher and stepped behind a cloth screen to change into comfortable breeches and shirt. It wasn’t that I was shy about my body, more that it felt… wrong to be naked around Black. Like pissing in a church. It had been bad enough seeing him make out with Ranger in a Name dream.
“So you’ve got bad news for me,” I said as I emerged. “You’re getting sadly predictable in your old age.”
“I’m not even eighty yet,” Black replied with a twitch of the lips.
Not that he looked a day older than twenty-five, unless you paid very close attention.
“You’re correct, though,” he said. “Sit down.”
I leaned against the pillars of my enormously oversized bed instead.
“As the last appointment of the sort done directly by the Tower, Akua Sahelian was granted the governorship of Liesse,” he said.
I blinked, started to speak then closed my mouth. I pushed myself off the wooden pillar and, very calmly, punched it so hard it splintered.
“That is insane,” I said. “Is this because I sent the letter? I put all my recommendations that she get the post in quotes, Black. The only way I could have been clearer was to add a sentence afterwards going ‘by the way, this is sarcasm, the only thing Heiress deserves is a summary execution’.”
“Her bid had other backing,” he said.
“Gods, if Malicia had waited another week the appointment would be put of her hands. The whole point of the ruling council is controlling the governorship system,” I snarled. “I don’t know what she’s up to, Black, but people are going to be butchered.”
“I am aware,” he said quietly.
“This will cause unrest, mark my words,” I said. “It’s open knowledge she’s the one who set the devils on the city. Gods Above, you’re putting in charge of Liesse the same woman who saw over two thousand of its citizens fed to literal hellspawn.”
The butcher’s bill after the siege had been heavier than I’d thought it would be. The evacuation of civilians deeper into the city had not been complete, some people refusing to leave their homes even with an army knocking at the gate. Black did not reply. I stared at him until the fury began to wane. All I’d just said he already knew.
“This isn’t your doing at all,” I said.
“It is not.”
My eyes sharpened.
“Malicia?”
He grimaced, and that was all the answer I needed.
“Why? She must have reasons,” I said.
“I would assume so,” he replied.
I sat down on the bed, my limbs feeling heavy. What he’d just said… Shit. That had implications. Black and Malicia had been thick as thieves since I’d first met them, and though I’d known there were some fractures there they’d always presented a united front. Disagreements were settled behind closed doors, where no one would hear – not even me. That my teacher was even willing to admit this was entirely the Empress’ game meant he disagreed with the decision so much he was not willing to put up that façade for the conversation.
“Is she cutting you out?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“I will be getting answers on the subject when we return to Ater,” he said. “She doesn’t trust any defensive measures but the Tower’s for this conversation.”
There were only so many people who would have the guts to eavesdrop on a conversation between these two.
“The Truebloods are up to something,” I guessed.
“You kicked a hornet’s nest when you forced them to back your petition,” Black said.
“You were along for the ride the whole time,” I reminded him.
“I was not criticizing you,” my teacher said, lips twitching. “Quite the contrary.”
I might still have to kill you, one day, I thought as my cheeks warmed. The longer I knew the man, the more complicated my relationship with him grew. I’d thought, when I first became the Squire, that I would have to fight him tooth and nail for every scrap of power. Instead he’d had my back every step of the way, battering down doors I couldn’t open on my own. I loved him a little bit for that. For seeing something in me I’d always believed was there, but that no one else had ever acknowledged. I also hated him for it, because I could no longer think of him as the enemy. Warlock had said that one day I would have to make a choice, and I believed him. And when that day came, when the knife was in my hand, I knew that if I killed him I’d miss him. As a teacher, as a mentor, as perhaps the closest thing to a father figure I’d ever had.
He was the Black Knight, and I was the Squire.
“I’m your successor,” I finally said.
“You are,” he agreed.
“I’ve wondered why you have one of those at all,” I said. “The Empress has a theory but I don’t think it fits anymore. If it ever did.”
Black rested his chin on the top of his hand, draped over his chair.
“I have been doing this for a very long time,” he said.
“Villains live until they die,” I said.
“Yes,” he said softly. “Until they die. Over the length of my career, I have myself killed twenty-three heroes and heroines. I’ve orchestrated or otherwise ordered the death of easily thrice that.”
He shrugged indifferently.
“I’ll meet someone better, eventually. Or they’ll get lucky: it only needs to happen once. It might be today, it might be next month, it might be decades from now – but they’ll get me.”
“So I’m your contingency?” I said.
“You’ve heard it, haven’t you?” he asked instead of replying. “The song.”
My heartbeat stilled.
“The first step is hardest, they said to her
You will have to walk through fire-“
“It will burn away what you once were,
And always devour whole a liar,” I finished.
He smiled, and it was sharp as a knife.
“They will learn to fear you, Catherine. I hope I live long enough to see it.”
A shiver went through me as he rose to his feet. He knew the song. Gods Below, he knew the song. Two years that question of where I knew it from had plagued me.
“You’ve heard it before?” I asked.
“Once, when I was young,” he said. “It was not for me.”
“Where is it from?”
“It’s not from anywhere,” he said.
I frowned.
“What’s it called, then?”
“The Girl Who Climbed The Tower,” he told me, and left.
—
Masego’s rooms weren’t far from mine. I’d expected to find him alone there, but was pleased to discover he was talking with Kilian. They both rose when I came into the room.
“Cat,” Apprentice greeted me.
“My Lady of Marchford,” the redhead teased, curtsying.
I strode forward and swept her into my arms, dipping her into a long and deeply satisfying kiss. Gods, I’d missed spending time with Kilian. Eventually Masego cleared his throat and I released her. She was flushed and her eyes a little wide.
“Already taking advantage of the servants,” my lover sighed. “Typical noble.”
“Don’t bother returning to the legion quarters tonight,” I said. “I don’t think you’ll be using those much.”
“Your bed is much nicer than mine,” she conceded.
I threaded my fingers through hers.
“Somewhere in this godforsaken palace there must be a dress that fits me,” I said. “It might even be in a colour other than black, one hopes. We’ll go dancing tonight, at the festival.”
“Dancing was not one of the Fae talents I inherited,” Kilian said.
“Wear thick shoes,” I recommended. “It’s not one of mine either.”
She smiled, cheeks dimpling as she brushed back a strand of hair behind my ear.
“I’ll leave you two to it, then,” she said. “Always a pleasure, Lord Apprentice.”
Masego grimaced. “Gods, don’t call me that. It makes me sound like I should know what’s going on at court.”
She waved us goodbye with a last smile and the door closed behind her. Masego’s room were smaller than mine, I noticed amusedly, and already filled with a dozen pile of books. I could see what looked like a dead pig cut open in his bathtub, which was just so typically Apprentice I couldn’t help but snort.
“We’ll have to discuss where I’ll build my tower,” Masego said. “Sit?”
I sat on what appeared to be the sordid Proceran invention known as a pouf. It was particularly frilly, and couldn’t decide whether it was a stool or a sofa. Praesi had it right with the cushions, I thought.
“We’ll settle that when we get there, I think,” I said. “Obviously I’d prefer if it wasn’t in the middle of the city.”
“The hills would be best,” he said. “Where the demon was first contained.”
And that was why I was here, wasn’t it? Apprentice had claimed an actual chair and looked rather curious as to why I was here at all.
“Masego,” I said. “Could you hand me the trinket I gave you? The one made of bone.”
He frowned, then cocked his head to the side.
“Why? You’ve had no definitive proof I’m not corrupted.”
I blinked. “Wait, you knew?”
He looked rather offended.
“You thought I didn’t?” he said. “Catherine, it smells like goblin munitions. It has a piece of your Name in it.”
“And you wore it anyway?” I said disbelievingly.
“Well, yes,” he said slowly. “After being exposed to a demon it was necessary for me to have a kill switch in case Father’s diagnostic spell has failed.”
I was, honestly, at a loss for words.
“That’s, uh, very enlightened of you,” I said.
“It was a reasonable precaution,” he said. “Arrangements like it aren’t uncommon among villains. I know Uncle Amadeus has a way to kill Father should he ever be corrupted, and he himself has an arrangement with Assassin to be executed should he ever become a threat to the Empire.”
He shrugged.
“Your method was crude and relatively obvious, but it would have been effective.”
“I kind of feel bad, now,” I mused. “I mean, I already did. But now I feel bad in a different, novel way.”
“You should,” Apprentice muttered. “Honestly, thinking I wouldn’t notice. You might as well have written ‘magical bomb’ on the surface.”
“I’m… sorry?” I ventured.
“I’ll expect a more elegant method of disposal before we get to Marchford,” he said. “As well as a written essay on the subject of why trying to deceive a man with my superb intellect is a fool’s errand.”
“I’m a villain now, I shouldn’t have to do homework,” I whined.
Both of us were smothering grins. Apparently I could do something right, once in a while. Not for lack of trying in the other direction.
—
This particular annex to the Royal Palace, called the Songbird’s Cage, had been built by Eleanor Fairfax’s grandson to house his mistress away from the prying eyes of his queen. He’d had the doors and windows barred and locked when said queen had started visiting the mistress more often than he did, spawning half a dozen songs running on the theme of caged doves, all of them involving puns about ‘locks and keys’ that thought themselves very clever. In later years, it had become where Callowan royalty held prisoners that weren’t officially prisoners. Several rebellious Dukes of Liesse had cooled their heels there until talk of secession died down, as had Fairfax uncles with a little too much ambition. It was fitting that the Baroness Dormer would be held there. A line of Gallowborne led by Captain Farrier trailed behind me as we tread the corridors, waving away the legionaries from the Fifth that guarded the unlocked door. My guards took position around the entrance – I’d expected a bit of friction there, but the two orcs from the Fifth began asking questions about Marchford instead.
Few of my legionaries had to pay for their own drinks, these days.
I knocked politely and waited until I was bid to enter from inside. I could have just strolled in, but it cost me nothing to be polite. If I ever ended up in her position, I hoped I would be extended the courtesy. Somehow, it was doubtful I would. Villains didn’t get taken prisoner, as I understood it. We turned our cloak or died, there was no middle ground. I had a nice cloak now, though. Turning might damage it. I supposed I’d have to stick with the whole villain thing for now. Anne Kendal, the Baroness Dormer, was still stunningly beautiful even in the subdued garments of a prisoner. She’d been allowed to keep her personal wardrobe, by my order, save for armour and weapons. Sitting in the solar of her suite, by the window, she’d been reading a book in candlelight. It wasn’t dark out yet but the windows were facing the wrong way to let the sun in properly.
“Lady Squire,” she said. “I did not expect a visit for some days.”
“There’s been some new developments,” I said. “May I sit?”
“By all means.”
I took the comfortable armchair facing hers, then lightly slapped two scrolls on the table. One held the seal of the Legions of Terror, the other the Tower’s.
“My trial is over,” Baroness Kendal immediately grasped. “I wasn’t even asked to stand in front of the judges.”
Her smile turned bitter.
“So much for a fair trial.”
“There would have been no point in you being there,” I said flatly. “I stacked the tribunal.”
Surprise and confusion flickered across the Baroness’ face. She’d been taken prisoner by the Fifteenth when the city of Liesse was under martial law – it was in my power to decide she should be tried under a military tribunal. I’d quietly sit down with the officers involved and told them what the verdict was going to be. There had been no debate.
“Open it,” I said, pushing forward the scroll with the seal of the Legions.
She broke it open and her brow rose as she scanned the lines.
“I am not to be executed,” she said.
“You’ve been stripped of your holdings,” I said. “That much was a given. You may still call yourself a baroness, but not the Baroness Dormer. Doing so would qualify as unlawful claim to Imperial property, under Praesi law. I think the punishment for that is lashes? I skimmed the reading, to be honest.”
“This,” she said, “does not seem like the work of Praesi law.”
“Things are changing,” I said. “There’s a reason I fought this war. Open the other one.”
Steeling herself, the noblewoman broke the Tower’s seal. |
. [and from another] http://www.vox.com/2015/7/7/8910293/china-stock-market-crash More than 1,400 companies — representing a majority of all companies traded on the mainland's two major exchanges — have halted trading in an effort to stop the previous days' slide. The amount of officially sanctioned margin trading in the Chinese stock market ballooned from 403 billion yuan to 2.2 trillion yuan. Experts estimated that another 2 trillion yuan or so of borrowed money has flowed into the markets using vehicles designed to skirt official limits on margin trading. The government cracked down on vehicles designed to skirt the margin trading rules in April. The government's toughest measures came on June 12, when China's securities regulator announced a new limit on the total amount of margin lending stock brokers could do, while also reiterating the curbs on illicit margin trading. The stock market has been in freefall ever since. [and from another] http://ksnt.com/2015/07/08/nyse-resumes-trading-following-outage-of-more-than-3-hours/ Trading has resumed on the New York Stock Exchange after an outage of more than three hours caused by technical problems. As of 2:51 pm Eastern time, nearly three and half hours after the outage started, trading had not yet resumed on the NYSE. There was no interruption at the dozens of other U.S. stock exchanges, including the Nasdaq, so investors were still able to buy and sell stocks easily. The market was already lower as traders worried about China’s failure to halt a plunge in its shares and talks remained stuck between Greece and its lenders. [and from another] http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/faa-says-all-united-airlines-flights-grounded-because-of-automation-problem/2015/07/08/360f8364-2571-11e5-aae2-6c4f59b050aa_story.html Stranded passengers are probably wondering why United had to ask the Federal Aviation Administration to abruptly ground all its planes at 8 am and kept them grounded until 9:49 am - an almost two-hour delay that grounded 4,900 flights worldwide and caused big delays in United hubs in Chicago, Denver and Houston. The airline said a router malfunction was to blame, but it wouldn’t elaborate. [and from another] http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/technology/anonymous-hacked-new-york-stock-6029217 A malevolent tweet from the hacker collective Anonymous seems to hint at something more sinister. “Wonder if tomorrow is going to be bad for Wall Street.... we can only hope.” 10:45 PM - 7 Jul 2015 [and from another] http://www.cnbc.com/id/102806720 Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson noted the glitch that caused the trading halt and an earlier computer problem that grounded United Airlines flights appeared unrelated. On Tuesday, hacker group Anonymous tweeted a suspicious statement about potential problems on Wall Street. Separately on Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal website experienced an apparent outage that was resolved by roughly 1 pm ET. [and from another] http://www.techzone360.com/topics/techzone/articles/2015/07/08/406350-nyse-wsj-united-down-coincidence.htm The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) suspended trading today at 11:32am ET due to a “technology glitch”. Investors can still perform trades, just not on the NYSE. Around the same time as the NYSE shutdown, the Wall Street Journal began experiencing technical issues. When attempting to access WSJ.com, the Wall Street Journal Homepage, resulted in a 504 message. The third incident from today was an apparent “automation glitch” that caused United Airlines to ground flights for an hour. The International Business Times has reported the Wall Street Journal outage was due to slow server activity in processing HTTP requests. The 504 error that visitors were receiving was a result. United Airlines blames its grounded flights on what it calls a “router malfunction.”
China is considered the world’s strongest economy at present, and its newly affluent citizens are doing more than buying cars and electronics. They are playing the stock market. In a country not familiar with capitalist gambling markets, China is still establishing controls. Its recent bursting bubble, wherein their stock market lost 30% within weeks, is a learning curve and not a fatal blow. Such market crashes are familiar to the West, from the 1929 crash to the more recent 2008 housing bubble crash on Wall Street. Was the shutdown of the NYSE a reaction, a protective maneuver known as Plunge Protection? Yes, despite claims that it was a computer crash. Panic trading is stopped in these instances.
What raised eyebrows was the apparent nexus in timing for other outages. United Airlines halted all flights earlier in the day for two hours, claiming a computer glitch. The Wall Street Journal crashed, simultaneous to the NYSE down time, reportedly due to the rush of the public to read the latest during the market closures. If a DDOS attack can disable a server, certainly a rush by the public can create delayed service, but is there more to this story? Amid all this was a tweet from Anonymous suggesting on July 7 that Wall Street will have a bad day on July 8, which then resulted.
Though seemingly separate issues, these well publicized outages not only have a common nexus, they were caused by the same hand. As we stated after the elite caused Obama to miss his October 20, 2014 date for the announcement, the Council of Worlds has gone to war with the elite. We have stated that this war has been won and the announcement will now proceed, but given the nature of the Service-to-Self individuals prevalent among the elite, they are being given some last minute reminders on just who won this war. They should not expect to recoup or rally. The sudden demise of a Space X shuttle to the ISS, after many successes, was such a reminder to Elon Musk and his cronies.
China is a partner during Obama’s announcement, but the China stock market was clearly headed for an adjustment, and thus the timing of the Council’s warming. Speculators in China will be reined in sharply by China, unlike the criminals on Wall Street who were never really disciplined after the Wall Street crash in 2008. Margin traders in China, hedge funds on Wall Street, deceptive derivative packages by mortgage bundlers, and the hallmark symbols of these crimes the NYSE and the Wall Street Journal. Anonymous of course is a human working closely with the Council on these matters.
What did the down time for United Airlines have to do with this sharp warning to Wall Street and wealthy speculators worldwide? The United downtime occurred the same day, but earlier in the day. The elite, who dearly want to prevent Obama from making his announcement, rely on modern day electronics to enhance their wealth. Beyond being able to make transactions around the world in a blink of an eye, the symbol of their elevation to the status of gods, in their eyes, is air travel. They can cross borders, evade prosecution, go to pleasant climates, and no one can stop them. Please note, this can be stopped with a wink of the Council’s eye.
Could the Zetas say something about this latest crop circle that appeared in Brandenburg, Germany. It seems to indicate a more violent wobble? http://www.cropcirclecenter.com/ccdata/2015/07/07/DE20150707_A.html
This design depicts a retrograde orbit, which Nibiru, aka Planet X has. When looking down at the solar system, the view astronomers prefer, the Sun rotates in a counterclockwise manner, as do all the planets that go round and round in orbit around the Sun. Nibiru deals with the sweeping arms of the Sun when it approaches for its periodic passage by hopping over the sweeping arms, thus passes through the solar system in a retrograde manner – clockwise. Thus when Nibiru appeared in front of the Earth in her orbit in December 2003, he halted the Earth’s orbit and pushing her backwards into the August position.
Earthquakes on Earth worsened after that because a battering had ensued. The sweeping arms swept the Earth into Nibiru, and Nibiru pushed back with a magnetic and gravity repulsion force push. As Nibiru comes outbound from the Sun, pressing closer to the Earth (which is trapped in front of Nibiru), this battering will increase. A stronger wobble, more earthquake jolts, Earth plates sliding for longer distances, the 7 of 10 plate movements picking up the pace, and all of this action fixed astrophysics that will not change. Mankind must prepare for the Pole Shift.An incoming freshman House Republican from Kennesaw has become the first since the Connecticut shootings to propose an expansion of gun rights in Georgia.
State Rep.-elect Charles Gregory, who campaigned heavily on the Second Amendment and limited government power, filed four gun bills this week at the Capitol that would sweep away any restrictions on carrying firearms in Georgia — including on college campuses and in churches.
House Bills 26, 27, 28 and 29 would declare that “evil resides in the heart of the individual, not in material objects,” and would also bar the governor from suspending gun sales during an emergency.
It’s a splashy public entrance for Gregory in advance of the next legislative session, which starts Jan. 14. The bills, however, have not been vetted by leadership and are likely to go nowhere on their own. A spokesman for House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, said it would be inappropriate to comment on the issue while victims were still being buried in Newtown, Conn.
The bills follow the failure in the state House during this past year’s legislative session of a sweeping proposal to allow Georgians to carry concealed weapons on college campuses, in bars, public schools, most government buildings and other locations.
Another proposal backed by the National Rifle Association to allow hunters to use gun silencers also went nowhere during the session.
Under current Georgia law, students can’t keep weapons in dorms or classrooms, but they may keep them locked in their cars.
State law also prohibits anyone under the age of 21 from carrying a gun for purposes other than hunting.
Lawmakers previously had passed a bill in 2010 that expanded where those with concealed-carry permits could take their guns, but churches, colleges and schools were excluded from that law.
The shootings last Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown killed 20 children and six adults.About
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The Cary Cross Currents Festival offers a unique opportunity for advanced high school and college string musicians to study with professional musicians in our week-long Side-by-Side mentorship program.
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Readers have grown tired of the slew of celebrity memoirs, with titles by Stephen Fry, Graham Norton and John Cleese selling disappointing numbers, according to publishing industry experts.
Titles by Cleese and Fry sold about 60,000 copies each, according to Nielsen BookScan, which found that sales in the autobiographies and memoirs genre were down almost 4% compared with 2013.
Just five titles have sold more than 100,000 this year – two fewer than last year.
Graham Norton’s second memoir, The Life and Loves of a He-Devil, has shifted 44,000 copies, Paul Merton’s Only When I Laugh has sold 17,000, while just 8,000 succumbed to the delights of glamour model Kelly Brook’s Close-up.
Philip Jones, editor of the Bookseller, told the Independent: “In a lot of these cases, it’s their second or third book. There’s a little bit of exhaustion. You expect a big celebrity book to be selling 200,000 at this point and a lot of them aren’t.”
There’s Something I’ve Been Dying To Tell You, the autobiography by the late Lynda Bellingham has proved the most popular of 2014, selling 265,000 copies.
Guy Martin, Britain’s top motorcycle racer, has sold 168,000 copies of his autobiography, while the book by former Manchester United captain Roy Keane was bought by 149,000.
Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of HarperCollins UK, said he had slashed the number of manuscripts by celebrities that the publisher was buying.
He said such titles were risky because celebrities had to be paid large advances but their works lacked longevity in sales terms. “You’d have three weeks of sales and then it would be gone,” Redmayne told the Independent.
Jeff Bezos, chief executive of Amazon, said earlier this month that books should be cheaper because they were competing with other content that was cheaper or free. “If you realise that you’re really competing against ‘Candy Crush,’ you’d say: ‘Gosh, maybe we should think about reducing friction on long-form reading,” he told a conference in New York.
The publishing industry has been stunned by the unexpected success of the debut novel Girl Online by Zoe Sugg, better known as video blogger Zoella, which sold 178,000 copies.
However, the 24-year-old admitted she had been helped to write the book. Its acknowledgements credit Siobhan Curham, an author, and Amy Alward, editorial director at Penguin, for being with Sugg “every step of the way”.
Sugg said on social media: “Everyone needs help when they try something new. The story and the characters of Girl Online are mine.”
Andrew Franklin, publisher of Profile Books, said Girl Online was not a title he would have published despite its sales success.
“Zoella’s ghost-written confection [is] cobbled together from her dispiriting blog and her superficial life spent shopping and stressing about makeup. When there are so many great young adult books and writers, it is horrible that such effort should be put into churning out an offshoot of a blog that is essentially about … nothing,” he told the Guardian.Dutton must resign as Immigration Minister
The Independent Member for Denison, Andrew Wilkie, called on Immigration Minister Peter Dutton to resign over his comments about refugees.
“Peter Dutton’s recent claims that illiterate refugees will take Australian jobs is racist, are disgusting, and must be condemned,” Mr Wilkie said. “He must immediately resign.”
“And if Peter Dutton won’t resign, then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has to step up and sack him. If Turnbull doesn’t, it makes him every bit as bad as Dutton.
“This really gives the game away when it comes to Australia’s current refugee policy. This is proof that the Government’s border protection policies are just all about racism, fear and division.
“We can do better than this kind of reckless fearmongering. We can do better than cruel policies like offshore processing, towbacks and mandatory detention. And we can do a lot better than Peter Dutton.”Imagine you have installed packages A-1.deb and B-1.deb
A-1.deb depends on packages Adep1-1.deb and Adep2-1.deb while B-1.deb depends on package Bdep1-1.deb:
A-1.deb
|
`—– Adep1-1.deb
`—– Adep2-1.deb
B-1.deb
|
`—— Bdep1-1.deb
Now, there is a new package available for program A, namely A-2.deb. A-2.deb still depends on Adep1-1.deb but now it also depends on a new version of Adep2, namely Adep2-2.deb:
A-2.deb
|
`—– Adep1-1.deb
`—– Adep2-2.deb
There is also a new package for program B, namely B-2.deb, and there is also a new version of B-2’s dependency, namely Bdep1-2.deb. But contrary to the already installed version of B, B-1.deb, B-2.deb also depends on a new package: Bdep-new-1.deb
B-2.deb
|
`—— Bdep1-2.deb
`—— Bdep-new-1.deb
If you now execute an apt-get upgrade you would see something like this:
# apt-get upgrade Reading Package Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree... Done The following packages have been kept back B The following packages will be upgraded A Adep1 Adep2 3 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded. Need to get 5055B/5055kB of archives. After unpacking 1161kB will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
As you can see the package B is kept back. The reason is that in order to install the new version of B, B-2.deb, a new package must be installed, Bdep-new-1.deb, but apt-get upgrade doesn’t install new packages, it only upgrades already installed packages.
On the other hand, apt-get dist-upgrade will also install new packages in order to resolve dependencies. So with a dist-upgrade you would get something like this:
# apt-get dist-upgrade Reading Package Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree... Done Calculating Upgrade... Done The following NEW packages will be installed: Bdep-new The following packages will be upgraded A Adep1 Adep2 B Bdep1 5 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 7055B/7055kB of archives. After unpacking 1161kB will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
In general, if you do an apt-get upgrade and a package is kept back:
“This means that there are new versions of these packages which will not be installed for some reason. Possible reasons are broken dependencies (a package on which it depends doesn’t have a version available for download) or [like in my example] new dependencies (the package has come to depend on new packages since the last version). ” [APT HOWTO
Chapter 3 – Managing packages, section 3.4 Upgrading packages]
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Like this: Like Loading... RelatedThere is a terrifying beauty in the bustling activity of an ants’ nest. The selfless sacrifice of the sterile workers to the fertility of queen and colony appears to be an act of supreme altruism. It is both commendable and disturbing. If only ants could grow to the size of rats then theirs would probably be the superior social order, based not on individual free will but on blind obedience to their genetic code.
In some respects, the social organisation of ants is reminiscent of human society. Their organised workforce is a caste-based community of specialists serving the needs of the queen. Soldier ants behave as if they have been trained on a military parade ground, and some species regularly wage war, fight to the death and even take ant-child slaves from conquered colonies.
Other ants cut and gather leaves to act as fodder for fungus farms, or “milk” domesticated aphids for their sugary juices. Colonies are a mix of specialist female workers, fighting soldiers, fearsome guards and fertile breeders. But each ant is programmed to know its place in society, with a selfless dedication to the task of protecting and rearing the queen’s offspring in well-tended nurseries.
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The allegiance to a queen is central to ant society, even to the extent of sacrificing the reproductive potential of each sterile female worker. Indeed, this enforced infertility of worker ants has fascinated scientists trying to understand the evolution of true eusocial behaviour – a hyper -socialist version of community living.
The phrase covers the highest form of social organisation in the animal kingdom. It defines species where there is co-operative care of the brood, a mixture of overlapping generations living in the same nest or colony, and a division of labour into reproductive and non-reproductive groups who jointly defend the home nest where the young are reared.
Eusocial behaviour is a relatively new evolutionary invention and appears to be quite rare. Of the millions of species of animals that have lived during the 3.7 billion-year history of life on Earth, we only know of 20 ancestral lines that are true “eusocalists”. Fourteen of them are insects (ants, bees, wasps and termites), three are species of marine shrimp, and three are mammals – two species of naked mole rats and, arguably, humans.
The reproductive division of eusocial animals into breeding and non-breeding individuals has mystified biologists as far back as Charles Darwin. Why would some individuals give up their ability to procreate for the sake of others? In simple Darwinian terms, it doesn’t appear to make sense because a non-breeder would, by definition, not leave any offspring behind to pass on the non-breeding trait.
There was a time when this selfless act of biological altruism was explained away by the “benefit of the species” argument. Sterile female workers laid down their lives and ovaries for the benefit of the wider group because their colonies would out-compete rival colonies populated by more selfish individuals.
But then along came a concept known as “inclusive fitness”, first formalised in mathematical terms by the late evolutionary theorist Bill Hamilton in the 1960s. Hamilton’s insight was to show that relationships are important when it comes to evolution. There was no need to invoke so-called “group selection” to explain the evolution of eusocial behaviour because by helping your near kin, you also helped your own genes to be passed on.
His argument was encapsulated in a mathematical formula known as “Hamilton’s rule”, which stated that a gene for altruism towards your kin could spread if the benefit to the recipient of the altruistic act outweighed the cost to the altruist. And, the greater the relatedness of individuals, the easier it would be for altruism to spread by Darwinian evolution.
It explained why female worker ants are ready to lay down their sterile lives for their queen and sister. This was especially true given that each female shares 75 per cent of the genes of their sisters (and queen) – rather than the typical 50:50 share of siblings – because of their genetic makeup.
In these insects, females are more related to one another than they are to their mother. Genes carried in the bodies of sterile females are programmed to work for copies of the same gene in the fertile body of the queen. Female worker ants appear unselfish but in fact they carry genes that are effectively working for their own selfish survival. It meant that something called “kin selection”, which incorporates the concept of inclusive fitness, could explain the evolution of eusocial behaviour.
But this neat explanation, which has held sway for more than half a century, no longer cuts any ice with the world’s most distinguished myrmecologist, and no one knows more about ants than the Harvard entomologist Edward Osborne Wilson, better known as the double Pulitzer-prizewinning author and naturalist E O Wilson.
He has thought about ant societies for longer and deeper than anyone alive. In a career spanning nearly 65 years, he has personally described more than 450 new species of ant. It is perhaps not surprising that ants have figured largely in his thinking and writing, and they take a leading role in his latest book The Meaning of Human Existence.
“Ants are wonderful model organisms for the study of certain phenomena of great interest to humans, namely the basics of the evolution and nature of co-operation, communication and altruism in the formation of complex societies,” Wilson explains.
“But ask me what ants have to say about how we should behave and what they tell us about our own morality. The answer is nothing. Their societies are almost completely female. They eat their injured and they are in almost constant, obliterating war with colonies of the same species. And whereas we send our young men to war, they send their old ladies. There’s not much there to be learnt,” he says.
Despite a lifetime with his nose stuck in the forest undergrowth, Wilson, 85, has a remarkable track record in provoking controversy. When his seminal textbook Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, was published in 1975, he single-handedly defined a new scientific discipline, but it led to a fierce reaction from academic leftists, including a few in his own university department at Harvard who were furious with him for comparing human society to that of insects.
Such was the outrage that Wilson even had a jug of water poured over him at one scientific conference by Marxist activists who denounced him as a quasi-fascist genetic determinist – which was odd given his liberal, Democrat leanings. Four decades later, his ideas on sociobiology and human social origins have been quietly absorbed into the scientific mainstream, forming, for instance, a theoretical basis for evolutionary psychology – the idea that human evolution over many tens of thousands of years may have shaped the way we think and behave today.
After such a stormy career, you might expect Wilson to be taking things a little easier in the late autumn of life. Not so. He has once again poked a stick into the wasps’ nest of academia by publicly denouncing Hamilton’s inclusive fitness and the concept of kin selection.
“It was a mistake and I went along with it to begin with. But it’s finished. It’s over,” Wilson tells me, with a flick of his hand.
To add petrol to the fire, he has embraced “group selection”, a concept thought to have been comprehensively debunked in popular style by the Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 bestseller The Selfish Gene.
When Wilson co-authored a 2010 scientific paper in Nature magazine with two young Harvard mathematicians rejecting inclusive fitness in favour of group selection, he unleashed a torrent of criticism. About 140 evolutionary biologists wrote to Nature denouncing Wilson’s revisionist thinking and re-affirming the central role played by the selection of genes and individuals rather than the “multilevel” group selection proposed by Wilson.
“What happened was confusion and unhappiness because a lot of people had based their life’s work on this idea of inclusive fitness,” Wilson says. He now believes that the protest was orchestrated by one person, whom he declined to name, rather than being the spontaneous outpouring it first appeared to be.
“We just corrected a mistake made originally by Hamilton and then repeated by a number of people, myself included,” he says.
Wilson argues that multilevel selection – both at the level of individuals and groups – has led to the creation of eusociality in ants and humans. In the simplest terms, individuals who co-operate together in groups achieve more and enhance the survival of their group, while selfish individualism does not, even in terms of Hamilton’s inclusive fitness and kin selection.
“Within groups, selfish individuals beat altruistic individuals but in the selection of other traits of individuals that are interactive with other individuals – social traits – then groups of altruists defeat groups of selfish individuals,” Wilson explains. “In a nutshell, individual selection favours what we call sin and group selection favours virtue.” But for many evolutionary biologists, this is demonstrably untrue, at least in animals. For the past 40 years or more, biology students have been taught that natural selection works on the level of genes. Richard Dawkins was the first to articulate this approach to a mass audience, arguing that individuals and their bodies are mere vehicles or “gene machines” for carrying genes through one generation to the next.
Two years after the 2010 Nature paper, Dawkins wrote a scathing review in Prospect magazine of Wilson’s support for group selection which Dawkins dismissively labelled “a bland, unfocused ecumenicalism”.
Natural selection without kin selection is like Euclid without Pythagoras, wrote Dawkins. “Wilson is, in effect, striding around with a ruler, measuring triangles to see whether Pythagoras got it right,” he said. “For Wilson not to acknowledge that he speaks for himself against the great majority of his professional colleagues is – it pains me to say this of a lifelong hero – an act of wanton arrogance.”
Although Wilson has much to be arrogant about, few who have met him would accuse him of it. But the criticism must have hurt, and Wilson was evidently still feeling stung by it when writing his latest book, in which he rather waspishly describes Dawkins, a distinguished Fellow of the Royal Society and retired Oxford professor, as an “eloquent science journalist”.
“What else is he? I mean journalism is a high and influential profession. But he’s not a scientist, he’s never done scientific research. My definition of a scientist is that you can complete the following sentence: ‘he or she has shown that…’,” Wilson says.
“I don’t want to go on about this because he and I were friends. There is no debate between us because he’s not in the arena. I’m sorry he’s so upset. He could have distinguished himself by looking at the evidence, that’s what most science journalists do. When a journalist named Dawkins wrote a review in Prospect urging people not to read my book, I thought the last time I heard something like that I think it came from an 18th-century bishop.”
Despite his critics, Wilson is convinced that it was group selection over thousands of years of early evolution, combined with a deep fascination with one another, that led to human altruism. “While similarity of genomes by kinship was an inevitable consequence of group formation, kin selection was not the cause,” he writes in The Meaning of Human Existence.
“The origin of the human condition is best explained by the natural selection for social interaction – the inherited propensities to communicate, recognise, evaluate, bond, co-operate, compete, and from all these the deep warm pleasure of belonging to your own special group,” he says. “Social intelligence enhanced by group selection made Homo sapiens the first fully dominant species in Earth’s history.”
But if ants could grow bigger, it might have been so different.
‘The Meaning of Human Existence’, by Edward O Wilson (Liveright, £14.99) is published this week
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.
Subscribe nowIn a world full of Hooters restaurants and wet t-shirt contests, is not even the leading lady of Bioshock Infinite safe from cat calls and leers from those who see her as naught but an object of lust? …Don’t be silly, of course she isn’t.
In an interview with UK’s Official Xbox Magazine, Irrational Games boss Kevin Levine expressed his displeasure that the denizens of the internet would focus on the appearance of such a woman of substance rather than her inward qualities.
"You know I think there's two questions there, one is 'does she need to be pretty?' and another is 'does she need to be voluptuous?' or whatever," Levine commented. "In terms of her body type, I think certainly people on the Internet have spent way more time thinking about Elizabeth's chest than I have. It's something I've barely thought about.”
Now, don’t freak out and cancel your pre-order or anything, Levine isn’t going to go all angry dad on you and give you a long and intimidating speech that involves the line ‘If you want to have sex, use the barrier method – I’m the barrier.’ He’s more the concerned grandfather. Think Liam Neeson, or maybe Morgan Freeman. Levine isn’t angry at you for thinking about his game-granddaughter’s boobs all the time – he’s just disappointed.
"It's disappointing when [Elizabeth's appearance] becomes a focus for conversation because that was never my intent and it's sort of a disincentive – I'd much rather talk about what she's going through as a person, but whatever, they have the right to shout out whatever they want,” Levine said, delivering the equivalent of that thing your grandfather does where he purses his lips and shakes his head while looking at the ground.
Don’t worry, though, there’s no need to avert your gaze in shame next time you run into Elizabeth. "To me, the most important thing with Elizabeth was just honestly her eyes because, you know, they're somewhat exaggerated and the reason for that is because there's so much expression you can do there, with her eyes, and you see her often at a great distance,” He explained, giving you a suitable way to take in his game-granddaughter’s beauty that isn’t going to remind him that she’s a grown woman and possibly sexually active already.
What do you know? Maybe a character isn’t defined entirely by their mammary glands or lack of. Maybe we should all actually be paying attention to what an important role Elizabeth plays instead of her measurements.
I’d just like to remind everyone that their mother has breasts as well. Just a thought.
[UK Xbox Magazine]Pope Francis has described Europe's refugee and migrant crisis as the biggest tragedy since World War II.
Francis urged tourists and pilgrims in St. Peter's Square Wednesday during his weekly public audience "not to forget" the problem but instead welcome and help refugees. He also encouraged efforts to integrate them in society.
He said integration should keep in mind "the reciprocal rights and duties of those who welcome and those who are welcomed."
Francis repeatedly urged Europe to do more to help the hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers and economic migrants who've arrived in recent years.
S. Carolina Pediatrician Stops Taking Unvaccinated Patients
A South Carolina pediatrics office is turning away unvaccinated patients, citing the health and safety of other immunocompromised children who are in danger of catching contagious diseases in the waiting room. Parents say their choices for their unvaccinated children are shrinking. (Published Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019)
On Friday, Francis has the opportunity to urge Europe to improve ways to handle the migrant crisis when he addresses leaders of the European Union nations on the eve of a summit in Rome.
Copyright Associated PressRick Perry suspends his presidential campaign
FILE - In this Aug. 22, 2015, file photo Republican presidential candidate, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks at the Defending the American Dream summit hosted by Americans for Prosperity at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio. It was announced on Friday that Perry is dropping out of the 2016 race for president. less FILE - In this Aug. 22, 2015, file photo Republican presidential candidate, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks at the Defending the American Dream summit hosted by Americans for Prosperity at the Greater... more Photo: Paul Vernon, AP Photo: Paul Vernon, AP Image 1 of / 49 Caption Close Rick Perry suspends his presidential campaign 1 / 49 Back to Gallery
After weeks of struggling to attract voter support or raise enough money to pay his campaign staff, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Friday afternoon became the first major candidate to leave the 2016 presidential race.
Perry announced he was suspending his 3-month-old campaign in a speech at the Eagle Forum, a gathering in St. Louis of other candidates and conservative activists.
"Today I submit that His will remains a mystery, but some things have become very clear to me," Perry said. "That is why today I am suspending my campaign for the presidency of the United States."
The announcement effectively snuffed out any remaining hope for Perry's long-shot campaign, which never caught fire despite a record of conservative leadership as the longest-serving governor in Texas history. Instead, in a field of 17 GOP hopefuls, voters appeared unwilling to give another chance to a man who stumbled badly in debates during his first attempt in 2012.
RELATED: Did Rick Perry refer to Reagan as 'Ronald Raven' at pre-debate?
First-time candidates drew most of the support in the early stages of the primary, with nobody receiving more attention over the summer than front-runner Donald Trump. Perry was the first to take on Trump, calling him a "cancer on conservatism," but the move backfired and he slipped further behind in the polls.
Fundraising problems forced Perry to stop paying his staff in early August. He resumed pay for some a couple weeks later, but by that point had to deal with a steadily stream of staff departures. The most high-profile person to leave, Iowa state chairman Sam Clovis, joined Trump's team.
Perry cut back on campaign events but vowed to keep fighting, especially in the early-voting states of Iowa and South Carolina. He was thought to be able to stay afloat thanks to the support of several super PACs that already had raised at least $17 million.
It was not immediately clear what would happen with that money. Staff at the super PACs, known collectively as the Opportunity and Freedom PAC, did not respond to calls for comment Friday.
RELATED: Rick Perry flubs cliche in retort to Donald Trump
Perry's rivals were quick to praise him after the announcement, with several saying he had added to the debate. Even Trump wrote on Twitter that Perry was a "terrific guy."
"I wish him well- I know he will have a great future!" Trump wrote.
In St. Louis, the crowd at the Eagle Forum gave Perry hearty applause, but did not seem shocked by the announcement.
Political strategists around the country agreed they were not surprised because of the fundraising issues and other signs of a troubled campaign.
"Reality set in |
teargas and live rounds to disperse the anti-Houthi protest in Taizz, killing one protester and wounding ten others, eyewitnesses told The Anadolu Agency.
Wounded protesters were transferred to nearby hospitals while dozens of protesters suffered temporary asphyxia from teargas.
Witnesses had earlier told AA that a mass protest roamed several streets in the city before reaching the Special Forces encampment - where pro-Houthi forces are stationed - to demand the Houthis' departure.
The troops were backed by 20 military vehicles and personnel carriers when they entered the camp, witnesses added.
The Houthis emerged as a formidable political and military force in Yemen after assuming control of Sanaa last September before moving on to establish control over other parts of the country.
The rise of the Houthis has pitted the Shiite group against local Sunni tribes and Al-Qaeda, the latter of which is said to still be active in the country.
Fractious Yemen has remained in the throes of turmoil since autocratic President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in 2012 following a months-long popular uprising against his 33-year rule.Even if another state grants Snowden asylum and issues him with a letter of passage, Russia would have to agree to accept it
Is Edward Snowden stateless?
The US whistleblower has accused Washington of revoking his passport, leaving him a stateless person. The Obama administration, however, insists it has only cancelled the validity of Snowden's travel document, not deprived him of citizenship. The US State Department has now offered him a "one-entry travel document" to return home – an option unlikely to tempt Snowden to board a US-bound plane.
Can he be rendered stateless?
Making anybody stateless is formally forbidden by the universal declaration of human rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948., which declares under article 15 that: "(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality; (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality." Individuals can voluntarily renounce their US citizenship – but they have to turn up in person at a US embassy.
Are airports outside national territory?
States normally retain full control over airside transit areas. Russia appears to be treating Moscow's Sheremetyevo international airport, where Snowden is believed to be hiding, as beyond its control. Gemma Lindfield, a London barrister specialising in extradition and international law, said: "Russia is taking the view that he has not entered Russian territory. It's finding a reason to do what it wants. The authorities have redefined the space of the airport as international."
What documents would Snowden require to leave Moscow?
Ecuador initially provided him with a laissez-passer (from the French for "let pass"), or temporary letter of passage, requesting a country to allow a person without other identity documents to cross international borders. But even with a laissez-passer, Lindfield said, "Russia would have to agree to accept it. It would also come down to whether the airline carrier would be happy to take him."
How long can anyone remain in an airport?
Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian refugee, lived in the departure lounge of Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris for 18 years. His story, Terminal Man, was later turned into a film, The Terminal. Another Iranian refugee, Zahra Kamalfar, spent 10 months at Sheremetyevo airport before flying on to Canada in 2007. Apart from Julian Assange, who is confined to Ecuador's embassy in London, others trapped in long-term legal limbo have included Archbishop József Mindszenty, the Catholic primate of Hungary, who spent 15 years in the US embassy in Budapest.
What are Snowden's other options?
Formal requests for asylum have been lodged on Snowden's behalf with 21 states. His initial applications were to Ecuador and Iceland. The WikiLeaks activist Sarah Harrison has submitted additional letters to Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Cuba, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Switzerland and Venezuela.
How are those requests progressing?
Snowden has withdrawn his asylum request to Russia because it said he would be welcome only if he stopped "his work aimed at bringing harm" to the US. Norway, Poland, Germany, Austria, Finland, Spain and Switzerland say that asylum requests can only be made on their soil. Ecuador is reported to have revoked the safe passage letter written for Snowden to leave Hong Kong because the president, Rafael Correa, was not informed before it was issued.
Which country should he choose to escape the reach of US justice?
States that do not have extradition treaties with the US are likely to offer the best hope of securing his freedom. But lawyers point out that even the absence of a treaty may not be sufficient protection against extradition. The UK has managed to extradite suspects from Somalia through case-by-case bilateral agreements. In the end his asylum may come down to political will more than international law. "You would do well to choose a country that has historically terrible diplomatic relations with the US," Lindfield suggested.
Owen BowcottBuy Photo The Village Grille, a historic Shreveport restaurant, closed for business earlier this week. (Photo11: Henrietta Wildsmith/The Times)Buy Photo
The Cucumber Smash at Village Grille is a popular springtime drink and a variation from the classics the restaurant is known for. (Photo11: Courtney Spradlin)
The Village Grille, a historic Shreveport restaurant, closed for business earlier this week.
Joey Cush, owner, confirmed the dining venue at 1313 Louisiana Ave. has closed.
The popular dining room was known for its steaks, seafood and cocktails and for its retro decor and ambiance.
MUST-READ: Many great restaurants have come and gone
Academy Award winner Bill Joyce previously told The Times he enjoyed going to the Village Grille around 5:30 p.m. to sit on the corner of the bar.
"I love the old-school 1950s ambiance," he said. "I have a glass of wine, a cup of coffee and an ice water.” (Also famous for its “Snow Bears.")
Read more about The Village Grille here: Village Grille has the classics and a little more
Share your memories of The Village Grille with The Shreveport Times in the comment section or at [email protected].
Read or Share this story: https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/entertainment/dining/2016/10/06/village-grille-highland-closes-doors/91660726/More than any other Democrat currently holding elected office, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi embodies how out of touch Democratic Party leadership is with voters. Under Pelosi, Democrats lost more than 60 seats in the House of Representatives from 2008 to 2016, and her tenure represents just how corrupt the party has become.
Following Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential election loss, Bernie Sanders‘ supporters scoffed at Pelosi’s re-election as house minority leader. Democrats had abandoned all hope of party reform, and Pelosi made it clear that the Party wouldn’t do much to reverse the drastic losses suffered throughout the Obama administration. At a private, three-day conference with billionaire donors, Pelosi doubled down on developing party strategy—without any input from voters.
In a December 2016 interview, Pelosi confirmed she would preserve the status quo, claiming, “I don’t think people want a new direction.” At at a CNN Town Hall in February 2017, she again revealed her disdain for progressives, telling a millennial Sanders supporter who asked if the Democratic Party would embrace Sanders’ populist message: “Well, I thank you for your question, but I have to say we’re capitalists—that’s just the way it is.” Pelosi then embarked on a tone-deaf rant, arguing that the solution was to make billionaires and millionaires more empathetic. “We have to change the thinking of people,” she said. “The free market is a place that can do good things.”
Pelosi’s attitude has incited Sanders supporters to recruit progressive candidates to challenge establishment Democrats in their primary elections. Nancy Pelosi’s challenger, employment attorney Stephen Jaffe, recently launched his campaign.
“Two words: Bernie Sanders,” Jaffe said in an interview with the Observer when asked why he was running for Congress. “My goal is to try to pull the Democratic Party away from the establishment, corporations, big money, big oil, big pharma, and return it to the people.”
Jaffe co-founded the South Beach District 6 Democratic Club in San Francisco, for which he currently serves as president, and has a strong record of fighting for grassroots efforts in the congressional district Pelosi represents. Recently, he’s been pushing to remove dark money from politics in the San Francisco area.
“Last fall I wrote and got the executive board to pass a resolution regarding the elimination of dark money from the clubs that are chartered by our Democratic Central Committee here in San Francisco,” he said. “There was one particular club that was essentially acting as a money laundering conduit. They raised almost $1 million from big corporate interests through the club and passed it out to developers, candidates, and causes that they liked. My resolution was intended to prohibit that.” After passing the resolution, Jaffe wrote another version for the San Francisco Democratic Central Committee to approve—which they did in late April 2017.
Jaffe has worked on several campaigns and initiatives in the San Francisco area and was recruited by Bernie Sanders‘ campaign as a senior attorney to observe and monitor the Nevada caucuses. “They were really chaotic. Lots of wild stuff was going on, which I personally witnessed—kind of underhanded tactics by a certain unnamed campaign opposing Senator Sanders. I worked on that, and when I got back I continued to help out with his campaign until he lost the nomination—which I don’t think he did; I think he was more or less cheated out of it,” Jaffe said.
Sanders‘ campaign, as it has done for hundreds around the country, inspired Jaffe to run for office, to become the change that the Democratic Party so desperately needs. “I think Ms. Pelosi has served long and—for the most part—well. But, from my observations of the last year or so, particularly in her Town Halls with voters, I think she’s really out of touch with the voters in San Francisco. I think the district needs to be represented by someone more in touch with the voters and the constituents here, and I think I’m that person.”2016-02-05 21:55, edited 2016-02-05 21:57 by Braddock512
Today we are happy to announce that we are increasing the default simulation (tickrate) of our 32 player servers for Battlefield 4!This means ALL PlayStation 4 & Xbox One small servers (32 players and smaller) will now run at 45hz compared to the previous default rate of 30hz.This increase improves ALL networking delays of the game by ~11ms per action – a massive impact on the second-to-second gameplay.There are several factors to consider when looking at this data and picking a new default tickrate:• Client bandwidth increase• Server bandwidth increase• Server/hardware load increase• Number of players on the server & compound impactWith the Holiday Update (released just before Holiday 2015) we included several features to improve upon these factors, both on the server load and bandwidth usage side. This enabled us to run several tests in which we filled up servers running various tickrates (45hz, 50hz, 55hz).After looking these results, we decided to go with the more cautious choice (45hz @ 32 players). Even though higher rates works pretty well for most players, we need to make sure this change affectsy.We are not increasing the default rate for 64 player for the same reasons. We did see issues for both players, and sometimes the server in certain circumstances in our testing – even at small tickrate increases.On top of this, we also crosschecked by looking at our data from 64 player servers used in the High tickrate PC beta (which share the same exact hardware setup), and this cemented our decision.We did not feel confident that 64 players will work flawlessly on all maps for ALL players if we increase the default rate for 64 player games.As changing the default rate is quite a big change, we need to take extra precautions in its roll out.To ensure everything works as intended and it improves the game across the board, we are going to confirm our assumptions with a final testing period.45hz default tickrate will be enabled on all 32 player (and smaller) servers in the North American East coast server pool (PS4 and Xbox One).This rollout will start at 10AM CET.Confirmation testing period, ensuring the change works as intendedFull roll out globally (if successfull) - timings to be decided.Please use this thread for both questions and feedback during this period. We will try and answer as many of the questions as possible!See you on the Battlefield!/David SirlandTwitter: https://twitter.com/tiggr_ [twitter.com]Arsenal are favourites to sign Liverpool and England striker Daniel Sturridge, according to media reports.
The Daily Express says that Sturridge, who scored England's last-gasp winner in Thursday's 2-1 Euro 2016 Group B triumph over Wales, is on the radar of Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger. In terms of a possible fee - the Guardian reported earlier this year that Liverpool were unlikely to accept less than £50m for the England international.
Arsenal had a £20 million bid for Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy accepted by the Premier League champions in May, but it is looking increasingly likely that the 29-year-old is set to remain at the King Power stadium next season.
The Gunners are now believed to have turned their attentions to prising Sturridge away from Anfield, with Sky Bet putting the Londoners at 4/1 favourites to sign the pacy forward, with Paris Saint-Germain in second position with odds of 10/1.
Ligue 1 champions PSG are set to lose key strikers Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Edinson Cavani in the close season, with Ibrahimovic likely to join Manchester United and Cavani also expected to head to England.
Sturridge joined Liverpool from Chelsea, for a fee thought to be in the region of £11 million, in January 2013.The striker has netted on 54 occasions in 92 appearances for the Reds since his move to Merseyside, but struggled for fitness last season with a host of injuries.
Knee and hamstring injuries plagued Sturridge's 2015/16 campaign, but he returned to full fitness in February and still managed to bag 13 goals in 25 appearances last term.
Despite his injury troubles, Sturridge was handed a place in Three Lions manager Roy Hodgson's 23-man party for the European Championships in France, and has featured in both matches thus far.
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Your Right of Defense Against Unlawful Arrest
“Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting officer’s life if necessary.” Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306. This premise was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case: John Bad Elk v. U.S., 177 U.S. 529. The Court stated: “Where the officer is killed in the course of the disorder which naturally accompanies an attempted arrest that is resisted, the law looks with very different eyes upon the transaction, when the officer had the right to make the arrest, from what it does if the officer had no right. What may be murder in the first case might be nothing more than manslaughter in the other, or the facts might show that no offense had been committed.”
“An arrest made with a defective warrant, or one issued without affidavit, or one that fails to allege a crime is within jurisdiction, and one who is being arrested, may resist arrest and break away. lf the arresting officer is killed by one who is so resisting, the killing will be no more than an involuntary manslaughter.” Housh v. People, 75 111. 491; reaffirmed and quoted in State v. Leach, 7 Conn. 452; State v. Gleason, 32 Kan. 245; Ballard v. State, 43 Ohio 349; State v Rousseau, 241 P. 2d 447; State v. Spaulding, 34 Minn. 3621.
“When a person, being without fault, is in a place where he has a right to be, is violently assaulted, he may, without retreating, repel by force, and if, in the reasonable exercise of his right of self defense, his assailant is killed, he is justified.” Runyan v. State, 57 Ind. 80; Miller v. State, 74 Ind. 1.
“These principles apply as well to an officer attempting to make an arrest, who abuses his authority and transcends the bounds thereof by the use of unnecessary force and violence, as they do to a private individual who unlawfully uses such force and violence.” Jones v. State, 26 Tex. App. I; Beaverts v. State, 4 Tex. App. 1 75; Skidmore v. State, 43 Tex. 93, 903.
“An illegal arrest is an assault and battery. The person so attempted to be restrained of his liberty has the same right to use force in defending himself as he would in repelling any other assault and battery.” (State v. Robinson, 145 ME. 77, 72 ATL. 260).
“Each person has the right to resist an unlawful arrest. In such a case, the person attempting the arrest stands in the position of a wrongdoer and may be resisted by the use of force, as in self- defense.” (State v. Mobley, 240 N.C. 476, 83 S.E. 2d 100).
“One may come to the aid of another being unlawfully arrested, just as he may where one is being assaulted, molested, raped or kidnapped. Thus it is not an offense to liberate one from the unlawful custody of an officer, even though he may have submitted to such custody, without resistance.” (Adams v. State, 121 Ga. 16, 48 S.E. 910).
“Story affirmed the right of self-defense by persons held illegally. In his own writings, he had admitted that ‘a situation could arise in which the checks-and-balances principle ceased to work and the various branches of government concurred in a gross usurpation.’ There would be no usual remedy by changing the law or passing an amendment to the Constitution, should the oppressed party be a minority. Story concluded, ‘If there be any remedy at all … it is a remedy never provided for by human institutions.’ That was the ‘ultimate right of all human beings in extreme cases to resist oppression, and to apply force against ruinous injustice.’” (From Mutiny on the Amistad by Howard Jones, Oxford University Press, 1987, an account of the reading of the decision in the case by Justice Joseph Story of the Supreme Court.
As for grounds for arrest: “The carrying of arms in a quiet, peaceable, and orderly manner, concealed on or about the person, is not a breach of the peace. Nor does such an act of itself, lead to a breach of the peace.” (Wharton’s Criminal and Civil Procedure, 12th Ed., Vol.2: Judy v. Lashley, 5 W. Va. 628, 41 S.E. 197)
Its time for the PEOPLE to awaken, when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty…
This post was submitted by Randy via CopBlock.org’s submission tab. We encourage you to share your police interaction, views or videos with those reading CopBlock.org, it’s easy, just click here.
I (Ademo) appreciate Randy for taking the time to compile this information but IMO, I don’t need a court to tell me that I have the right to defend myself from someone trying to harm me. No matter the clothing they have on.
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EPNThis Tournament Report was originally written in Spanish. It was translated to English by camat0 and edited by aReNGee. Due to the long duration and difficulty of translating, it has been split into two parts as per camat0’s request. Read the first part of the tournament report here.
World Championships – Day Three
Hello, today I return to tell you my story of the ETS World Championships. We return for the second week with the third day of action. Since I had already qualified for Top 8, for me Day 3 was a day of rest. The only relevant thing on Day 3 was to seeing Mouche qualify for the Top 8, helping Team ET to achieve a 100% conversion rate to the Top 8 (5 players!).
World Championships – Day Four
Day 4 Bracket
Day 4 began with SirRhino on Xenan Control as my opponent. The matches were more even than I expected, and I ended up winning 3-2. In the second round I faced Toth201 on Praxis, which I feel is a favorable matchup. However, in the round robin I lost this matchup 0-2 because I made some errors and kept some weak hands. I didn’t make any mistakes this time and cleanly took the match 3-0.
In the third round (Winner’s Finals), I once again had a favorable matchup, this time against Unearthly on Argenport. I was able to again comfortably 3-0, the only interesting thing about this match wass that I changed my sideboard plan a bit compared to the one I used in the Round Robin, though I don’t remember the exact details of the changes.
With that win, I was in the World Championship Finals! I got to sit back and watch Unearthly battle against Sir Rhino for the other Finals spot. Unearthly ended up winning 3-1, which gave me a very good chance of winning Worlds due to the good matchup. However, while facing Unearthly for the second time I made several mistakes. First, I made a bad block: He attacked with a 6/6 Instigator and I blocked with Tavrod, only to lose Tavrod to a Finest Hour. Later in the match, while I was preparing a third version of my sideboard plan vs Unearthly, I made the worst mistake of the tournament. I confused Sabotage with Suffocate, putting 4 Suffocate in my deck when I should have had 3 Sabotage and one Suffocate. This mistake ended up costing both the game and the first match when I draw the second Suffocate, when I notice the error I reported to the Tournament Organizers, and received a game loss for Illegal Sideboard that ended the first match.
Fortunately for me my tournament was not over, the bracket had been reset and there was one more deciding match. Unfortunately, I made other minor errors in the final match. In one of the games I kept a hand that was too slow and ended up losing, and twice I played Seek Power before it was necessary which could have caused problems with influence, and I also forgot to play a seat in one of the games. Luckily these errors were not punished, and I was able to close out the match 3-1 over Unearthy and win the ETS World Championships!
The truth is, I am very grateful for my luck because I played against my 3 best match ups in the Top 8, the matchup against Combrei Party (Editor Note: TJP Midrange) is pretty even and I think maybe slightly favorable for Party, and I think the matchup against Sunyveil’s Queen deck was bad for me.
“Removal Pile” Guide
In this section I will try to explain some of the matchups I played at Worlds. I hope you find this useful, just remember that this is a general guide and you must adapt your sideboard plan according to the exact list of your opponent.
Argenport Midrange
This is a matchup in which we want reactive hands. If we manage to kill their first units on turn 2 and turn 3, it is very difficult to lose. Sooner or later we will end up winning if the game goes long because we take many sources of card advantage. He plays weapons and cards like Oathbook and we have Runehammer, a card that is basically a 2 for 1 vs Argenport, the important thing is not to despair. Generally we are going to play Sabotage the turn that we play Tavrod, but we must be attentive and play it if we have reason to believe that they have a Protect in hand.
At Worlds, I tried three different plans vs Argenport, in the end I think the last one I tried was the right one.
Sideboard Plan: +3 protect +1 suffocate +3 annihilate -1 sabotage -2 rise -2 icaria -2 privilege
Oni Ronin Decks
At this moment there are two major Oni Ronin archetypes, we have hyper aggressive versions like Rally and most Skycrag lists, and then we also have slower versions like Burn Queen or Skycrag with Chakram.
In these games, the important thing is to never keep hands without Torch or Annihilate because it is practically impossible to win without those cards. The plan is quite simple, play 2 to 3 removal spells in the first four turns and then play Tavrod. If you manage to do this you probably win. If you don’t, things are tough. Here you want to play Sabotage by turn 2, especially if your opponent plays Assembly Line or Rally.
Against both kinds of Oni Ronin decks: -2 privilege -2 rise -2 icaria +3 annihilate +1 suffocate
Vs hyper aggro: you want +4 bailiff and you want to cut some runehammers or vanquish depending on the exact list.
Vs slower aggro: you don’t want bailiff and you can play +2 protects.
Sandstorm Titan Decks
Xenan Control
Xenan Control has few ways to kill Tavrod or Icaria and has no way to effectively pressure us, so the only thing that matters in this matchup is being sure to keep proactive hands.
When you play sabotage in this matchup depends on how your opponent plays. Against opponents who play badly, you will want to play Sabotage on turn 1 or 2, because they rush and and play their own Sabotage or Vara’s Choice early, so by also playing your Sabotage early you maximize your chances of discard these key cards. Against opponents who play well, you will play Sabotage on turn 3 or 4, before playing Tavrod, because for them the correct thing is to play their spells just before your turn 5 in order to maximize their chances of discarding Tavrod or Icaria.
Sideboard Plan: +3 annihilate +1 suffo +3 protect +1 rise +1 icaria -4 enforcer -4 torch -1 runehammer.
Praxis
This matchup is very good for us once you know how to play it. Basically the only thing that matters is having as many copies of Tavrod and Statuary Maiden in your starting hand. In general they will be able to deal with one or two copies, but if they can not kill a Tavrod or a Maiden they usually just lose.
In this matchup it is very important not to block unless it is necessary to do so, because this is usually the way they end up killing Maiden or Tavrod – with a Torch, Carnosaur, or the 2 damage from Heart of the Vault. You have to play carefully with your Maidens and Tavrods, on the other hand Icaria is really mediocre in this matchup because it cannot block any of their units without dying, can’t attack through Titan, and dies to Carnosaur. It is very important to keep a Maiden Cudgel if we have Icaria in hand in the presideboard games if we want to get value out of her.
Here it is correct to play sabotage turn 3 to maximize your chances to discard Obelisk.
Sideboard Plan: +3 annihilate +3 protect +2 furnace mage -4 torch -2 rise – 2 icaria
Dark Combrei
The plan here is basically the same as against Xenan Control, with the difference of -1 suffo +1 hammer, both kill Siraf but Hammer also kills owls and can be draw with Tavrod. Here you will usually play Sabotage before you play Tavrod or on turn 7 to try to discard Parliament, but timings may vary according to whether we want to try to discard Stand Together.
Sideboard Plan: +3 annihilate +3 protect +1 rise +1 icaria -4 enforcer -4 torch
TJP Midrange
This is an even matchup that depends on the exact cards that we both draw, the key once again is to keep provocative hands.
Once again, we play sabotage on turn 3 to hit Obelisk and Stand Together. If we do not play Sabotage on Turn 3, we play it on turn 5 to discard Scouting Party.
Sideboard Plan: -2 rise -2 icaria -2 privilege +2 furnace mage +4 bailiff -2 vanquish +2 annihilate
Conclusion
The most important decision with this deck is when to keep proactive hands and when reactive hands. It is also very important to know when you play Sabotage in each game, if you understand the timings you are going to win way more matches.
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FacebookScout has named the most unusual mascot in each U.S. state, and in some cases it wasn't easy to narrow the list to just one. (Especially in the state described in the video above.) Read on to find out where fans are proud to call themselves Hoboes, Hot Dogs, Obezags and more.
Alabama
Lanier (Montgomery) Poets
Renown poet Sidney Lanier has two lakes and several schools named after him, but only Lanier High's student athletes are true Poets in motion.
Alaska
Aniak Halfbreeds
This mascot is strange to those unfamiliar with this southwest Alaskan region, which is inhabited by descendants of white settlers and Yup'ik Eskimos.
Arizona
Yuma Criminals
In 1910, after a fire damaged Yuma's school, the city used a converted prison for a few years. A rival school derisively dubbed them the Criminals, and the name stuck.
Arkansas
Arkansas School for the Deaf Leopards
These Deaf Leopards were playing 40 years before the English rock band Def Leppard formed. This remarkable coincidence has no doubt boosted apparel sales for this 168-year-old school.
California
Vintage (Napa) Crushers
California has wisely dropped some of its more offensive mascots. (Remember the Coachella Valley Arabs? We're trying to forget.) So let's pay respect to the Vintage Crushers, a rare nickname that honors local industry yet still sounds cool.
Colorado
Rocky Ford Meloneers
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Why the Meloneers, you ask? Rocky Ford grads respond, why not! Mostly because they don't know. The origin of the mascot may be unknown, but the logo is nothing short of awesome.
Connecticut
Avon Old Farms Winged Beavers
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When the mighty Winged Beavers roll into town, you best be bringing your A-game.
Delaware
Archmere Acacdemy (Claymont) Auks
Salesianum High in Wilmington goes by the Sallies, a charming nickname that almost made our list. But who are we to disappoint Vice President (and proud Auk) Joe Biden and his penguin-like sea bird mascot?
Florida
Laurel Hill Hoboes
You can decide whether this mascot celebrates the history of migratory laborers or makes light of the homeless.
Georgia
Cairo Syrupmakers
The Cairo syrup factory that inspired this distinctive mascot relocated in 2002.
Hawaii
Punahou Buff and Blue
What we wish were a nod to skinny dipping in frigid Pacific currents is in fact a reference to this school's colors.
Idaho
Orofino Maniacs
Locals who back the name deny that it's a reference to a nearby hospital that treats mentally ill patients. Regardless, it's surprising this insensitive nickname has survived to this day.
Illinois
Freeburg Midgets
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Midgets tops the most offensive mascot lists for understandable reasons. The Little People of America association has called for Freeburg to change the mascot, which the school has held since a sportswriter dubbed them "midgets" after a David-and-Goliath upset win. Freeburg officials have resisted all efforts to change the mascot.
This may not even be the strangest mascot in the state. Illinois is also home to the Centralia Orphans, who were named from a sportswriter's comment in the 1940s that the team's "ragged uniforms" made them look "like a bunch of orphans."
Indiana
Frankfort Hot Dogs
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Frankfort is named after the German city and home to the Frankfurter Würstchen, the hot dog's European cousin.
Iowa
Sheldon ORABs
What happens when you mix orange and black? You get the ORABs, named for Sheldon's school colors.
Kansas
Hesston Swathers
This snarling logo for the Swathers (a hay-cutting machine) ranks among the nation's old-school best.
Kentucky
Somerset Briar Jumpers
A briar jumper is a rabbit, but why Somerset chose this mascot is lost to the ages.
Louisiana
Crowley Ladies and Gentlemen
Ladies and gentlemen, no one knows the story behind this classy mascot!
Maine
Little (Auburn) Red Eddies
Philanthropist Edward Little donated the land the school is built upon, and they paid him back by naming their sports teams the Red Eddies.
Maryland
Key (Anapolis) Obezags
According to Max Preps, there is speculation that three gazebos once stood on the school grounds, and, just for kicks, they spelled it in reverse order. Not surprisingly, the name didn't catch on with any other school in the country.
Massachusetts
St. Clement (Medford) Anchormen
St. Clement has heard all the Ron Burgandy jokes, thank you.
Michigan
Watersmeet Nimrods
Michigan could've had a dozen on this list. After all, it's home to Martians, Jungaleers, Battling Bathers, Doughboys and several other odd mascots. Nimrod was more popularly associated with the mighty biblical hunter until Bugs Bunny used the term to tease Elmer Fudd.
Minnesota
Blooming Prairie Awesome Blossoms
Blooming Prairie has been the Blossoms for more than 100 years and added Awesome shortly after the above logo was designed in 1979.
Mississippi
Stanislaus (Bay St. Louis) Rock-a-Chaw
Rock-A-Chaw comes from an old Choctaw word meaning devil grass, referring to those field burrs that get snagged in your socks.
Missouri
Hickman (Columbia) Kewpies
Kewpie dolls were all the rage in the 1900s when, according to lore, a Hickman school secretary placed one at midcourt during a basketball game. The doll somehow survived unscathed, and the most adorable mascot in America was christened shortly thereafter.
Montana
Chinook Beeters
Beeters refers to the town's sugar beet farming heritage and to the team's purported winning prowess. The pair of whirling beaters on the logo is an inspired bonus.
Nebraska
Columbus Discoverers
The town and school are named for Christopher Columbus, who navigated his masted ships across the Great Plains to Nebraska in the late 1400s.
Nevada
Gabbs Tarantulas
"Let's name our team after horrible, hairy spiders that no one likes." -- Gabbs High Mascot Naming Committee
New Hampshire
Newmarket Mules
Despite their bad-ass donkey logo, the school's mascot stems from the term used for the boys who toiled in the town's factories
New Jersey
Fair Lawn Cutters
Legend has it that newspapers named the Cutters after a group of football players who skipped class. Suspended for the first half of a big game, they led the team to victory in the second half. It's a testament to truancy!
New Mexico
Bataan Military Academy (Alburquerque) Fighting Sea Lions
New Mexico's mascots are pretty mundane. Even the Fighting Sea Lions isn't as whimsical as it sounds; it's named for a mythical Irish beast.
New York
Fredonia Hillbillies
Hillbilly has always been a derogatory term, yet this small school's nickname survives. Perhaps no one wants to admit they're offended by the term?
North Carolina
Cary Imps
There has been very little outcry from the mischievous devil community over Cary's use of Imps as a mascot.
North Dakota
New Salem Holsteins
New Salem is dairy country and proud of it. In addition to Holstein sports, it's home to the massive sculpture of a Holstein cow called Salem Sue.
Ohio
Crooksville Ceramics
Proof that naming the high school |
than a new system. Upgrading is also like trying to balance a wobbly table; each new component you add creates a bottleneck or an incompatibility somewhere else and what started as just an extra 1GB of RAM quickly becomes a new motherboard, CPU, graphics card and PSU.
Reformatting and reinstalling seems like it will get you back to the halcyonicity of a new PC, but you have to remember that all the patches, updates and new drivers downloaded since then will still need to be reinstalled and they were responsible for much of the original slowdown.
Instead, IMRTIUTB is best addressed by uninstalling things. Any game, demo, shareware utility or Internet Explorer toolbar add-on that you do not depend on for your life needs to be removed. If you have more than eight icons in your System Tray, get rid of half of them.
All software thinks it's so important that it must run constantly in the background. This is incorrect. Whatever it's doing can wait. Possibly for eternity. Any other kind of IMRTIUTB is probably dirt. Take the lid off, blow away the dust, run your keyboard through the dishwasher and stop eating pizza while you play Crysis.
4. RANDOMLY, A THING HAPPENS ("WRATH")
We live in a deterministic universe. The movement of stars, the radioactive decay of atoms and everything in between is controlled by immutable physical laws. We just don't know what all of them are yet.
If your PC crashes, halts, fails or stymies you, every time something else happens, then it's either IUTWANID or IGAEM. If it only sometimes happens, what you have is RATH. From a wide enough perspective, of course, random faults are just deterministic ones whose cause you haven't managed to identify yet. But some causes are better at appearing random than other causes.
Overheating is the classic example of this. Your computer mostly works when you turn it on, but somewhere between a few minutes and an hour after that, it reboots or locks up or the graphics goes very peculiar or the sound goes screwy. Overheating is quite easy to diagnose – rebooting immediately, doesn't help but shutting down and leaving it for a while does.
However, other 'random' influences are harder to isolate: radio frequency interference from nearby electrical equipment; heavy network traffic; dry solder joints on circuit boards, broken wires in cables; power surges in the domestic supply.
Be methodical, write down a hypothesis, devise a test, record the result and repeat the experiment to confi rm your conclusion. Or, just take it as a sign that it's time for your next PC.
5. I CAN'T DO THE NEW THING ("ICY-DONUT")
We all want to do the 'New Thing'. The New Thing is exciting and wonderful. All the magazines are talking about the New Thing. Every website has banner ads reminding you that the New Thing will help you meet girls, earn more money and prevent cancer.
The New Thing is good because it's new. But the New Thing doesn't work on your old PC. It doesn't fit in the slot, has the wrong number of pins, requires too much RAM and gives you unacceptable frame rates. The New Thing also doesn't work in your new PC. It's really quite buggy still, requires constant driver updates, doesn't let you run in high resolution and causes all your USB ports to stop responding.
Faced with this, most of you will either blame the old PC or the New Thing. A few may even blame everything on the new PC. But in fact, the blame lies with you. It's your fault for wanting the New Thing. It's your fault for thinking you could just install it and skip merrily along. It's entirely your fault for believing that the New Thing would be reliable and trouble-free.
This is not the way of the New Thing. Wherever possible, PCs should only have new software or hardware added in the first year of their lives. Doing this gives you a reasonable chance that your hardware configuration was considered when the developers were developing. After that year, you can continue to use your PC, of course; just don't add anything new to it.
If the computer isn't connected to the internet, you could, theoretically, stay in this holding pattern forever, but a networked PC will need to download Windows updates at the very least and your orbit will gradually decay. This, coupled with the fact that you will inevitably occasionally ignore this rule, which will lead to IMRTIUTB over time and when your PC is somewhere between 18 months and three-years-old, you will buy a new one.
This, if you absolutely must, is the time to invest in the New Thing. Stipulate to the supplier in writing that you are buying the PC for this purpose, thereby making compatibility a condition of sale. If possible, get the supplier to install the New Thing for you. Then it's his fault (and therefore problem) if you get ICDNT.
The best approach of all, is not to do the New Thing at all. Wait a while; six months or a year. This will turn the New Thing into the Established Thing. The Established Thing is cheaper and has had the rough edges knocked off it. And the forums are already full of helpful advice should you run into IGAEM.The May insei leagues started last weekend. I again scored reasonably well with a 5-1 result, which currently puts me on the shared second place (this time with good promotion prospects, as the two insei sharing the place with me have lower positions in the league). Meanwhile in the D class, Leon from Germany performed a little below average with four wins and six losses. On the plus side for Leon, however, he was the first to score a win against one of April’s new insei, who had gotten something like 44 straight wins last month, and who was winning all of his games in the D class as well. For a quick comparison, two and a half years ago I lost three games in the E class. Because the readers no doubt would find Leon’s game interesting, I’m including it along with the English class teachers’ comments in this blog post. Last weekend, the U20 Globis cup was won by the Japanese Ichiriki Ryō 7 dan, a former participant in the Nihon Ki-in English class, and the second place got taken by Kyo Kagen 2 dan, of Taiwanese origin but playing for Japan. If I remember right, I saw a remark in a Japanese go newspaper or magazine that the last time Japan got a double win in an international professional tournament was over ten years ago. It is no wonder, then, that the Japanese go world is currently in high spirits. Last Monday me and Leon went for a visit to the Ichikawa go dojo, owned by Mimura Tomoyasu 9 dan, who was kind enough to invite both of us in. While Leon is returning to Germany already after June, I’m considering if I should continue my regular training in Ichikawa; not only is the dojo an optimal place for studying and its teacher incredibly nice, but it currently also has two B class insei. The only downside is that it takes me some 40-50 minutes to get there. As for the title of the blog post, that is something that came up recently in a talk with my teacher. As this time my goal is to actually become pro (instead of getting more experience like two years ago), my training is of course to be more rigid than before. Instead of just getting good results, I should strive for the content of my games to be good; after showing a few of my last weekend’s games, though 5-1 could hardly be called a bad result, I got a great deal of criticism for my moves and decisions. Finally, I was warned to not accept any compliments that I might hear from other professionals who see my games, as the Japanese have their culture of not speaking their mind in a direct fashion. It is also interesting to see how many mistakes one can still fit into a game even at this level of play. Below is an example from one of my insei games last weekend, which was a fairly comfortable and uneventful win. As I need to include some variations this time around, for a change I will go back to using move diagrams. I am playing white. Up to black 17 we have an opening that at least I haven’t seen before. By the time white gets the cut of 14, he seems to have a comfortable position, but white still needs to be careful with his handling of the two top-left corner stones. White 18, while looking like a tesuji for sabaki, is dangerous. It might well be something that could be found in a bloody Chinese or Korean professional game, but it would have to be backed up by a lot of reading; and still, it would be making things unnecessarily complicated for white. Instead— White should probably attach with 1 as in Dia 1, after which the sequence up to 8 could be expected, and white could take sente to for example claim 9 on the right side. The top-side result is in general favourable for white like this, apparent when comparing the white top-right corner with the black top-left corner and the white top-left corner group with the black top-right corner group. While black found the most severe way to cut white back in Figure 1, black 23 and 25 in Figure 2 are vulgar. Up to 35, white lives easily on the top side with a good deal of territory. I had thought that cutting with white 36 and 38 then would come as a natural continuation, but it is not an interesting way for white to play at all; white’s top-side group gets confined in, and black can make relatively good shape on the outside with 43. Instead of 36— White should move out directly with 1 in Dia 2. This way, white could force black to make bad shape with 4 by playing the atari of white 3, and up to white 13, white would live comfortably on both sides. Continuing from Figure 2, white attached at 44 to make sabaki on the left side, similar to white 1 in Dia 2. This time black was forced to go back to capture a white stone with 47, and by the time white gets to extend to 52, he anyway lives comfortably. However, in the process black also got thick shape in the centre, so he wasn’t too badly off. White 64 was a simple reading mistake. Instead— It was possible for white to connect with 1; even if black cut with 2 and 4 afterwards, white would keep his shape intact with 3 and 5. This way, white is also bound to get A in sente, which means something of a ten-point advantage over the actual game. Stronger readers might notice that black can prevent white A by forcing black B, white C and black D in sente, but in that case black loses the sente block at E, which is bigger. Back in Figure 3, black played tenuki to 65 too early; he should first block at 66 in sente. Now that white got to exchange 66 for black 67 in sente, white profited by about five points. The game continued in a relatively normal fashion, as in Figure 4, up to black 75. Black again went for complications there; when white responded with the sabaki move of 76, black again responded in the most severe way with the cut of 77. Up to 85, white was content to fix his shape in sente, going back to connect at 86. Black then again went to challenge white with the tesuji-ish move of 87, forgetting about the endgame technique mentioned in Dia 3. White then found the time to exchange 88 for black 89, which meant a free profit of three points. The rest of the game was fairly straightforward. While white’s play was far from optimal, he was still able to capitalize on black’s problems with timing, and by 142 white had generated a lead of almost 20 points. Upon seeing white 142, black resigned. Below is the Eidogo-plugin version of the game.
[sgfPrepared id=”0″]
Lastly, below is Leon’s game with the prodigy from the E class, along with comments by English class professionals.
[sgfPrepared id=”1″]Sir Alex Ferguson paints the picture of Roy Keane, his former captain and talisman, as an erratic and terrifying figure, capable of frightening even him and, certainly, many players inside the dressing room. Keane ruled with an iron fist and a savage tongue, which Ferguson said was the hardest part of his body. Their fall-out has become part of Old Trafford folklore and Ferguson traces it to the decline in Keane's on-field powers and the frustration he felt as a result.
Keane had been furious about what he felt had been substandard pre-season facilities at Vale de Lobo, Portugal, in 2005 but it all kicked off when he gave his notorious interview to MUTV, in which he slated many of his team-mates including, according to Ferguson, Kieran Richardson, Darren Fletcher, Alan Smith, Edwin van der Sar and Rio Ferdinand. Keane is said to have been scornful of Ferdinand's belief that he was a superstar "just because you are paid £120,000 a week and play well for 20 minutes against Tottenham".
Keane suggested that the squad watch the interview in order for them to make up their own minds and what followed was a ferocious confrontation between him and many of the players, together with Ferguson. In front of the squad Keane slated Ferguson for bringing his personal affairs to United, in the form of his dispute with John Magnier over the racehorse, Rock of Gibraltar. Ferguson said that it had been "frightening" to watch. He had to act and he immediately sanctioned the paying up of Keane's contract and his departure to Celtic. Ferguson writes that Keane did pop in to see him to apologise but the relationship has since turned ugly again after public comments between the pair. Ferguson also passes judgment on Keane's managerial career, saying he needed money to build squads and lacked the requisite patience to do so. DH
Loyalty to the Glazers is undimmed
His attitude to United's owners is best summed up by a photograph showing him laughing with Malcolm's sons Avram, Joel and Bryan above a caption that reads: "The Glazers were supportive from day one. They let me get on with the job." Ferguson says the club was always going to be bought from the day it became a plc and, in a claim that will be met with incredulity by some United fans, insists their ownership model had no impact on his transfer dealings. While recognising the interest payments aroused "protective feelings towards the club", he says that "at no stage did it translate into pressure to sell a player or excessive caution on the purchasing front". He relates how Andy Walsh, who went on to help found FC United of Manchester, asked him to resign when the Glazers took over. Ferguson says he considered himself an employee and the thought never entered his head. "I never thought it sensible to upset the management side of the club by adding to the debate on ownership".
Sir Alex Ferguson reiterated that Wayne Rooney asked to leave the club at the back end of last season. Rooney, who has denied handing in a formal transfer request, allegedly came into Ferguson's office the day after the title-winning victory over Aston Villa and "asked away", with his agent Paul Stretford also calling David Gill. Ferguson revealed that Rooney had wanted United to pursue Mesut Özil before he signed for Real Madrid. Ferguson responded that it was "none of his business".. JR
He really did like José Mourinho
There is warmth from Ferguson in his chapter about José Mourinho and it is clear that the pair do enjoy a good relationship, despite what Sir Bobby Charlton, the United director, said about it essentially being a marriage of convenience. Ferguson likes younger people with a bit of devil in them and he smiled to himself when he saw the manner in which Mourinho first announced himself at Chelsea as the "Special One".
Ferguson even admits that he went too far in his criticism of Mourinho after United had met his Porto team in the Champions League last-16 first leg in 2003-04. Ferguson had been infuriated at Porto's diving but, in truth, he was more angry about how Keane had got himself sent off. When Porto knocked United out in the Old Trafford return, Ferguson found a way to congratulate Mourinho and they shared a glass of wine, which became something of a post-match tradition.
Ferguson writes that he found the wine appalling at Stamford Bridge and he told Roman Abramovich so. The following week, he took delivery of a case of Tignanello from the Russian. But the chapter veers away from Mourinho, as Ferguson discusses a range of topics from George Best to the desire of Nemanja Vidic to enlist for the Kosovo conflict and his personal transfer errors, chief among them Kieran Richardson, Eric Djemba-Djemba, William Prunier and Ralph Milne. There had been expectation that Ferguson would discuss why he did not advance Mourinho as his Old Trafford successor, but there is no mention of the subject in this chapter. DH
The Pizzagate match at Old Trafford "scrambled Arsène's brain"
The Arsenal manager emerges as his greatest bête noire over 17 years of intense rivalry. Away from the game they can discuss wine and he is a diligent "member of our trade". On matchday things are different. Even then, says Ferguson, he can identify with "the sharp change in him when the whistle blew". They got on fine to start with, although Wenger would never come for a drink in his office after a match. But then came "Pizzagate", when Ferguson had a pizza thrown at him in the tunnel after a match against Arsenal in 2004. Ferguson says he had no idea who left him covered in pizza, although Cesc Fábregas is most often blamed, and claims that losing that match "scrambled Arsène's brain". The rift extended until the Champions League semi-final in 2009, when United beat Arsenal and Wenger congratulated Ferguson. Despite their rapprochement Ferguson has a passing dig at Wenger's "softer centre" in his later years, adding insult to injury by saying he felt sorry for him during the 8-2 mauling at Old Trafford, and says he has produced only one "truly homegrown" player in Jack Wilshere. OG
Manchester City's success was hard for him to stomach
A whole chapter dedicated to Manchester City's title victory details how their Premier League success was difficult for Ferguson to stomach. His wife, Cathy, told him that the final day of the 2011-12 campaign was the worst day of her life and he was determined to usurp them before retirement. Ferguson says United "absolutely battered" City during their 6-1 defeat at Old Trafford but insists there was no animosity towards Roberto Mancini. However, Ferguson said Mancini "let himself down" by allowing Carlos Tevez to return to the side after the Bayern Munich incident. JR
It is clear that Ferguson considers David Beckham to be one of his chief regrets. He loved Beckham; he thought of him as a son and had nothing but admiration for the way that he chased his footballing dream; for his stamina, perseverance and desire to prove people wrong. But Ferguson came to believe that Beckham had forgotten what had made him a star and, increasingly, neglected to work as hard on the pitch.
Notoriously matters came to a head between the pair when Beckham failed to track back on an Arsenal goal at Old Trafford in February 2003. Ferguson kicked a boot at Beckham in the dressing room, it hit him across the brow and, when the player allowed the wound to be photographed the following day, Ferguson made the decision to sell him. He believed that Beckham felt he had become bigger than him and the club.
Ferguson writes that Beckham had his head turned by celebrity; that he made the conscious decision to pursue fame away from the field. He tells the story of how the Beckham camp tipped off dozens of photographers about one of the player's new haircuts (which turned out to be the shaven head) and how Beckham refused to remove his beanie hat before the big unveil, which infuriated Ferguson. He also writes that there was no "footballing reason" for Beckham to go to Los Angeles. Ferguson does not mention Beckham's wife, Victoria, in the chapter of the book that he devotes to the player. There is no anger from Ferguson, merely dejection that Beckham squandered the chance to become of United's most enduring legends. DH
He found handling the media difficult in his later years
Ferguson's way of dealing with the media was to put his "Alex Ferguson face on". He pines for the good relationships he had with reporters in his early years in Scotland and admits, without irony, "there was an intensity and volatility about the modern media I found difficult". His distaste for the "young reporters who dressed more casually" is plain and he says that by the end he found it hard to have any relationship with the press. His seven-year ban on talking to the BBC is glossed over in a page. The BBC3 documentary that sparked the row was a "horrible attack" on his son Jason, he said, and the BBC would not apologise. In the end, he says, they "agreed to differ" but his point was made. OG
He is no fan of the FA – or referees
Ferguson claims the FA used to go after high-profile targets, such as Manchester United and Wayne Rooney, because it resulted in favourable publicity. "It was never really possible to work out who was running English football's governing body," he writes. "It's an institutional problem. Reformers go in there 6 feet 2 inches tall and come out 5 feet 4 inches." He says Greg Dyke has to reduce the number of people involved in decision making: "A committee of 100 people can't produce sensible management." Ferguson also, perhaps predictably, declares that there are no "really top" referees in the modern game, damning them as unfit and "as a group, not doing their job as well as they should be". OG
Ruud was rude
Ruud van Nistelrooy left United in acrimonious circumstances in 2006, the final straw, according to Ferguson, being when the Dutchman swore at him on the bench after not being selected during the Carling Cup final against Wigan. Ferguson claims he did not anticipate selling the forward to Real Madrid but his behaviour during his last year at the club forced his hand. However, Van Nistelrooy made a phone call to Ferguson out of the blue in January 2010 to apologise for his behaviour. JR
And one horse-shaped hole … the Rock of Gibraltar affair
Given its centrality to Ferguson's later years at Old Trafford, the dispute with Magnier and JP McManus over Rock of Gibraltar is barely acknowledged. It was that bitter dispute, over Ferguson's right to a share in the horse's stud fees, that led directly to the Glazer takeover. It is dealt with in a couple of paragraphs, with Ferguson admitting it was "awkward" but at no point interfered with his management of the club. The matter was "resolved" when both sides agreed there had been a "misunderstanding", says Ferguson, matter-of-factly. He says he is now on "good terms" with Magnier. OG
Reporting by Owen Gibson, David Hytner and James RiachPrevious Next
Avis raised her head, groggy, her vision unfocused. Chains and bands of metal clinked.
The table she was bound to was set on a hinge so it could be laid flat, or tilted so she was standing up. Bars sat between toes and fingers, locking them in place, and a network of wires had been worked into her mouth and around her shaved head, locking jaw and tongue in place. Tubes fed clear fluids into her and drained out dark ones. Mechanical arms with more tubes, syringes, and other tools hung around her, poised like a dozen scorpion tails, ready to strike at her.
Her gradual struggle, waking up to find out how firmly she was bound, made for a backdrop of clinks and grunts, quickly growing more intense.
“Avis,” the Duke spoke.
The noises ceased. Her eyes found us. The Duke stood, his doctors behind him. His wounds had been patched up, now virtually invisible, and he’d changed both shirt and coat for something less bloodstained. Jamie, Lillian, and I were there, Lillian beside Jamie, me off to one side, nearer the Duke, sitting on a table.
“If your chest hurts,” the Duke said, “It’s because of the day’s surgeries. I imagine the drug you took was intended to kill you if you didn’t take a very specific antidote, but my doctors are very good. You are going to live, Avis Pardoe.”
She was breathing harder, but she wasn’t physically struggling.
He glanced at a piece of paper that sat on the corner of the same table I did. “Capsule embedded in your leg, I assume it would be activated with sustained flexing of the calf muscle, that has been removed. We have also removed, for the time being, your ability to use your thumbs and fingers independently. If and when we release you from your bondage, you won’t be able to stand, crawl, or make any vigorous movements without assistance. Should you try, your hip and shoulder joints will come free of the sockets.”
He turned his attention back to her.
“The bonds you’re in now are a formality, and I do like formalities, Avis. I’ve been told by my doctors that it is kinder to keep you like this, so you won’t accidentally hurt yourself. You’ve been given our best drugs to dull pain. I want you to think very clearly about things between visits.”
She tried to speak. It was garbled by the wires in her mouth.
“You had your chance to speak earlier. This isn’t a stage for you to say anything except what I want you to say. One of my doctors is going to remove the gag from your mouth, I am going to ask you a question, and you will answer either yes or no. If you take too long, I’ll consider it the same as you giving me the answer I don’t want to hear. You do not want to say anything but that yes or no.”
She nodded a little.
“Don’t lie to me,” he said, as he signaled one doctor, “I don’t believe in torture. I don’t like it, even as I recognize just how common it is. Our own bodies torture us with hunger and pain if we put ourselves in the wrong circumstances. If you’re smart about this, you won’t experience either. You can say you won’t give me an answer, and nothing will be done to you, but don’t lie, and don’t say anything but ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”
One of the doctors stepped forward. Two keys were inserted into either side of the gag, latches clicked, locks came undone, and the entire thing jumped in the man’s hands. He withdrew it, and with it came a two-foot long cord of interconnected metal and tubes, with what looked like a lamprey worked out into the center of it all, thin streams of blood trailing from tiny teeth at the one end.
Avis coughed and sputtered, gagging as the end of the tube came out. Her head bowed as she dry-heaved, coughing.
The Duke spoke, very clearly, “Will you tell me where I can find the other cells of Percy’s enhanced clones?”
She looked at the Duke, then at each of us. I could imagine the cogs in her brain turning, over and over, trying to figure out the trick, the catch. She coughed, trying to clear her throat.
“No, I assume?” the Duke asked.
“No,” she said, voice hoarse and gravelly to the point she sounded like an old man.
The Duke nodded. “Doctor, I don’t believe there’s a need for the gag. You can leave it out. Avis, I’ll be back soon. Take some time to consider your next response.”
She opened her mouth as though she was about to speak, then closed it. She looked between us, wary, before fighting her bonds anew.
The Duke gestured to the door. I hopped down from my seat. The way things went, I wound up right beside Jamie as we passed through the door together, the doctors behind us.
Not that ‘together’ was the right word.
The Duke let the door shut.
“My lord,” I said. “May I ask?”
“Ask.”
“Lord, time is kind of of the essence, isn’t it?
“It is. Time is the operative word, as it happens, Sylvester,” the Duke told me. “You know, I’m very interested in the brain. You raised the topic with Avis Pardoe, and the timing felt serendipitous.”
“Time and brains, my lord?” I asked. I felt as if he was getting at something.
“While you were looking after your fellow Lambs at the Hedge, seeing that they got the care they needed, I was busy looking after Mrs. Pardoe. All four of my doctors worked on her. One worked on her brain. She’ll experience time in a very different way from now on.”
It dawned on me. “With utmost respect, my lord, I’m assuming she won’t think you were gone for a few minutes?”
“She won’t feel as if I was gone for a few minutes, no. In terms of raw thinking ability, I’m sure she’ll be able to rationalize it and logically work out that time is passing normally. But she’ll think faster in some ways and slower in others. Perhaps she’ll feel as if it has been days. Weeks, more likely?”
He made it a question One of his doctors gave him a nod, and a murmured, “M’lord.”
“Months aren’t out of the question?”
“No, my lord. Not out of the question,” the Doctor said, quiet. “Without patience or pacing, years or decades aren’t out of the question either. It depends on her coping mechanisms. If she tries to keep count of passing seconds and minutes, it will seem more pronounced. The watched pot, in this case, never boils.”
“No torture, no pain, no mutilation,” the Duke said. He looked pleased. “I’m doing nothing more than giving her the time she needs to reconsider her stance. After that, I will let her consider whether to turn in people she worked with, and whether to join the Academy in earnest, working to put herself back in our good graces. I suppose we might have her report the whereabouts of her family and acquaintances, for future leverage. I imagine it will be a productive night.”
“My lord,” Lillian said.
“Lillian, was it? You’re the student.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Speak your mind, child.”
“I don’t- I think what you’re doing is torture. Worse than anything you could do to her body, my lord.”
“I’d think a student was more on top of what the Academy is capable of doing, Lillian,” the Duke said. “Is it truly so bad?”
“I wouldn’t wait too long, my lord. You may be underestimating how frail the average person is.”
“Good advice,” he said, nodding. He touched her hair. “Good child. I’ll see to her after we’re done talking, then, rather than waiting the full thirty minutes.”
Lillian ventured a smile.
“I hadn’t considered. My doctors said it would be effective, and I almost didn’t believe them, but the principle wasn’t unsound, giving her more time to think, so to speak, or giving that time a different sort of meaning.”
It was a weird thought, one that I couldn’t quite frame, in the context of who the Duke was. He hadn’t considered, which meant he couldn’t empathize, which meant…
“My lord,” I said, “Was something similar done to you?”
The Duke smiled. “It was. I do suppose I’ve had the advantage of it being the case from birth, something I’ve learned to harness, while our guest is experiencing it new, not a shift from a walk to a canter, or vice versa, but to a different vehicle altogether. Even I wouldn’t enjoy the deprivation of sensation she’s experiencing now. Doing nothing with my time is an alien idea to me, and wouldn’t have been permitted regardless. I wouldn’t say I think faster, but I can devote exactly the right amount of time to a problem as is needed. Brains are so fascinating, aren’t they?”
“Yes, my lord,” I said, my voice falling in with the others.
“When my brothers, sister and I were asked who was willing to come to Radham, the research being on brains here was one reason I volunteered,” the Duke said. “As clever as this small alteration to my own brain is, it’s crude. I often find myself wondering if my own heirs will have better brains. If it’s possible that one of you will be the model for the next generation of nobles. Or perhaps one of you will, when given permission, explore other options and open the doors to a new age.”
“Yes, my lord,” we said. I was very cognizant of Jamie, who hadn’t had that permission to explore the options he’d dipped his toe into, and of Lillian, who knew about Jamie, but was a far worse liar than Jamie was.
“Tell me, Lillian, what’s your end goal?” the Duke asked.
“My goal, my lord?”
“Do you want to become a noble’s doctor?” The Duke indicated the doctors standing at attention just behind him.
“My lord, I’d-” Lillian started. She stopped abruptly as the Duke’s hand went up.
“You don’t.”
“No, my lord. I don’t mean any offense, I-”
Again the hand went up. I was annoyed on Lillian’s behalf. Me, I could deal. I’d earned the man’s ire earlier, and I had no idea if I’d patched it up by courting his favorite topic or if I had a sword looming over my head, ready to fall. But he’d asked a question and he wasn’t letting her answer. He didn’t truly know her, and he was setting her up to fail. It was a blatant test. With three Lambs being patched up, I felt a little more protective of the ones who’d remained. Even if one was Jamie, who I had no idea how to deal with.
“No, my lord,” she said, again. She stopped there.
“Were I to start talking about the Lambs and how things work, my hopes for the project and the possibility for the Crown, heads would turn. I know how I was when I was young, my brain working the way it does, and I have many family members who are roughly your age,” the Duke said. He arched one eyebrow and looked at Lillian. “My younger relatives might well want to be Lambs, as a lark, or to have a way of stretching their legs as I did earlier today, I would imagine you’re the easiest one to replace, should we need to make room on this team.”
Lillian was so bad at hiding her tells. I could see the horror on her face.
I felt it, myself.
“Or to move to a new team formed of nobles and higher quality work, now that I think about it,” the Duke mused. “Counsel, an unbiased perspective able to inform the new group about how things are done. You and three or four young nobles?”
“My lord, I wouldn’t be worthy,” she said. She was trying to keep her expression straight. She tried a smile and failed. She cleared her throat, though it wasn’t her voice that had gone funny, but her face, as if she could make the sound and distract from what her face was doing.
The Duke took it in stride as if it was something that happened daily.
I felt a weird kind of jealousy and irritation at that. If he was doing that unintentionally to Lillian, then it wasn’t right or fair of him. If he was doing it intentionally, then he was bothering her in a way that was usually for me to do. Not to mention that I was a lot more careful about how I did it, while the Duke didn’t seem to understand any of the nuances here.
“Hmm,” the Duke made a noise, considering. “The reason I ask, dear Lillian, is that you’ve earned my attention and my respect. If you know where you’re going, it could inform my choices, so I leave you as happy and close to your end goal as possible.”
“A-a black coat, my lord,” Lillian stuttered.
“A political appointment as much as it has anything to do with status. You could learn to navigate the playing field by studying certain Lambs,” the Duke said, indicating me.
Had she given the right answer? Did this lead the Duke to think she belonged with the Lambs?
“But,” he said, “You could well earn your professorship in record time, no matter where you are.”
Nope. That’s the kind of conclusion that leads the man to think she could be put anywhere.
Lillian managed the most insincere smile I’d ever seen, and she was trying.
Was this man going to casually tear the team asunder, just like that?
“My lord,” Jamie said, pulling attention off Lillian. “Is there a particular reason you’re thinking about restructuring the team?”
“Yes,” the Duke said. “I’ve been reading your files, as well as the latest updates. It may be time.”
I was approaching the limit of my patience.
No, wait, scratch that. I’d reached it.
“Lord Duke,” I said. I took a half-step to position myself forward and to one side, putting myself more in front of Jamie and Lillian, between them and the Duke. Jamie touched my arm, an instinctive movement, before he pulled away. I spoke, “You’re wrong.”
Behind the Duke’s back, the noble’s doctors broke their stoic composure to give me looks as if I were insane.
“You disagree,” the Duke said. Voice cold and dangerous. “I haven’t forgotten the insolence earlier. You test me.”
“With all due respect, my lord, you were testing her. We all have default behaviors we go back to when we’re on unstable footing. Lillian’s a good soldier, she defaults to shutting up and following orders, to insecurity and not speaking up when she needs to. If you move forward with either of the options you’re thinking about, you will utterly destroy her. You will hurt the Lambs, lord Duke.”
“A strategic break, nothing more.”
“We’re growing, my lord, we’re still young, we’re not fully |
1 and proposition 3 but agrees with proposition 2; and one third agrees with proposition 3 but not with propositions 1 and 2.
This is a perfectly sensible collection of individual attitudes. The first group represent all those who think that the possession of weapons of mass destruction is the only reason that could justify an invasion and that such weapons are indeed in possession of country X. The second group represents all those who think that the possession of weapons of mass destruction is the only reason that could justify an invasion and that country X does not have such weapons. And the third group represents all those who think that country X does not have such weapons, but that this is irrelevant to the question of invasion because there are other justifications for this.
According to the requirement of pluralism, our collective decision procedure should be able to factor in all these opinions. And according to basic majoritarianism, the collective attitude toward each proposition should (at a minimum) represent the majority view. The majority reject proposition 1, accept proposition 2, and accept proposition 3.
But note how this leads to a contradiction when we think of the group output in terms of collective rationality. Effectively, the group attitudes are:
Collective Attitude 1: There are no weapons of mass destruction in country X
Collective Attitude 2: The only good reason for invading country X would be if country X had weapons of mass destruction.
Collective Attitude 3: We should invade country X.
This set of attitudes is clearly inconsistent. This demonstrates how the trilemma arises. List gives other examples in his paper, and they all highlight the same phenomenon.
4. Conclusion
To briefly sum up, it is initially plausible to suppose that any democratic decision-making procedure should be able to consider all possible combinations of views; should (at a minimum) accept the majority view; and should conform with the requirements of collective rationality (i.e. be complete and consistent). But List has shown how this is impossible for all but the most simple decision problems. This is what gives rise to the democratic trilemma.
You may be curious about the relationship between the democratic trilemma as formulated here and Condorcet’s voting paradox. The answer is that Condorcet’s voting paradox is a special instance of the trilemma, one which is specifically concerned with collective decision-making procedures that involve the ranking of options. List’s trilemma is the more general problem.
Accepting the trilemma as a reality has some interesting implications for democratic theory. In particular, it suggests that there is a limited space of possible types of democratic decision-making. I’ll provide a map of that space in the next post.
And third his voting paradox which revealed how majority preferences could be inconsistent if there were more than two candidates or options to be voted upon.
You may not have heard of Christian List — though you really should have. He is a contemporary philosopher, operating out of the London School of Economics (as of 2015 anyway). He is a champion of a highly formal and axiomatised approached to philosophical theory. And he has expanded and refined many of Condorcet’s original ideas, as well as coming up with quite a few of his own. I like his work a lot, even if some of it is over my head. One of my favourite of his articles is “The Logical Space of Democracy”, in which he attempts to trace out the space of possible democratic decision procedures.
One key part of this article is List’s articulation of the democratic trilemma, which is a more general version of the Condorcet Theorem, applying to all collective decision-making procedures (it is also similar to, but different from, the famous Arrow Impossibility Theorem). The trilemma proposes that there are three things we would intuitively like from any democratic decision-making procedure, but that it is only possible to satisfy two of them at any one time.
In this post, I want to explain what the trilemma is and why it arises. I’ll use this as a springboard for explaining List’s logical space of democracies in a future post.
1. Collective Decision Problems and Collective Decision Procedures
To understand the trilemma we must first understand collective decision problems and collective decision procedures. A collective decision problem can be defined as follows:
Collective Decision Problem: Any situation in which two or more individuals must form intentional attitudes towards certain propositions and then use those attitudes to determine subsequent (collective) actions.
This is quite a general characterisation of collective decision problems, probably more general than you first realise. As List notes, the intentional attitudes at the heart of the decision problem can be representational or motivational in nature. In other words, they can be attitudes towards statements of fact like “lax regulation led to the financial crisis of ’08”; or they can be attitudes towards statements of desire, intention or principle like “we ought to introduce stricter regulations of the financial sector”. I say this is more general than you might first appreciate because collective decision-making — particularly in the political context — is often understood solely in terms of the ranking or ordering of preferences (“I prefer candidate A to candidate B” etc.), and not in terms of things like beliefs about the world.
Another point worth noting here is how assumptions about rational choice may influence our thinking about collective decision-making. At the individual level, it is commonly assumed that decisions are rational if they evince a harmony between sets of representational and motivational attitudes. For example, my decision to go to the shop to get some milk is rational if (a) I believe the store stocks milk and (b) I desire milk. The key question is whether harmony between sets of representational and motivational attitudes is possible at the collective level.
Moving on to collective decision procedures, these can be defined as follows:
Collective Decision Procedures: Any procedure which takes as its input a group of individuals’ intentional attitudes toward a set of propositions and which then adopts some aggregation function to issue a collective output (i.e. the group’s attitude toward the relevant propositions).
The basic schematic is illustrated in the diagram below.
One of the more interesting parts of List’s article is his illustration that the space of possible collective decision procedures — i.e. ways of going from the individual attitudes to the collective attitude — is vast. Much larger than any human can really comprehend. For example, if you have a simple collective decision problem, in which three people must state their preferences for options A and B, there are 256 possible collective decision procedures.
I won’t go through the full illustration of the point here, but to give you a sense of what List is talking about, imagine an even simpler decision problem in which two people have to vote on options A and B. There are four possible combinations of votes (as each voter has two options). And there are several possible ways to go from those combinations to a collective decision (well 24 to be precise). For example, you could adopt a constant A procedure, in which the collective attitude is always A, irrespective of the individual attitudes. Or you could have a constant B procedure, in which the collective attitude is always B, irrespective of the individual attitudes. We would typically exclude such possibilities because they seem undesirable or counterintuitive, but they do lie within the space of logically possible aggregation functions. Likewise, there are dictatorial decision procedures (always go with voter 1, or always go with voter 2) and inverse dictatorial decision procedures (always do the opposite of voter 1, or the opposite of voter 2).
You might find this slightly silly because, at the end of the day, there are still only two possible collective outputs (A or B). But it is important to realise that there are many logically possible ways to go from the individual attitudes to the collective one. This illustrates some of the problems that arise when constructing collective decision procedures. And, remember, this is just a really simple example involving two voters and two options. The logical space gets unimaginably large if we go to decision problems involving, say, ten voters and two options (List has the calculation in his paper, it is 21024).
2. Three Intuitive Requirements of Democratic Procedures
How can we constrain our exploration of the logical space of decision procedures? List recommends the axiomatic method. This involves starting with a set of axioms that specify what we would look for in our preferred type of procedure. In this particular instance, we are interested in decision procedures that fit with our conception of democracy. Democracy calls for individual input and control over collective decision-making. This means we can instantly rule out all procedures that would exclude, ignore or prioritise particular individual attitudes.
But this is to explore the negative side of dialectic. What exactly would we be looking for in a democratic procedure? List argues that there are three initial, and intuitively plausible, requirements. The first is:
1. Robustness to Pluralism: The decision procedure accepts any possible combination of individual attitudes about propositions which are on the “agenda” for any given decision problem.
This is, in effect, an inclusiveness condition. It forces the aggregation procedure to include all combinations of views on a given set of propositions. If there are two voters, and they are being asked to consider three separate propositions, each of which can be either affirmed or denied, then all combinations of affirmation and denial should play a role in influencing the collective output. This fits with our intuitive conception of democracy because democracy is supposed to be about giving some power to all points of view.
The second requirement is:
2. Basic Majoritarianism: A necessary condition for the collective acceptance of any proposition is its majority acceptance.
This is arguably the most straightforward requirement. For most people, democracy is synonymous with majority-based decision-making. The one thing to note about this condition is that it states that majority acceptance is a necessary condition for collective acceptance, not a sufficient condition. This means that basic majoritarianism is not the same thing as simple majoritarianism (where all you need is >50% approval). Basic majoritarianism could also include unanimous or supermajoritarian decision-making procedures.
The final requirement is:
3. Collective Rationality: The collective output should be a consistent and complete set of attitudes on the propositions on the agenda.
This might be the trickiest condition to understand. In essence, it tries to carry over the requirements of individual rationality to the group level. So imagine you had to make a decision on two propositions (A and B), each of which could be affirmed or denied. Your individual decision would be complete and consistent if it covered both propositions and if the combination of attitudes towards those propositions did not entail some sort of contradiction. The collective rationality requirement is simply saying that the collective output should do the same.
And this is where things get interesting. List argues that it is impossible for any collective decision-making procedure to satisfy all three requirements if the decision-making problem has some complexity to it. Let’s see why this is the case.
3. The Trilemma Illustrated
Let’s start with a general statement of the trilemma (this is copied almost verbatim from List):
The Democratic Trilemma: For all but the simplest collective decision making problems (e.g. voting on one proposition), there exists no decision procedure which satisfies the requirements of robustness to pluralism, basic majoritarianism and collective rationality. At most two of these requirements can be met at once.
There is a general proof of this, provided in an appendix to List’s paper. I’ll just run a relatively simple informal demonstration of the trilemma.
Suppose a multi-person government is confronted with a collective decision problem in which they have to form attitudes toward the following set of propositions:
Proposition A: “Country X has weapons of mass destruction”
Proposition B: “We should invade country X if an only if it has weapons of mass destruction.”
Proposition C: “We should invade country X.”
(Quick aside: note how this set of propositions is structured like a simple syllogism. This gets back to one of List’s key points: collective decision problems aren’t always about ranking options)
We can reasonably imagine that the members of a cabinet could have different attitudes toward each of these propositions. Some people might accept all three; some people might think that country X does not have weapons of mass destruction, but that this shouldn’t prevent an invasion on other grounds; and so on. Nevertheless, they must make some collective decision based on all three propositions.
To demonstrate how the trilemma arises we’ll use proof by contradiction. In other words, we will start with the assumption that the collective decision-making procedure satisfies the three requirements and show how that assumption leads to a contradiction. This we can do by imagining that the individual attitudes toward the propositions are depicted by the table below. So, one third of the government agrees with all three propositions; one third disagrees with proposition 1 and proposition 3 but agrees with proposition 2; and one third agrees with proposition 3 but not with propositions 1 and 2.
This is a perfectly sensible collection of individual attitudes. The first group represent all those who think that the possession of weapons of mass destruction is the only reason that could justify an invasion and that such weapons are indeed in possession of country X. The second group represents all those who think that the possession of weapons of mass destruction is the only reason that could justify an invasion and that country X does not have such weapons. And the third group represents all those who think that country X does not have such weapons, but that this is irrelevant to the question of invasion because there are other justifications for this.
According to the requirement of pluralism, our collective decision procedure should be able to factor in all these opinions. And according to basic majoritarianism, the collective attitude toward each proposition should (at a minimum) represent the majority view. The majority reject proposition 1, accept proposition 2, and accept proposition 3.
But note how this leads to a contradiction when we think of the group output in terms of collective rationality. Effectively, the group attitudes are:
Collective Attitude 1: There are no weapons of mass destruction in country X
Collective Attitude 2: The only good reason for invading country X would be if country X had weapons of mass destruction.
Collective Attitude 3: We should invade country X.It's emerged from the water for just long enough to be photographed - Auckland's equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster.
Sort of.
The mysterious sighting of what looks like a submarine in Auckland harbour yesterday has the Coastguard and harbourmaster scratching their heads.
In the grainy photograph tradition of Big Foot and UFOs, avid sea gazer Brad Watson managed to snap the tail end of what looks like a long, sleek craft ghosting along the waterfront at 11.30am.
Despite being in full of view of the Viaduct - probably Auckland's busiest area - no-one else reported seeing it or knew any reason it might be there.
360 Discovery Cruises, which run tours of the harbour, was stumped and even the people with the best vantage point in the city could not provide an answer.
An AJ Hackett staff member who had spent most of the day perched on the harbour bridge said she had seen nothing and if someone had, they would have heard about it.
Is it a cruel, elaborate hoax by some pesky kids?
Are the Russians attacking?
Is it a sneaky ploy by Auckland Tourism to drum up visitor numbers?"I would have never started watching Fox News if it wasn't for the fact that Beck was on there. And it was the things that he did, it was the things he exposed that blew my mind." - Byron Williams
Byron Williams, a 45-year-old ex-felon, exploded onto the national stage in the early morning hours of July 18.
According to a police investigation, Williams opened fire on California Highway Patrol officers who had stopped him on an Oakland freeway for driving erratically. For 12 frantic minutes, Williams traded shots with the police, employing three firearms and a small arsenal of ammunition, including armor-piercing rounds fired from a.308-caliber rifle.
When the smoke cleared, Williams surrendered; the ballistic body armor he was wearing had saved his life. Miraculously, only two of the 10 CHP officers involved in the shootout were injured.
In an affidavit, an Oakland police investigator reported that during an interview at the hospital, Williams "stated that his intention was to start a revolution by traveling to San Francisco and killing people of importance at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU."
Fifteen years after militia-movement-inspired bombers killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City federal building, right-wing domestic terror plots are a fact of life in America. Since 2008, violent extremists -- many of whom subscribe to the hate speech and conspiratorial fantasies of the conservative media -- have murdered churchgoers in Knoxville, police officers in Pittsburgh, and an abortion provider in Wichita.
Conspiracy theory-fueled extremism has long been a reaction to progressive government in the United States. Half a century ago, historian Richard Hofstadter wrote that right-wing thought had come to be dominated by the belief that Communist agents had infiltrated all levels of American government and society. The right, he explained, had identified a "sustained conspiracy, running over more than a generation, and reaching its climax in Roosevelt's New Deal, to undermine free capitalism, to bring the economy under the direction of the federal government, and to pave the way for socialism or communism."
In a 2009 report, the Southern Poverty Law Center found that the anti-government militia movement -- which had risen to prominence during the Clinton administration and faded away during the Bush years -- has returned. According to the SPLC, the anti-government resurgence has been buttressed by paranoid rhetoric from public officials like Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and media figures like Fox News' Glenn Beck.
Just last month, Gregory Giusti pleaded guilty to repeatedly threatening House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- including threatening to destroy her California home -- because he was "upset with her passing the health care law." His mother told a local news station that he "frequently gets in with a group of people that have really radical ideas," adding, "I'd say Fox News or all of those that are really radical, and he -- that's where he comes from."
After the 2008 election, Fox News personalities filled the airwaves with increasingly violent rhetoric and apocalyptic language. On his Fox News show, Beck talked about "put[ting] poison" in Pelosi's wine.
Observers of this most recent act were mystified by one of Byron Williams' reported targets: the Tides Foundation, a low-profile charitable organization known for funding environmentalists, community groups, and other organizations.
Beck, it turned out, had attacked Tides 29 times on his Fox News show in the year-and-a-half leading up to the shooting.
Now, in exclusive interviews and written correspondence with journalist John Hamilton, Williams speaks for himself. He asks Hamilton to be his "media advocate" and repeatedly instructs him to watch specific broadcasts of Beck's show for information on the conspiracy theory that drove him over the edge: an intricate plot involving Barack Obama, philanthropist George Soros, a Brazilian oil company, and the BP disaster.
Williams also points to other media figures -- right-wing propagandist David Horowitz, and Internet conspiracist and repeated Fox News guest Alex Jones -- as key sources of information to inspire his "revolution."
In a separate exchange with Examiner.com's Ed Walsh, Williams sought to defend Beck from "Obama and the liberals," whom he said are afraid of Beck "because he often exposes things that are simply forbidden in news." Williams said that Beck advocates non-violence and that he had already researched the conspiracy theories that informed his alleged plot -- before seeing them "confirm[ed]" on Beck's show.
Similarly, Williams tells Hamilton that "Beck would never say anything about a conspiracy, would never advocate violence. He'll never do anything... of this nature. But he'll give you every ounce of evidence that you could possibly need."
From the Santa Rita Jail, Williams opens up about the websites he frequented, the broadcasts he listened to, and the "evidence" of "sabotage" he "uncovered" that eventually led him to target Tides.
He asks Hamilton to help "make people realize that corrupt killers are in power, and want re-election!" Williams wants to make sure that the ideas that inspired him aren't "buried" from the public.
"I collect information on corruption," Williams says, "I've been at it for some time."
Beck, in particular, he says, is "like a schoolteacher on TV." Williams tells Hamilton, "You need to go back to June -- June of this year, 2010 -- and look at all his programs from June, and you'll see he's been breaking open some of the most hideous corruption."
Byron Williams' alleged domestic terror plot began in Groveland, a tiny Gold Rush town nestled high in the Sierras, three hours east of San Francisco.
Unemployed and on parole, Byron returned here, his childhood home, after serving time for a 2001 bank robbery -- reportedly the second such heist of an extensive criminal career marked by convictions for assault, property destruction, hit and run, and drunken driving.
I drive to Groveland on a Saturday in August, four weeks after the shootout. Despite the scorching heat, the small commercial district is packed with tourists headed for nearby Yosemite National Park.
Ten miles up the road, I park at the foot of the Williams' property and greet neighbor Tom Funk, an affable 55-year-old, tinkering with a car in his garage.
Funk says he never met Byron Williams and only caught an occasional glimpse of him driving past in his mother's pickup truck.
Funk does say that his wife heard a man shouting racist, violent threats from the Williams' property on the night of November 4, 2008, immediately after Barack Obama's presidential victory. It got so loud and offensive, he says, she had to shut the door.
"We have a 15-year-old son, and he doesn't need to hear stuff like that," Funk says.
"He was up there cussing and saying that America is not going right by having a black president," Funk says. "He was using words he shouldn't be saying after 9-11, because it would have put him in jail." "Threatening words towards the president," he adds.
Gesturing across the road, toward the Williams' property, Funk explains, "When people talk up here, you can hear it.... I'm down low, so the sound just comes down to the valley."
"He was yelling at the top of his lungs, just mad. And then he would turn on Michael Savage," Funk says.
Surprised, I ask, "Michael Savage, the radio host?"
"You would hear it echoing through here." Funk says it happened the day after the election and "maybe a few days building up to it, and then maybe a week afterwards."
"I don't know what kind of speaker system he had, but AM radios don't really go that loud," Funk says.
Savage, whose syndicated radio show is among the most popular in the nation, was fired from MSNBC in 2003 after he infamously told a gay caller to "get AIDS and die." In the early days of November 2008 -- when Funk says the show was being blared from across the road -- Savage was predicting doomsday scenarios.
The day before the election, Savage said he would like to talk with his listeners "about the next phase of this bloodbath coming to America should your worst fears be realized."
Savage also said, "I am telling you, right now, before you -- you are on the verge of a Marxist revolution in the United States of America. You have a naked Marxist, America-hating, white-hating party -- wing of the party -- about to seize power. And you don't even know it."
Across the road from the Funks' home, a gravel driveway runs through a thicket of trees that conceals the Williams' property. A few hundred feet up the drive, the trees give way to a parched clearing and the two-story home that until recently was occupied by Byron Williams.
Farther up, past an impressive greenhouse, stands a battery of solar panels that feed the narrow ranch home of Byron's mother, Janice Williams.
I park next to an SUV emblazoned with conservative bumper stickers -- "Palin 2012" and "Big Government" circled and crossed out -- and meet Janice in the yard.
I've come unannounced, and quickly introduce myself as a reporter. Though she's shunned interview requests since her widely publicized comments immediately following her son's shootout -- Janice had told the San Francisco Chronicle that Byron was upset by "the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items" -- she agrees to speak with me. She says people don't know the real facts of the situation and are jumping to conclusions.
She says she's spoken with Byron twice since his arrest and received one letter. "He basically said, 'I'm sorry, I never intended to hurt anyone. I got really angry and lost my head.' "
Janice is convinced her son had acted in haste and never would have carried out what police say was his stated goal of killing leaders of the ACLU and the Tides Foundation.
"He left the refrigerator full of food. He wasn't finished recording his CD," she says.
Byron, it turns out, is an amateur heavy metal musician, and left behind on his computer an album of half-finished tracks.
I ask Janice what Byron thought of Barack Obama and about how Byron reacted on Election Day.
"I read one account that he used the n-word. I don't believe that," she protests. "The neighbors told that to the media, but they just wove that out of whole cloth. I don't care how loud anyone here gets, there's no way anyone over there could have heard anything that far away. It's just someone seeking publicity."
I ask her what she thinks of the president.
"I personally didn't vote for Obama," Janice explains. She says she thought the Obamas looked like a nice family. "I don't care that he's half-black. He's half-white."
She tells me that her son is half-white, too. "He's half-Hawaiian, Chinese, and Portuguese." She's very emphatic about this point. "And American Indian. That's why he can't drink."
She's upset, remembering the day of the shooting. "He said to me later that he wasn't drinking, but I found 18 or 20 beer bottles by the sink."
I ask Janice why Byron was so angry.
"He is angry at the federal government," Janice says. "And the shadow government that operates behind the scenes, manipulating things."
Does she share those views?
"I believe in limited government. The government should be there solely for the purpose of protecting our borders. All the other stuff is add-ons," she says. "This whole Obamacare thing has everything to do with consolidating government. There's no concern about the little people. Having said that, my hope was to retake the country peacefully, through the ballot box."
I notice a pair of satellite dishes mounted to the roof of her home -- one for television, another for high-speed Internet.
"It's unfortunate that so many people don't watch the real news," Janice tells me. "They should do a little of their own research. I listen to the radio, watch TV, go on the Internet, read books."
I ask Janice about Byron's favorite TV and radio shows. She immediately bristles at the question.
"I'm not going to get into that. All the reporters who came out here last month were blaming what he did on Rush, Glenn Beck, and the tea party," Janice says. "Why would you blame the messenger? If Glenn Beck tells us something, and everyone gets upset about it, why blame him?"
Janice says that FBI agents came to inspect Byron's home and took with them a stack of notes Byron had collected. "He's been doing a lot of research. He had several binders," she says.
I talk with Janice about how Byron told police he was heading to San Francisco to "start a revolution" and ask her why she thinks Byron would have targeted Tides.
"I had never heard of the Tides Foundation before all of this," Janice says. "But he researched it and realized it was a money laundering scheme for the radical left that didn't want their names attributed to what they were doing."
I ask Janice if Byron was a fan of Glenn Beck.
"Yes, he liked Glenn Beck, but he didn't feel he went far enough," she says. "He'd take it only so far, but stopped short."
Again, Janice bristles at this line of questioning.
"I had only one hate call out of all the thousands of people who heard about this case," she says. "Most people have expressed support -- not for the act, but for the frustration behind it."
Janice says that Byron had struggled to find work after his release from prison -- he was a carpenter -- and was "beaten down and depressed." With no prospects in sight, Byron whiled away the hours watching the news on television and researching the "shadow government" online.
"Life in a small town can be very cruel," Janice says, fighting back tears as she recalls her son's failure to find a job.
"This economy, the way that it is, if people are going to hire somebody, they probably won't hire an ex-felon," she says. "If it was boom times, things would have been different."
The following Saturday I arrive at Byron Williams' new home in the Bay Area suburb of Dublin: the Santa Rita Jail. It's a sprawling collection of low-slung concrete housing units with only vertical slits for windows, set on a vast, gravel lot.
Visitors to Santa Rita must drive past hundreds of feet of double-row fence topped with concertina wire and line up outside the jail's only entrance -- sometimes for hours -- for a 30-minute face-to-face meeting through a glass partition.
I pass through a metal detector and find the jail's visiting area at the end of a long hallway. After a lengthy wait, prisoners in red jumpsuits begin trickling into the 11 booths lining the visiting room, and I recognize Byron from his most recent mug shot. He's a 45-year-old of medium build with dark, slightly thinning hair and a freshly filled-in beard. He enters with a heavy limp, but for someone who sustained five gunshot wounds just weeks ago, he seems surprisingly well recovered.
All of the other prisoners in Housing Unit 8 have come to greet friends and family, but Byron is not expecting any visitors today. He greets me with a quizzical expression as I lift a telephone headset from its hook and introduce myself as a reporter, telling Byron that I visited his home in Groveland the previous Saturday.
"People are probably interested in me because of my 'extremist' views," Byron says self-consciously. He says that since he has a criminal case pending, he shouldn't discuss the details of "that incident."
"That's OK," I tell him. "I had a very interesting political discussion with Janice last weekend, and I'm here to talk politics."
"Well, it's hard to talk to a news journalist about the news," he says. But he quickly shows no sign of difficulty, and it's not long before he describes what put him over the top a month earlier.
"My big thing was the oil rig, the Deepwater Horizon," he explains. His gaze is intense, and though his voice is level, I can tell he's choking back anger.
"I've uncovered enough evidence to -- I think in a court of law it could bring Tony Hayward, Barack Obama, George Soros, and members of Halliburton indicted for treason," Byron adds.
Byron tells me that he believes the Gulf of Mexico oil spill was deliberate and that George Soros, the billionaire financier and philanthropist, was behind the plot.
"It was a sabotage," Byron says. "Hayward and Goldman Sachs sold their stock, which was depreciating, two weeks before the spill. Soros invested $1 billion of his own money into Petrobras. Soros has the Tides Foundation and the Tides fund. He funnels billions of donated dollars into the fund, which he uses for all kinds of nefarious activities."
Byron continues discussing Petrobras, the giant Brazilian oil company.
"Obama sent 2 billion of taxpayer dollars to Petrobras for deep water oil exploration, while holding a moratorium on deepwater exploration in the U.S.," he says. "Once you see this pattern -- it's fishy stuff."
Byron continues, "Halliburton, whose job was to seal the well -- two days before the explosion, they bought an oil spill clean-up company."
"When I saw the news was dropping the issue like a hot potato, I became infuriated," he adds.
"The bottom line," Byron tells me, "is that George Soros is the financier of Obama. And Obama has a clear agenda: First he did the health care reform. After that, it was all about energy. He wants to impose the worst tax ever conceived: a cap-and-trade system on carbon emissions."
Byron is clearly upset by the idea. "Think of it. Even your breathing could be taxed, because you give off greenhouse gases," he says.
"That's why I did what I did," he explains. "There are not a lot of people fighting back. I don't see a response."
Byron says that Gulf Coast residents should be up in arms about the conspiracy to destroy their shorelines for the profit of George Soros. "What ever happened to the spirit of the South, of the Confederacy in the Civil War?" he asks.
He blames Obama for deliberately destroying American jobs in the oil industry.
"We have a moratorium on drilling below 5,000 feet here," Byron says. "None of the other countries have that." He contends that this gives other countries an economic advantage, because they can drill far deeper.
"What I see here is a plan to bring the country down," Byron states.
I tell Byron that I haven't heard any of this and ask him where he got his information. He leans back in his chair and thinks a moment.
"Alex Jones. PrisonPlanet.com is his website. Also, DiscoverTheNetworks."
Jones is a conspiracist and repeat Fox News guest who mingles dire warnings of the "New World Order" with stories of government complicity in the 9-11 attacks. DiscoverTheNetworks is a website claiming to track "the individuals and organizations that make up the left." It's run by David Horowitz, a former leftist who has reinvented himself as a right-wing propagandist.
He gives me another -- more familiar -- source: "Glenn Beck."
Byron tells me the media is failing in its job. "I collect information on corruption. I've been at it for some time," he explains.
"Our media accepts the false reports and downplays the conspiracy theories," he says, arguing that they should be called "conspiracy truths."
"A public that is aware of corruption can oppose the corruption," Byron says. "A public kept in the dark simply passes it by."
Soon, a two-minute warning blares over the PA system.
I ask Byron if I can follow up with more questions later. He agrees.
Two weeks later, I'm back at the Santa Rita Jail, speaking with Byron Williams through the reinforced glass window that separates Housing Unit 8 from the outside world. This time, I press Byron on his media influences.
"I considered all of the news agencies to be censored," Byron says. "So perhaps Fox has broken away from the mold."
"There's only one conservative channel," he adds. "That's Fox. All the other ones are all liberal channels."
At one point, I ask Byron if he thinks Fox is worthwhile.
"I'm not gonna say anyone is worthwhile," he replies. "I would have never started watching Fox News if it wasn't for the fact that Beck was on there. And it was the things that he did, it was the things he exposed that blew my mind. I said, well, nobody does this."
Throughout the interview -- and in a letter I would receive later -- Byron tells me I need to watch Beck's programs from June. He says that's where I can learn about the Soros-Obama-Petrobras conspiracy he heatedly described in our earlier conversation.
"You need to go back to June -- June of this year, 2010 -- and look at all his programs from June. And you'll see he's been breaking open some of the most hideous corruption," Byron says. "A year ago, I was watching him, and it was OK, he was all right, you know?... But now he's getting it."
Byron runs through the Deepwater Horizon "sabotage" with me again.
"Yeah, it's like Obama on this oil spill," he says. "He causes the oil spill, right? Contracts it -- contracts Halliburton, where either Soros, or him, or BP -- have said it themselves -- contracted Halliburton to sabotage the oil well field. Kills 11 people, destroys the entire Gulf, wildlife, to pass the cap-and-trade legislation."
"You'll never hear it," he says. "It'll never surface. It'll never come to the public knowledge."
I ask him if he thinks Glenn Beck is the exception to the rule, then.
"I think, absolutely," Byron responds, though he adds a caveat about Beck.
Referring again to the "sabotage" of the Deepwater Horizon, Byron says: "This is what he won't do, Beck will not say it was a contracted hit. But he'll give you every ounce of evidence you can possibly need to make that assumption yourself." "You see what I mean?" Byron says, "That's why he downplays the 9-11 truthers. He talks bad about them."
It's clear that there are some theories Byron subscribes to that Beck does not. For example, Byron endorses the claim that "the U.S. government contracted its own destruction of the twin towers." On this issue, Byron cites Alex Jones and other websites.
But Byron repeatedly cites Beck when discussing the Soros-Obama-Petrobras story and insists I check out Beck's "June" shows.
In his letter to me, Byron writes: "I have been praying for a media advocate; one, to make people aware of why I'm in here (public opinion could help me), and two, to make people realize that corrupt killers are in power, and want re-election! I was also fearful that this issue would be 'burried.' "
Byron writes, "You want to know about Soros and Tides, yes, Glenn Beck is doing very well uncovering his wickedness, check his 'June' programs for 'Petrobraz', also look into 'DiscoverTheNetworks.com.' "
Byron also writes that "very good information regarding 'Petrobraz' can be found in Glenn Beck's 'June' shows, where he accurately covered the Obama-Soros-Petrobraz-Chicago (Crime Inc.) connections for several days. It's all true."
Byron adds that he "found allusions to the Horizon disaster as a 'false-flag' operation in Alex Jones 'Info.Wars.com' and 'PrisonPlanet.com.' "
"Think like a conspiracy theorist," Byron tells me during the interview. " |
establish some very clear rules about how new surveillance technologies should and shouldn't be used -- with very real penalties for breaking those rules." Kiley first reported on the technology Wednesday in The Stranger.
"We believe that people should be free to move about without having the government track their movements unless there really is reason to believe they're engaged in some criminal activity," said Debelak. Seattle police could not explain why the network appears to be online.
Council member Bruce Harrell pointed out the need for SPD to be able to collect some of this information.
"While I understand that a lot of people have concerns about the government having access to this information, when we have large public gatherings like the situation like in Boston and something bad happens, the first thing we want to know is how are we using technology to capture that information," Harrell said.
He added that SPD needs to establish guidelines before it is used.
"The council made it crystal clear that before the 'on' button is turned on, before it's being used they have to go to the public," Harrell said.
The network was bought with a Homeland Security grant for $2.6 million. A spokesperson for the city attorney's office said a government affairs attorney is working with SPD to review the policy but there is no timeline as to when the review will be completed.
Want to talk about the news of the day? Watch free streaming video on the KIRO 7 mobile app and iPad app, and join us here on Facebook.Karisssa via Getty Images
Hemp seeds have long been a staple in health-food stores, being prized for decades for their nutritional benefits ― they’re a good source of omega-3 fatty acids, a complete protein source, and a rich source of essential minerals, including magnesium, phosphorus, iron and zinc.
In the past few years, hemp seeds have gained popularity and have started moving into mainstream markets. These days, you can even find them at Trader Joe’s. People sprinkle them on their salads, blend them into their smoothies, bake them into granolas and even turn them into hemp milk.
But there’s something many people just can’t get over: hemp’s link to marijuana.
As we sprinkle the seeds on top of our salads, we can’t help but wonder: what’s the deal with hemp seeds and THC?
What are hemp seeds, actually?
Hemp seeds are cultivated from the hemp plant, which is grown predominantly for its seeds and fibers.
Here’s where the confusion comes from: The hemp plant looks a bit like the marijuana plant and it actually come from the same plant species, Cannabis Sativa L, but there are major differences between the two.
For one, the marijuana plant is stalkier, while the hemp plant is taller and thinner. But more importantly, the hemp plant contains low levels (less than 0.3 percent) of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive component of Cannabis Sativa. Marijuana can contain anywhere from 5 to 30 percent.
RJ Sangosti via Getty Images A close look at a hemp plant grown at a hemp farm in Colorado.
The seeds of the hemp plant are housed in small, brown hulls that are removed before we get our hands on them. The white seeds we buy at the store are the inner seeds, sometimes called the heart, and they’re soft enough to eat and cook.
Will hemp seeds get you high?
The short answer is no. As mentioned above, hemp seeds are not cultivated from the marijuana plant, but from the hemp plant, which contains minute amounts of THC. According to Jolene Formene, staff attorney at Drug Policy Alliance, “Hemp seeds are non-psychoactive, meaning that consumers cannot get high by eating them.” In other words, it’s impossible to get high from them.
They also won’t cause you to fail a drug test. We know that other foods like poppy seeds, which contain trace amounts of opiates, can make you fail a drug test. Certain places actually ask that you don’t eat poppy seed bagels or muffins before testing. But hemp seeds won’t cause the same confusion. A study found that eating hemp seeds had little effect on a person’s THC levels ― and never enough to exceed the levels looked for in federal drug testing programs.First of all I know of the Fiendship is magic comic, and no I don’t like it. If they need a reason to have the Sirens to send to the modern day EQG-Universe, I could come up with a more interesting and dramatic Siren-Story. Which I have
So have fun reading my crazy headcanon, and as usual I’m not a native speaker, so don’t kill me over grammar or typos.
Cold! The rain was cold when it touched her skin. She was running. To where? She did not know. All she knew was: she wanted to be somewhere else, far away. One word stuck in her thoughts. The words she had overheard rang still in her ears. It is a LIE! Sunset Shimmer was LYING! IT’S NOT TRUE! IT MUSTN’T BE TRUE!
The day had started rainy, like it had the rest of the week also. It had been a month since their attempted take-over, a month since they had lost their pendants, and had to live as average, normal girls in this world that was not their own. It was this day that would shatter everything they knew. Sonata walked down the hallway of Canterlot High, when she heard a certain group of students behind the next corner talk to the other Equestrian in this world. The Rainbooms! She was about to turn around to go another way, she was not in the mood to be close to them.
“Sunset Shimmer Darling, I just remembered something. Twilight mentioned a Starswirl the Bearded could you be so nice to explain to us who that is?” asked the purple haired Fashiondesigner. Great they were going to talk about Him. Sonata was not in the mood to listen to the gossip about the Unicorn Wizard either, but then she heard the sentences that would shatter her world. “Starswirl the Bearded was the greatest unicorn Magician in all Equestria. He lived many centuries ago, before the union of the three tribes…”
Many centuries ago! He LIVED many centuries ago! That meant… he DIED many centuries ago. Starswirl the Bearded, the Stallion who had banished them to this world, the Greatest Wizard of all time, the Stallion who had taken care of them, raised them, had been there for them whenever they were scared, the Stallion that created crayon, so that she would no longer use his mane in his sleep as a brush, whose hat she wanted to wear all the time, their foster-father, … her Swirly Daddy… was dead. It could not be true! They had only been here for a few months, a year at most, but not centuries. How could this be? From what they had gathered about the portal Sunset Shimmer and Princess Twilight had used, time seemed to pass the same way here and in Equestria. How could it be? Had daddy’s Spell not only banished them to another world but also another time? If that was true, then there was no way back. There was no home to return to even when she and her sisters would walk through the mirror. She would never see her daddy again, she would NEVER be able to say to his face that she was sorry for all the wrong she did.
She could not take it any longer. She ran. She ran away. Away from the thought of Starswirl’s death, but no matter the distance she put between here and he school it never left her mind. She did not know how long she had run or where for that matter. Her hair and clothes were soaked wet from the down pouring rain. She was glad that her tear were invisible among the drops of rain that were running down her cheeks. She tripped over rubbish some careless person had left lying around in the streets. she panted heavily only know she noticed how exhausted she was, he vision was abit blurry and she shut her eyes in order to keep the dizzyness away.
It was not fair! why did daddy never take them back! Why did he have to die without knowing, how sorry She and her sisters, even though they would deny it where. It was not fair!
"Shhh... don't cry.", said a warm soothing voice. She knew that voice, but that could not be possible. Was that light? the darkness behind her shut eyes was replace by a redish glow. A light had appeard in front of her and she saw it through her shut eyelids. slowly her eyes again and found blinding bright figure only a ew feet away from her towering over her, still on her knees after the fall. The figure was transparent and kneeled down to her. Sonata found herself starring into the golden depths of the eyes she knew so well, the beard, the long white hair, the blue robes and Hat with the bells. Did she start to hallucinate as a result of her exhaustion and hypothermia, she did not care. "Daddy?"
Starswirl put her cheek into his left and and swept her tears away. "Hello Sonata." said the bright figure. A million thing run through her what should she say, how could daddy be here, was she going crazy because she couldn't deal with the lose and started to fantazies? "Daddy I'm sorry... I have been a bad Siren. I did not mean to...?" "We all make mistakes, some of which hunt us all our life. Don't cry for this old Wizard, I'm not worth it. I'd love t stay a little longer but my time here almost t it's end. You should go home and get out of your wet cloth or else you get sick. It was nice to see you again." the Wizad started to fade away as this words were spoken. "I love you Daddy."
"As do I love you and your sisters, fare well my little Siren, my little Sonata." and with that he was gone. And this was the moment Sonata lost conscious because her exhaustion. The next thing she knew was waking up in her bed, she later found out that Aria and Adagio had found her passed out in the street and took her back while she was mumbling thinks about Starswirl and being sorry. Was all that had happend just a hallucination?Ashley Gennarelli (left) and Luna Malbroux in FaultLine Theater’s “How To Be a White Man.” Ashley Gennarelli (left) and Luna Malbroux in FaultLine Theater’s “How To Be a White Man.” Photo: Clive Walker, FaultLine Theater Photo: Clive Walker, FaultLine Theater Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close In ‘How to Be a White Man,’ satire goes where stats can’t 1 / 5 Back to Gallery
In the end, Luna Malbroux’s “How to Be a White Man” isn’t about the lesson its title promises. But past experience has taught the comedian, performer, writer and activist that audiences might gravitate toward literal interpretations.
Last year, she created the app EquiTable, which divides group bills like restaurant checks based on how much different demographics earn on the white male dollar. Even though the app was developed as a part of Comedy Hack Day, users didn’t always get that Malbroux wasn’t actually advocating that every shared cost be split as her app dictates.
“Through my experience with EquiTable, I’ve learned that a lot of people don’t get satire,” the 31-year-old queer, black woman says on a recent afternoon at PianoFight, where the FaultLine Theater production of “How to Be a White Man” runs through July 1. In writing this play with fellow playwright Jennifer Lewis, she worried that some audiences, especially black ones, might see the title “and think that this play is about assimilation or striving to the goal of being a white man.” Some white men have asked her if the show is “another thing that’s making fun of” them.
Midway through the show’s run, though, she has seen that audiences “get” that “How to Be a White Man” is neither erasure nor easy potshots. The jokey lessons Malbroux teaches about white masculinity — “Step three: Did you know you’re an expert?” — serve a subtler goal: to find a way to be a black woman in a world that will never bequeath Malbroux white male privilege, that would laugh at her if she tried to seize it.
Privilege, the show suggests, is a dubious prize anyway. It oppresses the have-nots, of course, but it also costs the haves their values and integrity, for privilege is never simply having. It’s taking.
To write the play — her first — Malbroux drew on her own experience as well as interviews she has conducted, many as part of her “Mapping Privilege” series on KQED. “I grew up in a small town,” — Opelousas, La. — “straight-A student, got scholarships. I’m Ivy League-educated: Columbia University, for social work. I’ve been a part of the tech world, part of the theater world, part of the nonprofit world, within leadership in the nonprofit world.” Yet time and time again, with cops, lovers and servers, among others, “none of that matters.”
Each time the police shoot another unarmed person of color, she says, “you hear, ‘Oh, they should have spoken eloquently and been polite.’ I only say all those things about me for proof: It does not matter how ‘respectable’ you are, how eloquently you speak. If you are a black person living in America, you still face constant, constant experiences, on a daily basis, where people try to tell you you’re not human.”
Read Full ArticleA north Asheville house. (Photo: Citizen-Times)
ASHEVILLE - Fast-rising real estate prices and local political decisions are expected to drive up property tax bills this year.
Still, it's tough to say how high tax bills will climb — or even whether bills for some homeowners will decrease.
That's because some things are known about the formula used for figuring taxes - and some things aren't. There are two near-certainties. The first is that city property values went up an average of 29 percent since the last time the government assessed them in 2013. The second is taxes will be needed to start making payments on $74 million in voter-approved bond borrowing.
The unknowns are tax rates, which are set by the city and Buncombe County and combined for Asheville property bills.
While local officials have just begun the debate over tax rates for the fiscal year beginning July 1, there are ways to forecast where they're going. One estimate by the Citizen-Times shows a home valued at $200,000 in 2016 should expect at least $250 in additional property taxes.
Bills could inch up even more depending on a City Council debate over public transit funding.
Mayor Esther Manheimer said she's not personally "shut the door" on additional funding for programs such as energy-efficiency initiatives or buses but is also concerned about tax bills.
"I've heard real concerns from people about affordability," Manheimer said.
How tax bills get hashed out
The annual tax bill for city property owners is actually a combination of tax bills.
Those are a county tax, a city tax, and in most cases, an Asheville City Schools tax.
The city rate is set by the council. The Board of Commissioners sets the county rate. Commissioners also set the schools rate after getting a recommendation from the school board.
The two elected bodies vote on those rates before the start of each fiscal year.
For most city property owners, those three rates are added together. For those outside the city schools district, only city and county rates are used. A property's value is divided by 100 then multiplied by the combined rates.
For example, a $100,000 Asheville home in the city schools district had a combined tax rate of $1.23 in 2016 and a bill of $1,230. A city home outside the schools district had a $1.08 rate with the owner owing $1,080.
Normally rates stay the same or go up. This year, they're expected to drop.
But that doesn't mean bills will also drop.
That's because of new county-assigned property values, something that happens about every four years. This year, those values jumped in an eye-popping way.
In the slowest-growing part of the city, South Asheville, property values rose a combined 17 percent, according to the county tax office. Meanwhile, in downtown there was a 44 percent increase in the value of land, homes and other buildings.
RELATED
What's'revenue neutral'?
State law says government bodies have to take special steps during the confusing time when new property values are assigned.
Each body has to decide on a "revenue neutral" tax rate. That is the rate that would bring in the same amount of tax revenue as the prior year despite the change in property values. Some extra tax money is allowed for new buildings.
Property values go up during most re-assessment years, so revenue neutral tax rates would go down. During the recession, property values dropped, meaning revenue neutral rates rose.
A work crew constructs a sidewalk on Hendersonville Road. (Photo: Citizen-Times)
Property taxes make up most of the $161 million city budget. This year's taxes are expected to reach nearly $56 million. Next year's revenue neutral rate would bring in $57 million.
Asheville finance officials calculated the revenue neutral rate at 39.5 cents, down from 47.5 cents.
That's a half-cent higher than 39 cents calculated by the Citizen-Times using the most recent county property values and information from the state treasurer's office.
City CFO Barbara Whitehorn acknowledged the city calculation was likely an overestimate. The extra $735,000 is meant to pad the budget while property owners are appealing their assessments, she said. When property owners win appeals, it decreases property values.
Whitehorn said she will adjust after the appeals, possibly dropping the rate.
"I would much rather apologize for overestimating," she said.
While the law requires local governments to calculate revenue neutral, they aren't required to use the rate. City officials have already said they won't.
Paying off the bond
Extra taxes will be needed to pay for bond borrowing for transportation, affordable housing and parks.
The bonds were overwhelmingly approved by voters in November. Annual payments should total $4.8 million, though that could change depending on economic conditions, Whitehorn said.
Every cent on the city tax rate is expected to bring in nearly $1.5 million. City finance officials have estimated it will take 3.5 cents over the revenue neutral rate to cover bond payments.
That's lower than the nearly 4.2 cents officials had predicted as late as October before they knew the scope of property value increases.
County, schools tax rates
In terms of county and schools tax rates, there are bigger question marks.
The county's revenue neutral rate would be 51 cents, almost 9 cents lower than the current 60.4 cents per $100 of assessed value.
But goals named by Board of Commissioners Chairman Brownie Newman could mean raising the rate to boost the county budget, which last year exceeded $400 million.
"I would like to achieve a revenue neutral budget," Newman said. "But I also want to make sure we invest to achieve other key goals, including support for our teachers, expanded pre-K, addressing the opioid crisis and investing in community clean energy."
Schools revenue neutral rate would be 11.5 cents, down from 15 cents. But the school board has yet to meet and talk about potential changes, city schools spokesman Charlie Glazener said Monday.
Public transit debate
Meanwhile, a debate is forming on the council about whether to increase the rate by an additional 1 cent to boost the bus system.
Transit is popular among all council members, but some are saying it might be more important to ease taxes.
It's not clear whether there's a majority of seven council members to back the transit increase. Four members have expressed varying degrees of support.
Buy Photo A city bus at the central bus depot on Coxe Avenue downtown. (Photo: Angeli Wright/[email protected])
This year's nearly $6.9 million bus system budget gets most of its money from property taxes and federal and state grants, though federal funding is being reduced.
Councilman Cecil Bothwell said the extra cent would add $30 on a $300,000 home's annual bill, "which seems like a nominal change."
"Getting people out of their cars is the most significant way the city government can cut community carbon emissions, and a better bus system is the best way for the city to make life more affordable for our citizens," Bothwell said.
Councilman Brian Haynes also backed the increase. The two said the $1.5 million should go toward increasing night and weekend hours.
"I would very much like to see us extend the bus route hours to 10 p.m. and extend Sunday services," Haynes said.
Councilwoman Julie Mayfield said "before committing to a certain amount" she wants to hear if the bus system could ramp up fast enough use new money.
"I am comfortable with an increase to support significant expansion, but we don't know yet how much that would be," Mayfield said.
Councilman Keith Young didn't respond to requests for comment. Young has voiced strong support for transit but has also said he is interested in tax relief.
Vice Mayor Gwen Wisler said she hasn't decided and wants to hear all presentations and take a "deep dive'" into the budget first.
Manheimer and Councilman Gordon Smith leaned away from the increase, saying they were inclined to cover the bond payments and no more.
"While I remain open to considering funding additional community needs such as expanded transit, I am sensitive to holding the line on taxes," the mayor said.
Smith said he was "very cautious" because of talk by President Donald Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress of cutting taxes and services.
"Citizens of Asheville are feeling the effects of a long-term Republican strategy to shift the cost of government away from the wealthiest people and corporations and onto the backs of regular, working people," he said.
Bottom line for tax bills
Although budget discussions are still in process, it's likely tax bills will go up for most city property owners. Rates are expected to be at least revenue neutral with the city adding 3.5 cents on top of that for the bonds. Another 1 cent is being discussed for buses. The county's and schools' rates could climb higher as budgets take shape.
Police at a crime scene near downtown. (Photo: Tonya Maxwell/[email protected])
That means the new combined tax rates should be at least $1.05 per $100 of assessed value.
Applying that to a home valued at $200,000 in 2016 and an average value increase of 29 percent, the home's combined tax bill would be higher by $249.
A tax cut, meanwhile, would be possible for properties whose values grew at slower rates — around 15 percent or lower. Those tax cuts would happen as long as the local governments stick close to revenue neutral rates.
IN OTHER NEWS
Current tax rates
$1.23 per $100 of assessed value (county, city and city schools combined)
Paid by owners of land, homes and other buildings in Asheville.
Buncombe County: 60.4 cents
Asheville: 47.5 cents
Asheville City Schools: 15 cents (Only owners of properties in the city schools district pay this tax.)
NOTE: Rates are rounded to nearest half cent.
2017 tax rates? (lowest likely)
$1.05 per $100 of assessed value (County, city and city schools combined)
Lowest likely combined tax rates for city property owner. Rates are "revenue neutral" based on information from Buncombe County Tax Department and North Carolina Treasurer's Office.
Buncombe County: 51 cents - This might rise to fund "key goals," according to commissioners Chairman Brownie Newman.
Asheville: 42.5 cents (39 cents + 3.5 cents) - Revenue neutral plus bond payments. City has calculated revenue neutral at 39.5 cents, but latest data shows it will likely be lower. Some City Council members want to add another 1 cent for public transit.
Asheville City Schools: 11.5 cents School officials have not said yet if they will use revenue neutral rate.
What it could mean for tax bills
Some examples of tax increases for Asheville property owners.
2016 examples are based on county, city and schools rates combined. 2017 examples are based on the lowest likely version of those three rates or $1.05. 2017 bills use a 29 percent growth in value, the city average. Some properties saw higher percentage rises in value. Others saw lower. A smaller increase could mean a tax bill decrease.
To calculate your lowest likely 2017 tax bill, divide your property's tax value by $100 then multiply it by $1.05. To find your tax value go to buncombetax.org/Search.aspx
2016 - $150,000 home, business or land : $1,845 combined property tax bill
2017 - $193,500 (same property with 29 percent growth) : $2,032 combined property tax bill
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2016 - $200,000 home, business or land : $2,460 combined property tax bill
2017 - $258,000 (same property with 29 percent growth) : $2,709 combined property tax bill
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2016 $500,000 home, business or land : $6,150 combined property tax bill
2017 $645,000 (same property with 29 percent growth) : $6,773 combined property tax bill
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2016 $1 million home, business or land : $12,300 combined property tax bill
2017 $1,290,000 (same property with 29 percent growth) :$13,545 combined property bill
Read or Share this story: http://avlne.ws/2ovBZBGIllinois Forcing Foster Parents to Support Gender Transition or Lose Kids
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The state of Illinois' social services policies now bar social workers from employment and foster families from caring for children if they refuse to facilitate a child's gender transition.
Earlier this month, the state's director of the Department of Children and Family Services approved "enhanced department procedures" that established "mandatory minimum standards for LGBTQ children under its authority," The Federalist reported on Tuesday.
These state standards, reportedly drafted with the assistance of the ACLU, "will not tolerate exposing LGBTQ children and youth to staff/providers who are not supportive of children and youths' right to self-determination of sexual/gender identity."
Mary Rice Hasson, director of the Catholic Women's Forum at The Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., explained that the government agency has effectively rendered biology dead by fiat.
"No matter that sexual difference is a scientific fact, or that billions of sane people across the world acknowledge it," Hasson said, noting that vulnerable children in the care of the state will not be entrusted to people who believe human beings cannot physically alter their sex.
Meg Kilgannon, executive director of the Fairfax, Virginia-based Concerned Parents and Educators, believes that this particular situation is an unfortunate scenario that many social conservatives have predicted as transgender activists keep the public conversation going about these issues on the topic of who gets to use what restroom. What it ultimately amounts to is an "erasure of the human person," she said.
"It's very easy to make fun of people who have concerns along the lines of 'Oh no, I might see something in the bathroom that I don't want to see,'" Kilgannon said of the current debate over transgenderism in an interview with The Christian Post on Wednesday.
"But when you really start to dig into this issue and you start to think about all of the ramifications that something like this means, you discover that gender identity compels speech" by coercing people to use various words and pronouns, she said.
"If a government entity is set to be the ultimate arbiter of someone's truth, being or existence, then at what point do parents get left out of the equation?" Kilgannon asked.
In Illinois, according to the new policies, parents are already being left out in significant ways.
"When a child is in state care, parents have no say in whether the child will receive puberty blockers or hormone treatments, as long as two physicians, or a physician and a counselor 'who is culturally competent in transgender healthcare,' sign off," Hasson added, citing the new procedural guidelines.
"If a child's 'permanency goal' is to return home to the care of his parents, then the state will notify the parents that hormone therapy is being initiated, but parental permission is not required."
Andrew Walker, director of policy studies for the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, noted in The Public Discourse Tuesday that gender dysphoria was once viewed as an "ailment" linked with gender identity disorder. But activists have politicized the field of medicine making "what was once a pathology into an identity, a worldview, and a political virtue," he explained.
Christians should refuse to adopt the language of transgenderism when speaking about these issues since those who control the language have the power to frame the debate on ultimately false premises, he argues. Those new words assign meaning to new concepts and those concepts become unquestioned truths as society becomes more accustomed to their use over time.
"So the label 'transgender' not only denotes the positive affirmation of a mental illness, it communicates a metaphysical fiction seeking acceptance and adoption throughout all channels of the culture," Walker said.
The Illinois procedures also state that DCFS staff must "[p]rovide supportive and affirming care regardless of one's personal attitudes, beliefs, preconceptions and/or judgments, if any, surrounding matters of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression."
Should anyone have difficulty with this they will be referred to an "LGBTQ coordinator," who is granted significant authority governing the department's internal affairs.
Terms like "discipline" and "discharge" are used to describe what could happen to an employee or volunteer who in any way allows his or her "personal beliefs [to] impact the way individual needs of children/youth or families are met."
Kilgannon told CP she knows of several foster parent couples who are devout Christians that when applying to be foster parents were subjected to all kinds of bureaucratic "LGBTQ trainings" in an attempt to reeducate them about sexuality and gender identity that violated their core beliefs. But they kept their mouths shut, opting to tune it out lest they be denied the opportunity to foster a child.
"Does Illinois have so many foster parents that they can reject people on these grounds? Is there not a waiting list in Illinois like there is in every other state?" she asked.
Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council, also in Washington, D.C., espoused similar concerns.
"It almost means that only if you are a liberal secularist can you be in service of foster kids," Sprigg said in an interview with CP on Wednesday.
"And, frankly, I don't think there are enough liberal secularists who are interested in serving as foster parents and maintain the system. I think it is ultimately going to hurt them by driving potential foster parents out, a negative consequence by anyone's standards."
The procedures Illinois has adopted here are "completely ideological," he said.
"[Activists] may claim it is scientific but the fact that engaging in homosexual and transgender sexual conduct, particularly as an adolescent, is associated with numerous negative mental and physical health consequences. It cannot possibly be a health-related requirement to have this," Sprigg asserted.IT'S a tale of two tweets, or rather three. Earlier this week when news of Scottish school students’ exam results came out, Nicola Sturgeon sent a tweet congratulating them on their results, and that was pretty much that. It was a pleasantry, the sort of thing you expect from a politician.
Labour leadership contender Kezia Dugdale sent a tweet congratulating students on their exam success too. Only Kezia’s tweet went on to say it was a shame that the Scottish Government had made students’ lives so much harder. Kezia just can’t help herself, she suffers from what seems like a compulsive obsessive disorder and is obliged to turn every statement into a political attack on the SNP. She blames the SNP’s mismanagement of NHS Scotland for that.
A card from Kezia must be a joy if you’re misfortunate enough to be one of her friends or relatives. Congratulations on your engagement, it’s just a shame that 50 per cent of marriages end in bitter divorce thanks to the SNP. I’m so happy you’re having a baby, but labour pains last three times as long thanks to the SNP. Merry Christmas! What a pity that Santa won’t be visiting you because of the division among elves caused by the SNP.
Even when Kezia is asked to explain Labour policy, she uses the question as a launchpad into yet another attack on the SNP. Kezia talks about the SNP more than the SNP do, and that’s quite remarkable considering the party was formerly led by a man who was accused of everything under the sun except being too shy to do a bit of self promotion. The tweet spawned its own hashtag #TweetLikeKez, and the entire Twitter population of Scotland amused itself by sending tweets in the style of Kezia. The Scottish Government was condemned and asked to apologise for everything from the extinction of the dinosaurs, the real ones not the Labour ones, to milk going off in the fridge.
Kezia hasn’t apologised to the kids because their lives have been made harder by the austerity cuts that her party didn’t oppose, it’s only what the Scottish Government do that’s reprehensible in Kezia’s universe.
Labour’s failure to vote against the Tory cuts to the social security safety net, making it more hole than net, didn’t warrant an apology to the kids whose families will fall through those holes. It’s going to make their lives a whole lot harder, but then they’re not the strivey achievey voters in Lab-Con marginals in Middle Englandshire that most of the national Labour leadership candidates want to appeal to, so they can be safely ignored.
That didn’t stop Kezia demanding that the Scottish Government spell out what they were going to do to protect the poor and vulnerable of Scotland from the Tory policies that Kezia’s party didn’t oppose.
Anyway, even though the SNP are responsible for all human and inhuman evil, Osborne’s budget wasn’t the SNP’s fault, and if you can’t demand that Sturgeon apologise there’s no point in turning up for work. This probably explains why during the benefits cuts debate the Labour benches in the House of Commons were occupied by tumbleweed – otherwise known as the Honourable Member for Edinburgh South.
This is why Natalie McGarry, the SNP MP for Glasgow East, had the bright idea of occupying the unoccupied benches of the official opposition. The SNP are the only effective opposition anywhere in the UK right now. Kezia hasn’t apologised for that either.
This is the difference between a politician who understands statecraft, and an over-promoted councillor. Alicsammin might have been a master of self-promotion, but he’d never have used a congratulatory note to teenagers as an opportunity to score points. There’s a time and a place for criticising the Scottish exam system, it’s not when congratulating teenagers on their exam success.
This is the snide small mindedness that has driven Labour out of power at Holyrood, that wiped out their Scottish Westminster contingent, and looks set to keep them out for the foreseeable future.
Judging by the media reaction, you’d almost believe that they were hoping for bad results in order to criticise the Scottish Government for failing students being failed by the SNP. But that didn’t happen. This year Scottish students excelled themselves so instead we had carping that the exams were too easy and the maths exam was too hard and the pass rate had to be reduced.
So the exam was too hard but passing it was too easy. The SNP need to explain themselves. This was the lead story on Reporting Scotland, not the fact that a record number of Scottish students have been accepted for university this year. It’s not just Kezia Dugdale who suffers from Kezitis – the uncontrollable urge to blame the Scottish Government and the SNP for all and any failing.
Of course the SNP and the Scottish Government should be held to account. Of course they should be criticised when criticism is due, but we have a directionless opposition which is bereft of any clear idea of what it stands for apart from SNP Bad, and we have a media which is utterly unrepresentative of the population as a whole.
What your average Scottish political commentator defines as centre ground, approximately half the Scottish population would define as outright Tory. And this unrepresentative media is equally prone to screaming SNP Bad at the slightest provocation. The less the voting public listen to their not so sage advice, the louder they scream.
This has now become a serious problem for Scottish democracy. The instinctive reaction of much of the media is to condemn a party which is supported by over half of those who vote, and those voters are increasingly no longer listening to the cries of SNP wolf. In fact the denunciations are having the opposite effect, hundreds of thousands of perfectly reasonable people have switched off and should there be a really serious reason to criticise the SNP they’re not going to listen.
And that will have been the fault of a biased and unrepresentative media and an opposition party that confuses knee-jerk demands for resignations with effective opposition. Every time they call out SNP Bad, they’re hammering another nail in the coffin of their own credibility.The twin Penny Arcade Expos held each year on the East and West coasts may not be the largest video game shows in the world, but they could be the ones powered by the most passionate fans.
The twin Penny Arcade Expos, held each year on the East and West coasts of the US, may not be the largest video game shows in the world, but they could be the ones powered by the most passionate fans.
One of the reasons those fans are so passionate is because the people behind Penny Arcade, which started as a webcomic about video games and has since blossomed into a fan-fueled gaming empire, pay attention to what their followers want.
In this case that means more PAX in more places. Starting next year the show, which started as a two-day event at a Bellevue, Washington convention center and now attracts more than 140,000 people to its two public showings of all things gaming, will launch an Australian expo.
Robert Khoo, president of operations and business development for Penny Arcade, insists the ever-expanding reach of Penny Arcade and its shows is less about extending the brand and more about "making people happy."
"We want to continue doing PAX for as long as people want to come to them," he told Polygon. "People have |
?,'' Gingrich said. "Enough of lying to us about a person who obstructed justice and who, by any measure of justice, would be facing a grand jury at this moment rather than running for president."
The room at the Sharonville Convention Center was packed with several thousand people. Trump claimed during his speech that there were another 2,000 in an overflow room and that he intended to go talk to them after the main speech. His speech, he said, was being broadcast to many others outside who couldn't get in the building.
While waiting for Trump and Gingrich to enter the hall, several thousand Trump fans listened to nearly three hours of recorded music, everything from Luciano Pavoritti's recording of Nessun Dorma to the Rolling Stones' "Time Is On My Side."
In this period between clinching the nominations and the upcoming presidential nominating conventions, the two major party candidates are making a habit of campaigning in southwest Ohio with potential running mates at their side.
On Monday, June 27, it was Clinton holding a rally before about 2,600 supporters in the rotunda of the Museum Center at Union Terminal, with many more unable to get in and listening outside through loudspeakers on the Museum Center's esplanade. Clinton had with her Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, said to be on the short list of potential vice presidential candidates.
Wednesday night in Sharonville, it was Gingrich, the former House speaker, who is said to be among the leading candidates for the vice presidential running mate position. That's despite the fact that Gingrich has had some high profile disagreements with the billionaire developer, most recently over Trump's complaints that the judge hearing the court case against his Trump University was of Mexican descent.
CNN has reported that Trump will announce his running mate choice sometime next week, the week before the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
Others who are under serious consideration for the number two spot on Trump's ticket are New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who is up for re-election this year.
Before the rally inside the Sharonville Convention Center's large second-floor hall, Trump met downstairs privately with a group of donors – people who paid anywhere from $2,700 to $25,000 to spend time with the presumptive GOP nominee. Those who paid $25,000 got to sit in on a roundtable discussion with the candidate, have their pictures taken with him, and attend a general reception.
This was Trump's second visit to Ohio since he lost the Buckeye State's GOP presidential primary in March. Last week, he held a rally of about 5,000 in St. Clairsville in Eastern Ohio, just a stone's throw from West Virginia.
There are likely to be many, many more between now and the Nov. 8 elections – principally the Republican National Convention at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, starting on July 18. That is where Trump and his running mate will accept their party's nominations.
Ohio has been a key battleground state in presidential elections for many decades; and is considered by many the ultimate bellwether of American presidential politics.
This year is shaping up to be no different.
Most of the polling points to a very close race in Ohio.
Real Clear Politics (RCP), a website which tracks national polling and polling in key battleground states, took the last four polls conducted among Ohio voters and came up with an average lead of 2.5 percentage points in favor of Clinton. Given the margin of error in those polls, that is for all intents and purposes a dead heat.
A Quinnipiac University poll of Ohio voters released June 21 gave Clinton higher marks than Trump on the questions of which candidate is better prepared to be president, which has higher moral standards and which is more intelligent. Trump out-polled Clinton on the following questions – which candidate is more honest and trustworthy, which is more inspiring and which would be a stronger leader.
Before the candidate and Gingrich appeared, Trump policy adviser Stephen Miller took to the stage and attacked Clinton on the decision by the FBI and Attorney General Loretta Lynch not to seek charge against her for use of her private e-mail server for official business.
Clinton was not charged with a crime, Miller said, "because the system is corrupt."
And Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones, a longtime Trump supporter, warmed up the crowd with some of the same rhetoric that has made him one of the most well-known opponents of illegal immigration in the country.
"President Obama will tell you our borders are secure,'' Jones said. "They are not. Hillary Clinton will tell you the same thing. They are not."
Outside the convention center, a handful of protestors peacefully carried signs and made their displeasure with Trump known.
Dominic Lijoi of Butler County carried a sign reading, "Trump Leading Liar" on one side. He was encouraging people to check Trump's record on the Politfact.com watchdog website.
"Sixty percent of what he says is lies, according to Politifact, false statements and 'pants on fire' statements,'' Lijoi said.
Pam Smith of Middletown also carried anti-Trump signs. The Bernie Sanders supporter says Trump has no substance.
"All he says is we're going to win, we're going to look into this,'' Smith said. "And then he repeats it, the same thing, two or three times in a row. He has no real plan to help the middle class. Nothing."
Reporter Tana Weingartner contributed to this report.You’re ready to lose some weight. You probably realize that losing weight successfully means clearing countless mental and physical hurdles. And that means there are endless ways to trip up before reaching your goals—likely without even realizing it. With all the contradictory weight loss advice out there, it’s no wonder.
Well, there’s a new type of specialist—the weight-loss coach—who can help you cut through the diet and exercise noise and guide you to the best plan for achieving and sustaining your goal. Here, some of the country’s leading weight loss coaches share the most common mental and physical mistakes that hold clients back, and the best solutions.
You’re not eating enough.
INGA NIELSEN/SHUTTERSTOCK
Kyra Williams, a weight loss coach certified by the National Academy of Sports Medicine says this is a faux pas almost all of her female clients are guilty of. “If you are working out and burning 2,500 calories a day—but only consuming 1,200—you’ll force your body to store fat,” she says. Not only that, the calorie shortage will slow down your metabolism, making it tougher to build muscle.
Your new weight loss mantra: Don’t be afraid to eat! Fill your plate with plenty of healthy carbohydrates (think fruit, starchy veggies, and whole grains), lean proteins (fish, turkey, chicken, and tofu), healthy fats (avocado, oils, nuts, and seeds), and an unlimited amount of greens and other non-starchy veggies. Bonus: Eating 1,800 to 2,000 calories of these healthy eats will keep you so full and satisfied you’ll be less likely to binge on junky foods, says Williams.
Related: 4 Foods That Burn Fat
You’re doing all cardio and not enough weights.
ICONIC BESTIARY/SHUTTERSTOCK
Once again, this is common blunder for women, says Williams. “It’s a shame considering muscle mass is what helps you burn fat,” she says. “Cardio burns calories, but it doesn’t do much to build muscle.” Lifting weights helps keep your metabolism revved: You’ll burn more fat long after you’ve worked out.
Your new weight loss mantra: Add some weights to your cardio routine. Two to three days a week, work in 20 minutes or so of strength training on machines, with free weights, or even simply doing body-weight exercises like push-ups, crunches, and pull-ups, says Williams. Start with lighter weights or easier positions (knees down for the push-ups, for example) and fewer reps, but remember to increase the challenge as you get stronger.
Related: 7 Reasons Your Thighs Aren’t Changing No Matter How Much You Work Out
You tell yourself you’re “on a diet”—not permanently changing your lifestyle.
IGOR STEVANOVIC/SHUTTERSTOCK
Kate Martino, a physician assistant and weight loss coach says her clients who are looking for short-term fixes have a much tougher time getting and maintaining results than clients who make changes for the long haul. “When you’re in the ‘diet’ mentality, it’s more likely that you’ll go off your diet before you reach your goals,” she says. “It’s even more likely that, if you do lose weight, you’ll wonder what to do next,” she says. “Making lifestyle changes, on the other hand, helps you learn the tools to reach your goals and maintain your weight loss for life.”
Your new weight loss mantra: Banish the word “diet” from your vocabulary, and when you’re making nutrition and exercise changes, be sure you experiment until you find what realistically works for you, says Martino. “The key is finding lifestyle changes that will not only help you get to where you want to be, but will also be enjoyable. That’s when you’ll stick to ’em.”
You haven’t established a good support system.
Stocksy
Go it alone and you’ll be much less likely to succeed than if you’ve got friends and family who are supporting you, says Martino. “It can be difficult to stick to your lifestyle changes if your partner or the rest of your family aren’t willing to participate—or at least support you in the changes you’re making,” she says.
Your new weight loss mantra: Find a relative or friend to join forces with you. Get a running buddy, or a weight-loss partner. If there isn’t someone, at least let your loved ones know about your big goals and ask for their support. That way, they’ll keep your goals in mind rather than tempting you to stray off course, says Martino. “You can also check out platforms online where thousands of people come together virtually to offer each other support, advice, and encouragement,” she says.
Related: 9 Proven Ways to Lose Stubborn Belly Fat
You’re not setting specific goals.
Hilmar Hilmar
The key to success is to break an overwhelming target—say, losing 30 pounds—into little steps that can be more easily managed, says Elle Kealy, a certified nutrition, fitness, and weight loss coach. “Instead of setting unattainable, vague goals, it’s better to approach your weight loss project as a series of smaller, more realistic habit changes that you can focus on one at a time,” she says.
Your new weight loss mantra: Set SMART goals, says Patrick Williams, an American Council on Exercise-certified health coach and behavior change specialist. “Ideally, your goal should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound,” he says. For example, you might start by committing to drinking 8 glasses of water a day for the first month of your plan; the next month, you could aim to stick to that and swap out half the cheap carbs on your plate (potatoes or pasta) for leafy greens, says Kealy. “Each of your smaller, attainable goals will add up to substantial lifestyle changes over the long term.”
RELATED: Lose the pounds, feel great, and run your fastest with Run to Lose from Runner’s World.
You overestimate the calorie burn of a single workout.
The Camp of Champions via Flickr and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution
Chris Nagel, an exercise physiologist, personal trainer, and nutrition and weight loss coach, says many of his clients will use a great workout to justify poor decisions throughout the rest of the day. "While it can be tempting to think you can treat yourself to dessert because you had a great session earlier that day, you're overestimating how much benefit you really got." As a result, people overeat, he says.
Your new weight loss mantra: Remember that increased activity levels will increase your caloric demands and appetite, says Nagel. It's crucial to keep monitoring your portion sizes and following your healthy eating plan.
Check out some nutritious recovery meals below, like chicken peanut noodles, or turkey taco bowls.
You aren’t consistent with your efforts.
According to Nagel, this is one of the biggest blunders for clients. “Noticeable weight loss is only achievable when your body is consistently exposed to physical activity and proper diet,” he says.
Your new weight loss mantra: Keep your momentum going, says Nagel. “It can be tempting to do well for 2 weeks and then take the third week ‘off’—but that will likely put you right back at the beginning at the start of your fourth week,” he says. Sure, little cheats here and there are OK and even expected. But if you notice yourself slipping for extended periods of time, it’s important to get back on your program ASAP.
The article 7 Biggest Mistakes Weight Loss Coaches See Their Clients Make originally appeared on Prevention.it' s runny now science fiction universes so
often treat humans as a mung. default
everyman species or even the weakest and
dumbest
I want to see a set it universe where were
actually considered one of the more hideous
and terrifying species
How do we know our saliva and skin oils
wouldn' t be to most other
sapient rates? What it we actually have the
strongest vocal chords and can paralyze or kill
the inhabitants of other worlds lust
screaming at them‘? What " most sentient the in
the universe toms out to be and
lives in fear or us rare "animal" races who can
moire so quickly and chew shit up with our
teeth?
Like that old story "theate made of meat." only
we' re scarier.
HOLY SHE!" THEY EAT FOR FUN
YOU GUYS I HEARD A HUMAN ONCE ATE AN
A HUMAN CAN KEEP FIGHTING FOR HOURS EVEN
AFTER YOU SHOOT IT
humans are a proud warrior race with a pantheon
of moody gods. named. Schwarzenegger. etc
Blg A LIME WILL NOT FATALLY
HUMANS; ALWAYS DESTROY THE
HEAD.
WARNING: HUMANS CAN DETECT YOU EVEN AT
NIGHT BY TRACKING ‘v" THROUGH THE
ATMOSPHERE
WARNING: HUMANS CAN REPRODUCE ATA
RATE OF 1 PER OFTHEYEAR DESTROY
INFESTATIONS N LY
THE HUMAN MOUTH HAS OVER THIRTY
OUTCROPS OF BONE AND POWERFUL JAIN
Muscles
HUMAN SITES CAN BE FATALLY
EVEN TO OTHER Htj MANS
WARNINGS HUMANS CAN AND IMLU USE
WEAPONS SEE CLASSIFIED DATA
LABELED J. CHAN.
HUMANS CAN PROJECT BIOWEAPONS FROM
ALMOST EVERY ORIFICE cm THEIR BODY DO
NOT 'NEALE
OH GOD THE HUMANS FIGGERED OUT DOOR
HANDLES OH GOD OH GOD
More when sly. humans do have a number of
advantages even among Terrestrial the Our endurance-
shock resistance- and ability to recover from injury is
absurdly high compared to almost any other animal. We
often use the phrase "healthy as a horse" to cahoots
ma moms - but compared to a human. a horse is as
fragile as spun glass There' s mounting evidence that
our ancestors would hunt large prey simply by
following it at a walking pace. without sleep or rest. until
it died of exhaustion: it' s called pursuit predation.
Basically. we' re the Denominator.
The only other animal that can sort or keep up with us’?
Dogs Thats why we use them for hunting. And even
Now extrapolate that to a galaxy in which most sapient
the did not evolve front tanned pursuit
predators;
o {tor strength and speed is nothing to write home
abate. but we don' t need ta overpower or outran
you. We just need to outlast you - and by any
other species‘ standards. we gust plain don' t get
tired
o Where a simple broken leg will ca use most
species to go into shoot: and cite. we can recover
froth virtually any injury that' s not immediately
fatal. Even train' katic isn' t
necessarily a injury fora human.
o we heal hem injuries with extreme rapidity.
recovering in weeks from wounds that would take
others tradition or years to heat. The results aren' t
pretty - humans have hyperactive scar tissue.
among our other traits - but
they' re highly.
I Speaking of scarring. look at our medical science.
we developed surgery centuries before
developing even the most
anesthetics or life support in, humans
have been known to cartoon surgery on
themselves - and survive. Thanks to our
extreme heartiness. we regard as routine medical
procedures what most other species would regard
as inventive terms or murder We even perform
radical surgery on ourselves for purely cosmetic
reasons-
in essence, we' d be Space (tics.
I do nope you realize l' m going to be pic king up this stud and
running with it right?
Outlaws have too many TEETH in mem, so we developed a way
to METAL TO OUR TEETH and FORCE THE BONES Bl
OUR JAW to restructure over the course at years to I' ll them back
into shape. and then we continue to wear metal in out mouths to
keep them in place.
We romeo relationships with tiny mammals and
Insects we keep at tray from bothering us try death. often using
lithe analog traps.
And god. we will eat anything
o We use borderline toxic peppers to season our food.
ii We expose ourselves to potentially lethal solar radiation in the
pursuit of darkening our skin
or We risk hearing was tor the opporunity to see tyur favorite
musicians live.
o We have a game where two people get into an enclosed area
and hit each other until time mos out/ one or them pass out
in We willingly jump out M planes with only a piece of cloth
to prever Us from against the ground.
o ear response to natural disasters is to just rebuild our buildings
in the exact same places.
We climb mountains and risk freezing to death for bragging
rights
or We invented dogs. We took our one time predators and
completely domestic and them
o On a planet toll of lions. tigers and bears. we managed to
advance Mther and taster than any other species on the
planet.
k. ll: and Hogan and ores ain' t got shit on us
can we talk about new pursuit predation is fucking terrifying
it' s one thing to face down a cheetah. which will slam into you at so mph
and break your neck
it' s another thing to run very quickly to getaway from a thing. only to have
it just kind of
show up
to have it be intelligent enough to figure out where you are by the for and
feather you' tell behind. your footprints and piss and shit. and then you
think you' lost it and you bed down for the night but THERE IT s
WAITING
WHEN YOU WAKE UP
and you split! again! but it keeps following you. always in the comer or
your eye. until you just
die
we are scary motherfuc kers
...The last few years have seen a tremendous number of games hit the market that offer players the opportunity to improve society in addition to the usual fun associated with playing a good game.
Over the last few years, I’ve written about Eyewire (neuroscience), Phylo (DNA), Nanocrafter (DNA), Eterna and Nova (both of which tackle RNA), Reverse the Odds (Cancer), Fort McMoney (social cohesion), and no doubt many more that I’ve overlooked.
Gaming for biodiversity
It’s exciting to see biodiversity join the action, with the release of two games by Purposeful Gaming and the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). The games, called Smorball and Beanstalk, are designed to help BHL provide more comprehensive searching of digitized materials, all through the lens of a fun and engaging game.
The BHL has a wealth of content but a sizable chunk of it is not in screen readable format. Whilst OCR software has come a long way, there are still certain challenges involved in converting old books and documents to something usable. For instance, software understandably struggles with handwritten journals from the 19th century.
“The OCR outputs for those kinds of things are garbage,” the project team say. “Some of it, you can get partial OCR, but a lot of it has to be totally transcribed by individuals, by typing it all out.”
Getting the crowd involved
This is where the crowd come in. BHL have had success with crowdsourcing in the past, with volunteers helping out with things such as image tagging and transcription of field journals.
The hope is that the games will give these projects a major boost. In Beanstalk, the gameplay is purposefully simple. Players are tasked with successfully transcribing a short snippet of original digitized text. Each successful transcription makes the beanstalk grow a little further.
Smorball is slightly more advanced, in that it adds a time element to affairs. This time, players are tasked with transcribing as quickly and as accurately as they can, with scores compared with other players in the fictional sport of Smorball.
In both games, the input provided by the players are used to double-check existing transcriptions. In the early stages the players will be given well-vetted transcriptions to test the accuracy of players, but over time this may change.
“For the inputs that have been used in the games, there have been a set group of texts that were really closely vetted, so that we know exactly what each word says, exactly how everything was supposed to be spelled,” the team say. “So when we put those materials into the games for testing, when someone enters the wrong word, or even the wrong character within a word, we can know that it’s wrong.”
It’s a nice example of how games can provide a useful medium by which to engage interested parties in small yet valuable tasks. It will be fascinating to see how the project evolves and how accurate the players turn out to be.The Indonesian central bank cut interest rates 25 basis points to 7.25% in a scheduled meeting just hours after explosions and gunfire erupted in Jakarta.
At least seven people have reportedly been killed after several explosions erupted in central Jakarta. An unknown number of others were injured.
Indonesian president Joko Widodo said the “situation [is] under control” in a statement given on national TV following the attacks on Thursday.
Bank Indonesia’s cut was the first in 11 months. It came after a scheduled meeting and is unlikely to be related to the attacks.
The central bank is trading a weaker currency, which makes dollar denominated debt more expensive to pay back, for easier monetary conditions and cheaper exports. Thirteen economists out of 23 surveyed by Bloomberg expected the cut.
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Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.Copyright 2019 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Rep. Mark Lowery (R-Maumelle)
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - A bill that would grant Arkansas charter schools the right to use “unused or underutilized” public school buildings advanced out of the House Education Committee late Monday afternoon on a voice vote with some dissent, drawing criticism from some opponents of the bill who cried foul at the unusual timing of the committee's action. It has already passed in the full Senate.
Charter schools already have right of first refusal under previous legislation, but only if a district sells a public school building. Senate Bill 308 would add the requirement that school districts submit a yearly report to the state that identifies all unused or underutilized public school facilities. A charter school could then give notice of its intent to purchase or lease the unused or underutilized school facility, and preference would go to the charter school.
The bill also states that a district cannot sell or lease a public school property to a third party that is not a charter school for two years after the facility is listed as unused or underutilized by the state Division of Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation.
If a school district fails to comply, it could be classified in academic facilities distress and subject to state takeover.
“We're trying to allow those buildings to be repurposed — or not really repurposed, the purpose is going to be education,” House sponsor Rep. Mark Lowery (D-Maumelle) said. He said it would “breathe life back into those facilities.”
In his presentation of the bill, Lowery attempted to allay concerns about the bill. "It's been out there that this is about the Little Rock School District. This is about the four schools that have been closed down and to try to allow charter schools to do a grab on those schools, and that's absolutely not the case." The Little Rock School District plans to close or repurpose several campuses at the end of the 2016-17 school year, which LRSD Superintendent Michael Poore has said is a necessary cost-saving measure.
Richard Abernathy, executive director of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators, which represents school superintendents, testified against the bill. He said what happens to public school facilities should be a local decision. He also said "underutilized" is not well defined in the bill, a concern Democratic senators voiced when the bill ran in Senate Education Committee in February.
At that hearing, Sen. Joyce Elliott (D-Little Rock) raised the issue of what “underutilized” means. "Right in my neighborhood, two blocks from me, a school is going to be closed because it is underutilized, and I can't come up with a definition of what underutilized means except that it seems to mean what anybody wants it to mean." Elliott was referring to Franklin Incentive Elementary School, one of the LRSD schools that Superintendent Poore has slated for closure at the end of the current school year.
At the House Education Committee on Monday, both Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola and Poore testified against the bill.
"We're crafting legislation right now that's yanking out local control," Poore said. "Most of you know, we just closed facilities. My job right now is create a repurpose for those facilities and to work with my community to come up with a repurpose that will be good for our overall community."
Poore said a good example of what a community can do with a closed school building is the Willie Hinton Neighborhood Resource Center in Little Rock.
Lowery, in his closing remarks, said that if a district is able to find a community group that wants to continue an educational pursuit in a school building, then the district doesn't have to report the building as unused or underutilized.
Poore also said he objected to a provision in the bill that states how the terms of the lease would be determined.
"The lease length gets determined by the charter, so again we are usurping local control. The charter school dictates the agreement, not the local school district," he said.
Stodola expressed concerns that the bill would lead to more vacant buildings because of the provision that districts must not dispose of a building for two years after it has been identified as underutilized or unused.
"It's of great concern to a community, to a neighborhood," Stodola said. "Many of these schools are in fragile neighborhoods. There's been declining enrollment, which is why the schools are being closed to begin with, and the last thing that I need in the neighborhood around UALR and around Stifft Station is to have schools that are closed and to strap the arms of the school district to be able to dispose of those to people who want to use those."
The bill was presented at the end of the day in a special meeting of the committee, which usually convenes Tuesday and Thursday morning. Several people opposed to the bill expressed dismay about the surprise hearing and said they had to rush to the Capitol.
Bill Kopsky, executive director of the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, speaking against the bill, said he was told the bill would not run until next week.
"I know you have people signed up to speak... against it. Those are my friends, my allies. Those are also institutional people whose job it is to be here. Those are not the grassroots parents around the state, from rural communities, who are deeply concerned about this bill, who are being denied their opportunity to voice their concerns about it because of the timing of when this bill is being run. It's unfair. It's just blatantly wrong," Kopsky told the committee.
Committee chair Rep. Bruce Cozart (R-Hot Springs) responded. "I will tell you that if they came and all signed up they would get limited debate and they would not get to speak anyway," he told Kopsky. A short back-and-forth exchange between the two exemplified the frustration expressed by opponents of the bill. Kopsky told Cozart, "Well, sir, they wanted to be here to watch you all do your work and express their concerns about this piece of legislation." Cozart replied, "We are on TV. They can watch there." The House streams and archives committee meetings on its website, arkansashouse.org.
"I appreciate that. They cannot speak to the TV, although I am sure they are shouting right now," Kopsky said.
Questions and testimony lasted more than an hour and a half. Rep. Dan Sullivan (R-Jonesboro) expressed concern about the precedent the bill might set.
"I think it’s a laudable goal, but my concern is we are setting up a preferred buyer... in this educational setting that we wouldn’t do in any other — we wouldn't do this with public buildings and allow only grocers to buy public buildings. We’re setting up a standard that I don't know that we want to go into," Sullivan said.
But Lowery said the bill was “protecting the rights of those taxpayers who paid for that building to be used for education and not to be used as a grocery store or warehouse."
Helena facility fight inspired legislation
According to Lowery and Sen. Alan Clark (R-Lonsdale), the lead Senate sponsor, the impetus for the bill was a situation that unfolded after the state Board of Education declared the Helena-West Helena School District in financial distress in 2010. Almost a year later, then-Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell dissolved the school board and put the district under state control. In 2012, the district closed three schools, including Beechcrest Elementary, citing declining enrollment and financial difficulty.
Scott Shirey, founder and executive director of KIPP Delta Public Schools, a charter school operator in Helena-West Helena, spoke in favor of the bill. He said at the time Beechcrest was closed, "students at our school attended school in modular trailers... there were no science labs in there, no cafeteria, no library and on rainy days it was nearly an impossible campus."
KIPP Delta wanted to purchase Beechcrest, but the school district, under state control, would not immediately sell the building. Under current law, charter schools have first right of refusal only if a district sells the building.
"Meanwhile, that entire time period where our students had inadequate access to facilities, a functional school building, Beechcrest Elementary, sat vacant as current law prevented us from using those unused district facilities," Shirey said.
He said Beechcrest was vandalized as it sat empty. During Shirey's testimony, pictures of the school were passed around for the committee to see.
Shirey, when asked in an interview why the building sat empty, said, "My sense of it was the state was trying to manage the local politics and not wanting to upset the local school district."
In an email, Kimberly Friedman, director of communications for the state Department of Education, wrote, "Due to numerous issues, including leadership transitions, vandalism and a lawsuit, the sale of the building was delayed."
Tony Wood, who was appointed state education commissioner in 2014, initiated the sale of the building to KIPP Delta, according to Friedman.
Normally, a locally elected school board would make decisions about a district's facilities, but when a district is taken over by the state Education Department, the school board is dissolved. The state education commissioner acts in the capacity of a local school board in such districts. The commissioner may appoint a community advisory board to solicit input from the community, which is what happened in the case of Helena-West Helena, but that board has no actual authority. Andrew Bagley was the president of the district's community advisory board.
"During the period of local control prior to the state forcing the transfer of that property to KIPP Delta... the [local school] board made the judgment that it was not in the best interest of our students or our school district to let a property get in the hands of a competitor that was taking hundreds of students from our school," Bagley said in an interview.
"Our advisory board — before any decision was made — wanted to complete our long-term facilities plan, and we wanted to get the properties appraised so that we would know how much money we should try to get if we chose to sell," Bagley said. "The state would not let us do either one of those things and by the state I mean Commissioner Tony Wood."
Wood, now the superintendent for Jacksonville North Pulaski School District, said in an interview that he didn't remember having a conversation with the advisory board about an appraisal. "There very likely could have been some discussion with someone on the advisory committee wanting to... bring a firm in, a real estate firm or somebody to do an appraisal. I don't remember.
"There could have been fair market value established perhaps in some manner other than the quote," Wood said.
Shirey testified on Monday that KIPP Delta submitted a $50,000 sealed bid for the school building, which was accepted. The decision was upheld in court.
In March 2016, Helena-West Helena regained local control of its school district after the state Board of Education voted to remove it from state control. Andrew Bagley is now president of the Helena-West Helena School Board.
"What the state essentially did was force the equivalent of McDonald's being forced to give a facility to Wendy's," Bagley said.
Scott Smith, executive director of the Arkansas Public School Resource Center, an organization that advocates for charter schools, assisted Lowery in presenting the bill and testified on behalf of it. Rep. Charlotte Douglas (R-Alma), vice-chair of the committee, asked Smith, "Is there any concern over who you get to appraise the building and how you would appeal?... When you say fair market value, you know that could mean one thing from one appraiser and one thing from another."
Smith answered that the district and charter would either mutually agree to an appraiser, or the state Division of Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation would set the terms as a neutral third party.
Lowery said traditional public schools and charter schools are partners in the educational process. "Charter schools are public schools and the shame of it is, this whole battle over facilities and students and all these things have created this oppositional warfare that shouldn't exist."
The bill now goes to the full House.
This reporting is courtesy of the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, an independent, nonpartisan news project dedicated to producing journalism that matters to Arkansans.Nick Garvan of the Thames Valley Police, London, is skeptical about the purported number of security cameras in the UK. He says that the often quoted number of more than four million was based on a single study in 2002 which took its numbers from a single London street and scaled them up. He has not given an alternative figure.
He and the ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) do, however, want to commandeer the existing cameras operated by local councils (around 30,000 of them). They also want to tie these together into cohesive network, coupled with a national facial recognition database. Garvan, somewhat ironically given his plans, said:
Any perception on the part of the public that there is some kind of Orwellian infrastructure sitting behind society where these cameras are terribly well integrated and joined up as part of the surveillance state is entirely wrong.
I guess that might soon change.
UK CCTV numbers'may be over-stated' [The Register]
Photo: Takomabibelot/FlickrElectrodes used in subvocal speech recognition research at NASA's Ames Research Lab.
Subvocal recognition (SVR) is the process of taking subvocalization and converting the detected results to a digital output, aural or text-based.[1]
Concept [ edit ]
A set of electrodes are attached to the skin of the throat and, without opening the mouth or uttering a sound, the words are recognized by a computer.
Subvocal speech recognition deals with electromyograms that are different for each speaker. Therefore, consistency can be thrown off just by the positioning of an electrode. To improve accuracy, researchers in this field are relying on statistical models that get better at pattern-matching the more times a subject "speaks" through the electrodes, but even then there are lapses. At Carnegie Mellon University, researchers found that the same "speaker" with accuracy rates of 94% one day can see that rate drop to 48% a day later; between two different speakers it drops even more.[citation needed]
Relevant applications for this technology where audible speech is impossible: for astronauts, underwater Navy Seals, fighter pilots and emergency workers charging into loud, harsh environments. At Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, research is underway to use subvocal information as a control source for computer music instruments.[citation needed]
Research and patents [ edit ]
With a grant from the U.S. Army, research into synthetic telepathy using subvocalization is taking place at the University of California, Irvine under lead scientist Mike D'Zmura.[2]
NASA's Ames Research Laboratory in Mountain View, California, under the supervision of Charles Jorgensen is conducting subvocalization research.[citation needed]
The Brain Computer Interface R&D program at Wadsworth Center under the New York State department of health has confirmed the existing ability to decipher consonants and vowels from imagined speech, which allows for brain-based communication using imagined speech.[3]
US Patents on silent communication technologies include: US Patent 6587729 "Apparatus for audibly communicating speech using the radio frequency hearing effect",[4] US Patent 5159703 "Silent subliminal presentation system",[5] US Patent 6011991 "Communication system and method including brain wave analysis and/or use of brain activity",[6] US Patent 3951134 "Apparatus and method for remotely monitoring and altering brain waves".[7]
In fiction [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ |
of RTI users are lying vacant in states, a marginal increase over the 2014 level.
In five states, information commissions were headless as of June 2015 and the newly carved Telangana was yet to have one. “Most of the state commissions have become parking lots for retired bureaucrats,” an RTI activist said.
Read:
SC notice to parties on petition to bring them under RTI law
If we hobble Right to Information, then we hobble India’s democracy
First Published: Jul 08, 2015 00:33 ISTAs I walked in the seminar room of IBA Karachi`s exquisitely-built CED building, I didn’t expect such a huge crowd of highly professional looking individuals and students gathered to witness the talk on data science, a topic usually of interest to geeks alone.
I took my seat among the audience and as the crowd settled down, a bearded man wearing spectacles stepped up towards the podium. This man was, Mr. Zeeshan-ul-Hassan Usmani, a genius of social entrepreneurship, a renowned Pakistani data scientist, writer, entrepreneur, and scholar in the field of computer science.
Mr. Usmani, broke the ice, telling the audience that his computer had crashed this morning, so he had to produce a whole new presentation, therefore, we would have to bear with a few problems here and there. Nevertheless, he progressed on and straight ahead, dived into the reason we were all there: to hear him talk about Data Science and PredictifyMe.
Who is Zeeshan-ul-Hassan Usmani?
For those who are not familiar with his name, he is one of the handful data scientists and one of the front-runners of entrepreneurship produced by Pakistan. Hailing from a small town Sukkur and the youngest of 14 siblings, he was the only one to take full advantage of his education. We covered a story on his journey a while ago, and we have also had the pleasure of having him as a contributor to TechJuice.
A Fulbright scholar, holding an MS and PhD degree from the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) and the founder of PredictifyMe, a predictive analytics company that uses big data to solve social as well as economic problems, he has been featured on numerous publications around the world, including but not limited to: WSJ, CNN, TechinAsia and FloridaToday! His interview for the CNN-Money is really a must-watch, where he leaves the interviewer flabbergasted by the information he was able to tell about her, simply by using publicly-available data. He even went as far as to foretell the exact number of views, likes, shares and twitter mentions his very own interview was going to get!.
You can check out the interview here.
The Potential of Data Science
“Privacy doesn’t exist anymore!”- Mr Usmani remarked during the start of his talk highlighting the importance of data science in today’s world. If someone wants to know something about you, he will. To prove that, he conducted an experiment with Halloween Candy and as a result, has put forward a thought-provoking revelation that he can successfully predict some really private info based on the candy you give out to kids as trick-or-treat. What private info? Well for starters, he can tell who you are going to vote for, the age of your wife and even the number of daughters you have.
These kind of demonstrations show how “Big data” can be used in to solve problems related to almost every practical field of life. Mr. Usmani went on to explain that here are half a million publicly available data sets for every American and 37,000 distinct values can be found about every American by simply utilizing this data. He stated that as of now, an average person(in the U.S) produces around 1 T.B of data per year but in a few years, this will become tenfolds to 10 TB of data per annum! This shows a big potential for data scientists as it will be creating a lot of data that needs to be sorted through to find the right things and as a result, the demand for data scientists is going to sky-rocket.
His small startup, PredictifyMe, which consists of only 53 employees right now, recently raised over $1.25 Million in funding to delve into the fields of data science.
Suicide Bombings in Pakistan
Starting off as a doctoral work for his PhD degree on big data, his work evolved and led him to create his own company, Predictify Me with the the philosophy of “code for life”. He believes that “every line of code we write should have an impact on someone’s life around the world”. This is in line with his mission of prevention of suicide bombings which he has been pursuing tirelessly for the past 10 years! Talking about his motivations to work in the area, he said,
“There is a suicide bombing somewhere in the world every 33 hours and a suicide bombing in Pakistan every 6th day. There is an IED attack in the world every 11 hours…I’ve asked myself what as a computer scientist I can do to solve this problem. BlastSim came out of this thought in 8 years.”
Unlike U.S’s way of using classified information, Mr.Usmani took advantage of the vast number of freely-available data from public records: Hospitals, Police, Media, etc. in his work. Due to the lax laws in Pakistan over data, he also knows confidential details like where the bomber was standing, what shrapnel he used and where he exploded.
“[We] have the largest data set on earth when it comes to suicide bombings”, he said.
Through this data, he has managed to come up with his own injury model, a Usmani-Kirk model that can be used to detect the exact amount of explosives, casualties, injuries, etc. with upto 90% accuracy using the software “Blast-Sim” and can be used to predict the same. The software is one of a kind, having the option to fill in almost every single detail you can think of like the height, weight of bomber, temperature of environment, details about the bomb(weight/amount of explosive, type of bomb), nearby cars(and even the amount of petrol in them), trees, number of people around, and a whole lot of other options. There is even an option to evaluate data in 3D!
“If, for example, a suicide bombing happened and all you learn is that 13 people were killed and another 12 were injured, my software can regenerate the whole scene for you—just like in a CSI: Miami episode.” – he claims.
Adding to its complexity, medical records of people can be used to predict if the impact of the bomb from where they are standing will kill them or not. Mr Usmani highlighted the massive implications that can be derived by data analysis, covering but not restricted to:
Minimizing damage by suicide attack: In Pakistan, according to Mr. Usmani, only 25 kilograms of explosives can be carried by the bomber with good concealment, an amount only effective within 22 metres of range. This makes them recommend to building authorities to make the security gate at least 30 metres away from the building.
Triage of Patients: Using the software, accurate predictions can be made about the injuries of the patients to ensure fast treatment.
Forensic Analysis: He claims to determine who conducted the attack with an accuracy of 93% just by examining the medical/legal reports of the patients, as every terrorist organization has a different blast signature.
Survivors: In case of a lot of post-explosion debris, this software can determine the chance of remaining life among the bomb-victims, and allow the emergency teams to dig in the right place where there is a high-chance of survivors.
Narrating an incidence where he demonstrated the software, back in December of 2009, when a tragic bomb blast on a Shi’ite procession on the day of Ashura was immediately termed as a suicide bomb attack; he was the first one to claim that be not! Sure enough, a few days later, it turned out to be a remote-controlled bomb attack. Javed Akbar Riaz, superintendent of police for the area of Karachi where the blast occurred, commended Mr. Usmani’s help in determining the nature of attack.
Some Statistics from Pakistan
His company analyzed a total of 129-threat cities in Pakistan and here are some eye-opening statistics about suicide-bombing in Pakistan,
In Pakistan, one IED attack occurs every 67 hours.
March-September is the most-dangerous period in terms of suicide bombings, the tendency reaching maximum in September. There have been 33 suicide bomb attacks in just the past 3 years in the month of September.
Peshawar has the highest number of attacks.
Very few suicide bomb attacks have ever been recorded in the Islamic month of Zil-Haj.
Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan(TTP) doesn’t conduct suicide bombings in Balochistan.
September 22 is the most dangerous date! Almost every year, there is a suicide bomb on this date.
Sectarian attacks have decreased in frequency in the last few years, but there intensity has increased drastically.
Thursday is the favorite day for suicide bombers.
Zeeshan Usmani is also the founder of PakistanBodyCount.org, a website dedicated to providing accurate statistics about suicide attacks as well as drone attacks.
Predicting A Suicide Bombing Before it has Happened
With their whole treasure-trove of data, Zeeshan Usmani boasts a 72% accuracy in predicting a suicide bombing before it even happens. Although he can’t pinpoint the exact location yet, his team is working on it. As of now, he can predict the attack days before the attack happens using a software called Soothsayer, developed at PredictifyME. Out of a total 19 predictions made by his company, 15 proved to be true, which is a big achievement and is miles ahead of other publicly-available softwares.
Soothsayer makes the prediction by analyzing a total of 200 indicators including weather, sporting events, major holidays, attacks in nearby countries, visits by international dignitaries and the emergence and popularity of a blasphemous video on YouTube or Facebook. Numerous factors are taken into account to make a pattern out of the factors while predicting an attack.
“There might be a heat wave, extreme cold weather, or there might be something else. For example, TNT is often used in Pakistan in the mining industry. Now, summer months like June and July are very, very hot, so the mining industry is not active in those months. So if you examine blast patterns, you do not find TNT being used as an explosive in those months because TNT is not readily available due to the seasonal halt of the mining industry. That’s a pattern right there. The second thing is we have more bombs in the month of March and September. These are the months for plowing the fields, so the terrorists use the calcium ammonium nitrate used in agriculture—these are the so-called “fertilizer bombs.” (The Brown Journal of World Affairs)
In a sense, Zeeshan Usmani, along his team of data scientists, is like a modern Sherlock Holmes for suicide bomb attacks, re-enacting the whole environment with bits and pieces of data, and then extracting the essential information. Only in this case, he doesn’t only extract the information about the culprit, but can also predict the next moves in advance and then recommend the safety measures to protect against such attacks. Genius!
On the topic of how many schools in Pakistan are using PredictifyMe’s softwares, he said they have started in Pakistan with one school a while ago, and are looking to increase that number to 1,000. They also plan to launch this program in another countries including Nigeria, Sudan and Lebanon.
What Next?
Discussing his future plans with our team, Mr. Usmani seemed hopeful to look into worldwide school shootings after successful implementation of this program, starting from Pakistan and the US. Meanwhile, his company PredictifyMe is working on a product called HourGlass, a data analytical tool to generate its own “artificial big data”.
He ended his talk by advising all the attendees to read as much as they can because that’s the only way to progress in the competitive field of today. You can access Mr.Usmani’s own books via this link.
× TechJuice for Browser: Get breaking news notifications on your browser.Editor's note: Larry Alex Taunton is the founder and executive director of the Fixed Point Foundation. This article is adapted from his book “The Grace Effect: How the Power of One Life Can Reverse the Corruption of Unbelief.”
By Larry Alex Taunton, Special to CNN
(CNN)– I first met Christopher Hitchens at the Edinburgh International Festival. We were both there for the same event, and foremost in my mind was the sort of man I would meet.
A journalist and polemicist, his reputation as a critic of religion, politics, Britain's royal family, and, well, just about everything else was unparalleled. As an evangelical, I was certain that he would hate me.
When the expected knock came at my hotel room door, I braced for the fire-breather who surely stood on the other side of it. With trepidation, I opened it and he burst forth into my room. Wheeling on me, he began the conversation as if it was the continuance of some earlier encounter:
“The Archbishop of Canterbury has effectively endorsed the adoption of Sharia law. Can you believe that? Whatever happened to a Church of England that believed in something?” He alternated between sips of his Johnnie Walker and steady tugs on a cigarette.
My eyebrows shot up. “‘Believed in something?’ Why, Christopher, you sound nostalgic for a church that actually took the Bible seriously.”
He considered me for a moment and smiled. “Indeed. Perhaps I do.”
There was never a formal introduction. There was no need for one. From that moment, I knew that I liked him. We immediately discovered that we had much in common. We were descendants of martial traditions; we loved literature and history; we enjoyed lively discussion with people who didn’t take opposition to a given opinion personally; and we both found small talk boring.
Over the next few years, we would meet irregularly. The location was invariably expensive, a Ritz Carlton or a Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. He disliked cheap restaurants and cheap liquor. In his view, plastic menus were indicative of bad food. I never ate so well as when I was with Hitch.
More than bad food, however, he disliked unintelligent conversation. “What do you think about gay marriage?” He didn’t wait for a response. “I don’t get it. I really don’t. It’s like wanting the worst of both worlds.” He drank deeply of his whiskey. “I mean, if I was gay, I would console myself by saying, ‘Well, I’m gay, but at least I don’t have to get married.’” That was classic Hitch. Witty. Provocative. Unpredictable.
Calling him on his cell one day, he sounded like he was flat on his back. Breathing heavily, there was desperation in his voice.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, anticipating some tragedy.
“Only minutes ago, I was diagnosed with esophageal cancer.” He was almost gasping.
I didn’t know what to say. No one ever does in such moments, so we resort to meaningless stock phrases like, “I’m sorry.” Instead, I just groaned. I will never forget his response:
“I had plans for the next decade of my life. I think I should cancel them.”
He asked me to keep the matter private until he could tell his family and make the news public. Hesitatingly, I told him that while I knew that he did not believe in such things, I would pray for him. He seemed genuinely moved by the thought.
“We are still on for our event in Birmingham, right?” He asked. I was stunned. Sensing my surprise, he continued. “I have made a commitment,” he insisted. “Besides, what else am I going to do? I can’t just sit around waiting to die.”
Hitchens brothers debate if civilization can survive without God
As time approached, he suggested a road trip from his D.C. apartment to my home in Birmingham, Alabama.
“Flying has become a humiliating experience, don’t you think?” He said. “Besides, I haven’t taken a road trip in 20 years and it will give us a chance to talk and for me to finally take you up on your challenge.”
Arriving in Washington some five months after his diagnosis, I was shocked by his appearance. Heavy doses of chemotherapy had left him emaciated, and hairless but for his eyelashes. His clothes hung off of him as though he were a boy wearing a man’s garments. He was, nonetheless, looking forward to our journey, having packed a picnic lunch and, predictably, enough Johnnie Walker for a battalion. After breakfast with his lovely wife, Carol, and his sweet daughter, Antonia, Hitch and I headed south on an eleven-hour road trip.
“Have you a copy of Saint John with you?” He asked with a smile. “If not, you know I do actually have one.” This was a reference to my challenge of two years before: a joint study of the Gospel of John. It was my assertion that he had never really read the Bible, but only cherry-picked it.
“Not necessary.” I was smiling, too. “I brought mine.”
A few hours later we were wending our way through the Shenandoah Valley on a beautiful fall morning. As I drove, Hitch read aloud from the first chapter of John’s Gospel. We then discussed its meaning. No cameras, no microphones, no audience. And that always made for better conversation with Hitch. When he referenced our journey in a televised debate with David Berlinski the next day, various media representatives descended on me to ask about our “argument.” When I said that we didn’t really argue, they lost interest.
But that was the truth. It was a civilized, rational discussion. I did my best to move through the prologue verse by verse, and Christopher asked thoughtful questions. That was it.
A bit put off by how the Berlinski event had played out, Hitch suggested we debate one another. Friend though he was, I knew that Hitch could be a savage debater. More than once I had chaired such engagements where Hitch went after his opponents remorselessly.
Hence, I was more than a bit anxious. Here he was, a celebrated public intellectual, an Oxonian, and bestselling author, and that is to say nothing of that Richard Burton-like, aristocratic, English-accented baritone. That always added a few I.Q. points in the minds of people. With hesitation, I agreed.
We met in Billings, Montana. Hitch had once told me that Montana was the only state he had never been in. I decided to complete his tour of the contiguous United States and arranged for the two of us to meet there. Before the debate, a local television station sent a camera crew over to interview us.
When he was asked what he thought of me, a Christian, and an evangelical at that, Hitch replied: “If everyone in the United States had the same qualities of loyalty and care and concern for others that Larry Taunton had, we'd be living in a much better society than we do.”
I was moved. Stunned, really. As we left, I told him that I really appreciated the gracious remark.
“I meant it and have been waiting for an opportunity to say it.”
Later that night we met one another in rhetorical combat. The hall was full. Christopher, not I, was of course the real attraction. He was at the peak of his fame. His fans had traveled near and far to see him demolish another Christian. Overall, it was a hard-fought but friendly affair. Unknown to the audience were the inside jokes. When I told a little story from our road trip, he loved it.
The debate over, I crossed the stage to shake Christopher’s hand. “You were quite good tonight,” he said with a charming smile as he accepted my proffered hand. “I think they enjoyed us.”
“You were gentle with me,” I said as we turned to walk off the stage.
He shook his head. “Oh, I held nothing back.” He then surveyed the auditorium that still pulsed with energy. “We are still having dinner?” he asked.
“Absolutely.”
After a quick cigarette on the sidewalk near the backstage door, he went back inside to meet his fans and sign their books.
There was something macabre about it all. I had the unsettling feeling that these weren’t people who cared about him in the least. Instead, they seemed like a bunch of groupies who wanted to have a photo taken with a famous but dying man, so that one day they could show it to their buddies and say, “I knew him before he died.” It was a sad spectacle.
Turning away, I entered the foyer, where 30 or so Christians greeted me excitedly. Mostly students, they were encouraged by what had happened onstage that night. Someone had spoken for them, and it had put a bounce in their step. One young man told me that he had been close to abandoning his faith, but that the debate had restored his confidence in the truth of the gospel. Another student said that she saw how she could use some of the same arguments. It is a daunting task, really, debating someone of Hitchens' intellect and experience, but if this cheery gathering of believers thought I had done well, then all of the preparation and expense had been worth it.
The next day, the Fixed Point Foundation staff piled into a Suburban and headed for Yellowstone National Park. Christopher and I followed behind in a rented pick-up truck. Accompanied by Simon & Garfunkel (his choice), we drove through the park at a leisurely pace and enjoyed the grandeur of it all.
The second chapter of John’s Gospel was on the agenda: The wedding at Cana where Jesus turned water into wine. “That is my favorite miracle,” Hitch quipped.
Lunching at a roadside grill, he regaled our staff with stories. Afterwards, he was in high spirits.
“That’s quite a - how shall I put it? A clan? - team that you’ve got there,” he said, watching the teenage members of our group clamber into the big Chevrolet.
“Yes, it is,” I said, starting the truck. “They enjoyed your stories.”
“I enjoy them.” He reclined his seat and we were off again. “Shall we do all of the national parks?”
“Yes, and maybe the whole Bible, too,” I suggested playfully. He gave a laugh.
“Oh, and Larry, I’ve looked at your book.” He added.
“And?”
“Well, all that you say about our conversation is true, but you have one detail wrong.”
“And what is that?” I feared a total rewrite was coming.
“You have me drinking Johnnie Walker Red Label. That’s the cheap stuff. I only drink Black Label.”
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Larry Alex Taunton.Karen McDougal attends Playboy’s Super Saturday Night Party at Sagamore Hotel on February 6, 2010 in Miami Beach, Florida. Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Playboy
It’s no secret that the National Enquirer has been a big Donald Trump ally throughout the presidential campaign. And apparently it’s even paying to not have stories that could be damaging to the presidential candidate appear elsewhere. The tabloid bought the rights to a former Playboy model’s story of her 2006 affair with Donald Trump but then never published it, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In August, the National Enquirer sealed a $150,000 contract with Karen McDougal, who was the 1998 Playmate of the Year and told friends she had a 10-month consensual relationship with Trump while he was married to Melania. McDougal apparently thought the tabloid would publish a story on the alleged affair but it never happened, apparently pulling what is known as a “catch and kill” in the tabloid business. According to a contract reviewed by the Journal, McDougal was forbidden from going with her story elsewhere.
American Media Inc. vehemently denied it had “paid people to kill damaging stories about Mr. Trump.” The company said the $150,000 contract wasn’t just for life rights to stories of any relationships she had with any married men but also for two years of fitness columns and magazine covers. Trump’s campaign said any claims that McDougal had an affair with Trump are “totally untrue.”
The Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan notes that the piece about the Enquirer is the latest example of a side of the media that has been all too often on display during the campaign:
Combine this with the debunked reporting by Fox News of a likely Clinton indictment after the election, and then add in the much-tweeted photo of CNN’s paid pundit Corey Lewandowski shoulder-to-shoulder with Trump’s campaign brass, labeled “teamwork,” and the conclusion is obvious: We’re ending this campaign deep in the journalistic gutter.
The worst of the media is on full display, as if someone had set out to show just how terrible we hacks could look in these last moments before Election Day.The form factor of this keyboard just doesn’t look right. What’s missing? Oh, the numpad has been completely removed! We use our numpad almost exclusively (especially when coding) so it’s a little hard to figure out why [Ludw] did this. His only mention of motive is that he wanted the mouse closer to the main part of the keyboard and that he didn’t use the numpad. No matter what the reason, we still think he did an amazing job of giving new life to the older keyboard.
It started out as a plain old beige Cherry G80-3000 keyboard. After cracking open the case [Ludw] carefully traced out the connections between the key matrix and the PCB which provides the USB connection. This is because the controller is mounted over on the part of the PCB he his about to remove. Before making the cuts he desoldered all seventeen switches (these can be reused to fabricate a new keyboard, or add switches to various projects). He then lopped off the depopulated substrate and used point-to-point soldering to reconnect the controller. A bit of case alteration removed the extra space while also reusing the nicely molded edges. A clean and tidy paint job finishes the hack.
[via Reddit]PULASKI COUNTY, Ark. (KTHV) -- Pulaski County law enforcement agencies are warning women that someone is pretending to be a police officer in order to pull them over.
Three times in the span of a week, a man has attempted to pull over women in Sherwood and Jacksonville. In the first two incidents, the suspect followed the victims from Sherwood to Jacksonville. In the third incident, the suspect pulled over a female driver in Sherwood.
“I don’t know what he could’ve done, what he had on him, or anything,” the woman said. She agreed to share her story with THV11 on the condition of anonymity.
The fake officer followed her northbound on Highway 107 late Saturday night. After following her for a couple miles, he flashed a solitary blue light at her and she pulled over to the side of the road.
“And it was pitch black where we were,” she recalled, “and it was kind of like, this doesn’t seem right. Because any normal cop car has their spotlights, and the bar blue lights and all that stuff. And a actual flashlight, not a cell phone light.”
The imposter approached her window, further raising her suspicions. “He didn’t have, like, a uniform on, or anything like that,” she stated. “He was, like, in a gray hoodie-type jacket, with khaki pants.”
He claimed he was a Sherwood police officer, but refused to provide identification. He asked the woman to get out of her car, but she refused. He also would not explain why he pulled her over, so she grabbed her phone and put her car in gear.
“I was like, ‘well, I’m on the phone with dispatch right now,’” she mentioned. “As soon as I said that and started to pull off, he got in his car and took off back into Sherwood.”
Sergeant Jason Hopkins of the Sherwood police department said the woman was smart to call 9-1-1, to make sure he was not a real officer. He mentioned that all official police cars will have bar lights either on top of the vehicle or above the dash, and their headlights will also flash during a traffic stop.
Even though she made several good decisions, the woman knows the first thing she did was a mistake.
“Don’t pull over in the dark,” she stated. “Which I shouldn’t have done. My dad has taught me not to do that, but I did!”
Hopkins said a real officer will understand if a driver continues, slowly, to a well-lit area instead of pulling over in the dark.
“You never know what somebody could really do,” the woman mentioned. “You never know. Somebody could be sneaking around the other side of your car, you know, you never really know. Especially because all this happens kind of late at night, I guess.
“I’m glad I can be able to tell my story and make people more aware of, be cautious of what you’re doing, of people around you, especially in that kind of situation.”
After the woman drove away from the impersonator, she had to stop a few blocks away because her nerves would not let her keep driving.
“I knew, if I let him know that I was scared, or nervous, or anything, he could’ve took advantage of that and made it worse. So I just kind of was like, I was scared, but I kept it in until I realized he was gone, and my emotions set in. And I was really shaky. Like, when the two police officers got there, they asked me for my driver’s license, and my hands were shaking, I was shaking. And they were like, ‘it’s okay, just calm down.’”
The Jacksonville police department did not mention what happened in the cases that ended there. The suspect in both instances was described as having short, brown hair, and was driving a silver truck that resembles a Ford Explorer Sport Trac. A spokesperson for Jacksonville PD said the department does not have any vehicles like that in its fleet.
The man who pulled her over the woman in Sherwood driving a white sedan, which she said looked like a Chevrolet Impala.Recently, I was hit by one C++11 gotcha. It is funny: I know about it, I have blogged about it, and nonetheless I still fell into the trap.
Do you remember my other post on efficient optional values? I am using the tool at work, and I tried to define an empty-state policy for std::string. Which value of std::string can be “spared” to represent the non-value? I am pretty sure it cannot be the empty string. Empty strings are used too often for various purposes, and I can easily imagine that in many applications one may want to distinguish between an empty string an not-a-string. Fortunately, there exist better candidates. For instance, in my programs I never need to use character '^' and even if other people use it, they most likely never need the control character of numeric value 2. Or a string composed of three characters of numeric value 0. (Remember, std::string can contain many zeros). I decided to give the users a choice: my policy is a template, and one can specify which special character to use, and how many times it is to be repeated:
template <char CH, size_t SIZE> struct empty_string_policy { static std::string empty_value() // may allocate { return std::string{SIZE, CH}; } static bool is_empty_value(const std::string& v) // no alloc { return v.size() == SIZE && std::all_of(v.begin(), v.end(), [](char c){ return c == CH; }); } };
Suppose, you want to represent the not-a-string value as three null characters. You just define an alias that reflects that:
using Null3Policy = empty_string_policy<'\0', 3>;
When I used it in my program, I observed that it had a bug. After a while of investigation, the problem boiled down to the following assertion:
Null3Policy p; assert (p.is_empty_value(p.empty_value()));
Apparently, function is_empty_value checks something else than what function empty_value creates. But which is wrong and how?
Note that I used braces to initialize the returned string. As indicated in this post, brace initialization is intended to be a superior alternative to the old-style function-call-like syntax. We are also aware (or are we?) about the container initialization gotcha related to this feature: namely, the sequence constructor (the one with std::initializer_list ) could be inadvertently selected. But it is not our case. We are passing an object of type size_t as the first argument. While size_t is convertible to char, it is definitely a narrowing conversion, and as we know, triggering a narrowing conversion in brace-initialization would result in compile-time failure (and our test compiles fine). Here is a relevant quote from the C++ (11) standard. 8.5.4/3:
List-initialization of an object or reference of type T is defined as follows: […] if T is a class type, constructors are considered. The applicable constructors are enumerated and the best one is chosen through overload resolution. If a narrowing conversion is required to convert any of the arguments, the program is ill-formed.
So, empty_value looks fine; maybe, then, the problem is in is_empty_value. The natural way (for me) to check which one it is, is to inspect the value after creation with the debugger. But the debugger displays an empty string. No wonder, it displays it as a C-string, and I wanted all zeros. But even when I change my policy to empty_string_policy<'^', 3> I get the same bug, and the debugger still renders an empty string. Only when I inspect the underlying array in a binary mode, do I observe that the first character is '\3'. So, it looks, it might have been the sequence constructor after all. I check the string size: it is 2. The sequence constructor; but if this be the case, how did it survive the narrowing conversion?
The answer lies in another surprising C++ behavior. There is no narrowing conversion in our example! If we read the standard, it says 8.5.4/7:
A narrowing conversion is an implicit conversion […] from an integer type or unscoped enumeration type to an integer type that cannot represent all the values of the original type, except where the source is a constant expression and the actual value after conversion will fit into the target type and will produce the original value when converted back to the original type.
This means that whether a conversion is narrowing or not depends not only on the source and target types, but also on the converted value! In a way this makes sense. As long as the compiler knows the value, it can see that there is no risk of loosing the information about the value after the conversion, so it can safely allow it.
My takeaway from this experience is this. I still maintain that the containers’ constructor where you specify the size is bug-prone (as indicated in this post). If you have to use it (I had to, in my example) never, ever, ever use braces. Even when you know it is absolutely safe. Do you think you know C++?
AdvertisementsI’m a snob about Japanese fashion. After living and shopping in Tokyo for a couple of years, I could no longer go shopping in the US — I had no patience for it. The styles, silhouettes, creativity, and perfection of fashion in Tokyo just don’t exist anywhere else in the world.
You might be thinking I'm a pretentious snob, right? But I promise I’m actually on decently sound footing here.
Valerie Steele, a fashion historian at the Fashion Institute of Technology and director of the school's museum, is with me. "In Tokyo, you have access to so many really brilliant designers," she says. "I think shopping in Tokyo is the best shopping in the world.”
Apart from the creativity, she says, ”Japanese are very concerned with quality and with attention to detail — much more than Americans who really wouldn’t know a good garment from a bad one for the most part.... But the Japanese are looking very carefully at every detail, the material, construction, etc. and have very high standards of what qualifies as good, well-made clothing.”
Uniqlo, Japan’s largest apparel retailer, opened a store in New York City in 2006. I was over the moon. Finally, I could get Japanese clothing in the US.
In Japan, Uniqlo isn’t exactly considered "fashion." It sells relatively cheap, well-made basics. But basics cut in a Japanese style, with that attention to detail? Here in the US, that is a kind of fashion. And Uniqlo has become really popular.
”The key example I think of is the little puffer jacket that Uniqlo launched," Steele says. "Now you see everybody wearing it, everyone from kids on the street, housewives, workers, to the trendiest fashion people.”
And with their special "techno-fabrics" and collaborations with well-known designers, Uniqlo has become a mainstay in the retail and fashion worlds. This fall, Uniqlo nearly doubled the number of stores it operates in the US, opening new branches from Los Angeles to Boston.
There’s also been a lot of appreciative gushing over Uniqlo’s Japanese-inspired customer service. Employees are taught to present and take customer credit cards with two hands, in formal Japanese style.
“You greet the customer always smiling, perfect posture, things like that," explains Delese Baker, a store supervisor at Uniqlo’s Soho store. "At meetings, everyone’s supposed to stand feet apart, hands in the front — always have your badges, notepads.”
There are even "Six Standard Phrases" that every Uniqlo employee has to memorize: phrases they chant to each other at store meetings. There are a lot of rules, and expectations are high. "These shirts right here that are button-down, you’re supposed to be able to fold seven in a minute,” Baker explains cheerily.
It all makes for a pleasant shopping experience. But all the nitpicky rules, rigorous standards and emphasis on perfection have also generated some flack.
Japan is known for its rigid work culture, where long hours are the norm. But even by Japanese standards, Uniqlo has a particularly bad reputation.
Fumihito Matsuo, a former Uniqlo store manager in Tokyo, says the working environment at Uniqlo was just bad — strict enough to be the military. “In Japan, Uniqlo is known as a 'black company,'" he says.
"Black" or "evil" companies are ones that exploit their workers, harrassing them and forcing them to work excessive hours and unpaid overtime. Some ex-workers in the US have said it’s worse |
I had never kept a diary before. It wasn’t really my go. Since I made the move from Dalby in the Darling Downs to Brisbane, I’ve been happy to live in the moment, set goals for the future and not spend too much time dwelling on the past.
All that changed a few months ago. The need to write a diary was overwhelming. Part of it was to give me a place to vent – about frustrations and pain and tiny, little wins – without bothering everyone around me. And the other was to keep an historical record of the journey I’m on; a journey every footy player dreads.
THE ACCIDENT, THE PAIN & THE BAD NEWS
For most people who watch rugby league, or any sport for that matter, the scenario goes like this: you watch a player hobble off the ground with a serious injury and then, however many months later, you see them sprint back out on the field again. They don’t see what happens in between.
That’s my story right now – the in-between bit – and I’d like to share it with you.
It was Round 21 and we were playing the Eels at ANZ Stadium. With ten minutes to go, Michael Jennings made a dash out of dummy half and put through a grubber near our line. Adam Blair and I were on either side of Jennings and closed in. We ended up colliding. Adam took out my knee. The pain was sharp and immediate.
It was just bad timing. A freak accident that my leg would get caught where it did. I’ve been in plenty of tackles like that before where I’ve just gone over the top of the other guys and my leg hasn’t been caught. I didn’t know how damaged the knee was. I was hoping it was a medial and I’d be back in a few weeks.
It was throbbing a bit on the flight home to Brissie – I had an aisle seat, so it wasn’t too bad – and I drove to Qscan in Windsor to see the specialist.
It was the news I was dreading.
ACL.
Nine months out.
Surgery next week.
Shit.
THE LONG ROAD BACK
I was pretty emotional, I’ll be honest. I went up the street to be alone by myself for a while. The previous week we’d beaten the Bulldogs 42-12 and I was man-of-the-match. The Broncos were making a strong run for the finals and I was feeling confident in my game, having got the late call-up to the Maroons’ Origin camp earlier in the year. What an experience that was.
Suddenly, it was all over. I called Mum and Dad, Wendy and Graeme. I can’t quite explain why, but I felt like I had let them down. I know it doesn’t make sense, but that’s how I felt.
They drive the six-hour round trip from Dalby to Brisbane for every home game and seeing them is my favourite time of the week. They’ve had to get rid of their old Subaru Forester because of the hundreds of thousands of kilometres on the clock from watching me play! They get home about 1am the next day after most of our games.
I also called my fiancée, Carlie. We’re getting married at Elements in Byron Bay in January. Now, as well as organising everything for the big day, she was going to have to inject anti-blood clot medication into my stomach, help me in and out of the shower and who-knows-what-else.
One of the big goals in my recovery is being at full health and confident in the leg when we walk down the aisle together. It’s something to strive for.
The need to write a diary was overwhelming. Part of it was to give me a place to vent – about frustrations and pain and tiny, little wins – without bothering everyone around me.
I just felt … I don’t know. Empty? Angry? Sad? I haven’t got the right word. The weather was getting warmer. The crowds were getting bigger. My defence was good and my attacking game improving and I felt like I was playing the best footy of my career. And then – gone. All in a moment.
32 PILLS A DAY
The next week was the hardest, in between getting the bad news and going under the knife. You feel like you’re standing still without making any progress.
The doctor gave me a bag – like a big bloody Coles bag – of tablets to take. Panamax. Endone. Tramadol. There’s a few I can’t remember. It was eight tablets in one set, taken four times a day. That’s your blood clot, pain, everything. It was around 32 pills-a-day plus an injection from Carlie once a night for the first ten days. They were for blood clots.
I’m surprised that I find myself sharing this next part with you because, as I’m writing this, I haven’t actually told my fiancée about it yet! It’s about the diary. It was just something that came to me. When I looked at what was ahead of me in one clump, I was looking at more than 250 days until I would be back playing.
It was a bit daunting. So I thought I would break it down day-by-day.
One of the big goals in my recovery is being at full health and confident in the leg when we walk down the aisle together. It’s something to strive for.
I wrote about the bad days and the good days. I wrote about how good it felt the first time I had a proper shower without a garbage bag around my leg (I stayed in there for 20 minutes!). And I wrote about my frustration when I tore my hamstring a little bit working on my knee.
I’ve been writing about how I’m feeling and try to finish with a few dots points about good things in my life. The wedding. The boys dropping around for a visit. Lunch with Carlie. Anything that might help me finish the day off on a positive.
I’ve also been doing a bit of reading, which I wouldn’t have had time to do if I was playing. I’ve just about finished The Mindful Athlete, which is written by a fella called George Mumford who was a bit of a leadership mentor for Michael Jordan.
THE BIGGEST INSPIRATION OF ALL
But there’s one thing, more than any other, that puts everything back in perspective if I find myself getting a bit sooky about my situation. Jharal Yow Yeh is making a video documentary about my recovery and we spend quite a bit of time talking to each other.
For those who aren’t familiar with Jharal’s story, he had the world at his feet. He was scoring tries all over the place for the Broncos, Queensland and Australia before suffering the most sickening ankle injury you could imagine. He put himself through hell to get back but that injury ended up finishing his career. He was 24 at the time.
Jharal has more reason than most to mope – he’s probably taken triple the pain medicine I’ve had to and spent countless more hours in rehab – but he’s the most positive person you’ll ever meet.
He’s always around the club and I hope that by documenting my recovery on camera he might be able to sell it or attract a bit of attention from a media company, because he’s a fair dinkum wizz when it comes to shooting and editing and putting music to vision. For me, it’s something I can look back on and hopefully learn from.
In a shit situation, working together with him is something we can both gain from.
THE HARD WORK THE FANS DON’T SEE
Jharal and I sit and watch training sometimes and talk a bit about his journey. He’s been great. Tautau Moga and Jordan Kahu, my teammates at the Broncos, have both dealt with long-term injuries and they’ve had advice to give. I’ve also spoken to guys like Kurtley Beale, Clint Gutherson and Josh Mansour. Any little tip and insight helps.
Jharal has more reason than most to mope – he’s probably taken triple the pain medicine I’ve had to and spent countless more hours in rehab – but he’s the most positive person you’ll ever meet.
Gamedays are the hardest. I was saying that to Wayne Bennett the other day. I love watching the Broncos win but, gee, it’s hard not being part of it. You’d rather be out there and lose than not play at all.
It’s also hard knowing that there’s a massive chance I won’t get to play club footy with Benny Hunt again. We’ve been playing together since the under 12s and with him signing a five-year deal with the Dragons and me resigning with the Broncos for another four, that might be it for us.
But, more than anything, I’m absolutely determined to be back for Round 1. That will mean no Mad Monday, or really scaling it back, and shortening my holiday because I want to take advantage of every day, every hour in my rehab. I’ll be back a month before the rest of the boys are working on getting myself right for the start of the 2018 season.
Wish me luck!This video is transcribed by Reading Islam team.
Before I became a Muslim, I was not a very conservative person, I was not a very good person.
I modeled for about five years, and during that time I did a lot of drugs. And I thought oh, I can do math, and I won’t get addicted because I’m just using it as a weight loss helper. I will just use it every once and a while to just keep myself from eating too much.
Ah right! I thought I was strong enough to not get addicted to a drug that absolutely addicts basically everyone who uses it.
So I started doing matt, and I would probably give it a couple of weeks and then I got really addicted to it, and I did it all day and all night for five years. And it really brought me to a place of complete rock bottom.
My husband at that time had been doing it with me, and he started getting violent with me, and I was afraid for my life.
So I decided to quit. I decided that was not what I wanted for my life, and I told him “I said I’m going to quit.” And he laughed at me and said “Yes, right. You are not going to quit!” and I said “You know what, I’m going to quit”.
I quit that day completely, never again looked back. I didn’t have any time for rehab, no outside help nor support system. I had my husband laughing at me and trying to get me to do it again.
After that I had my little boy. My whole focus on life kind of changed. I had this wonderful little boy who needed a good mother and I loved him so much, I wanted to change everything that I focused on for him.
Back in the day, I could do anything I wanted. I was very involved in basically the Hollywood scene that anybody would want to be involved in. A lot of people are surprised that I gave that up in order to become a Muslim, but the funny thing is when I said my shahadah the desire to do all those things was completely taken away from me. I used to drink, did drugs, and all that stuff. I don’t want to do them anymore. It is amazing to me, I really enjoy and feel peaceful in my heart about being a Muslim.
I was born and raised non-denominational charismatic born-again Christian, and I didn’t find answers for what I was looking for, for 31 years as a Christian, I never really felt God. I tried this as hard as I could. I really did and I never felt Him.
The whole thing that started leading me to Islam was that I got married to an Iranian man who was a very devout born-again charismatic non-denominational Christian, and he was mentally and emotionally abusive to me, not to mention that fact that he was poisoning me, just so that he could control me, to keep me at home not being able to leave the house just to know where I would be all the times.
So I left him, and that kind started me on a whole new journey to see what was really going on in the world.
Researching Islam and Finding Peace
I researched Islam for a while before I chose to convert. Basically, I wanted to know why people hated Muslims so much because I saw what I saw in the news. I saw oppression and violence and I wanted to know what really existed, and if that was the way that Islam was.
So I started researching it, and the more and more I researched it, the deeper I got into it, I saw the truth in it. I think the main thing that I liked about Islam was the respect for women. There is a large amount of respect for women and the things we do as women.
Our lives aren’t easy. We have a lot of things that we have to think and worry about; our families, our husbands, our children and we have to bear children. That’s really a very hard thing to go through.
And you know, a lot of us have to cook, clean, raise children and take care of the house and the husband. It’s a difficult job. And the fact that Islam respects women for that, and they separate us at mosques so that the men are not distracted by us because Islam understands the power that we have behind, I guess you could say, our sexuality.
The way we look is really powerful to men, and they are affected by it. Islam respects that. Once I realized that, it grabbed the hold of me, and that’s when I knew I wanted to become a Muslim.
Converting to Islam made me feel different. It made me feel absolutely peaceful. I felt unstable before. I felt like a lot of things in my life were just up and down because they hadn’t been decided on. There was no goal in my mind. There was no reasoning for me being here.
I didn’t know why I should be here, and converting to Islam gave me that peace and security and the balance that I needed in my life that made everything make sense to me; that made everything real. And it made everything worth being here for, because I finally have a purpose and I understand what it is.
We don’t always have the opportunity to meet people that we essentially need to meet in order to understand them. So I started going to a mosque in order to really get close to the people and understand them. And the more I got involved in the mosque, the more the women just surrounded me and took me in, and they really showed me the kindness that is Islam.
I never ever in my life would have ever thought that I would become a Muslim. Never ever! My perception of Muslims was so misconceived that I didn’t like them because I believed media and I thought they were bad, and never in a million years would I have thought one day I would be one of them.
But now that I’m, I’m so proud and happy. I want to wear Hijab because I want people to know that I’m Muslim, even if they hate me, I don’t care. I want to show them that Allah exists in any kind of person, not just Middle Easterners.
I played drums before I was Muslim, and just because I became a Muslim doesn’t mean I have to stop doing the things that I enjoy. I do a lot of sports; snowboarding, water skiing and I still can be a good Muslim and still wear Hijab.{snip}
Let me be abundantly clear—if you are in a position of authority over children, if you are making decisions about the future of their education, and it is determined that you are a racist, or have committed a racist act, your employment should be immediately terminated.
School boards and governing bodies must have full, swift, unrestricted access to terminate the employment of bigots. They do not belong in a school system. Bigotry is fundamentally dangerous.
{snip}
On Thursday evening in Buffalo, N.Y., the local school board voted 6-2 to boot Carl Paladino from their board unless he resigns. That two people still supported him, despite his outrageous bigotry, is a painful sign of our times. Paladino, who was also co-chair of Donald Trump’s New York campaign for President, recently compared First Lady Michelle Obama to a gorilla and stated that he hoped she would be “let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe” to join other gorillas in caves in 2017.
How in the hell did this man openly and publicly say such a thing and still get two votes of confidence from his fellow board members? It’s outrageous. He should’ve been terminated immediately. That he still has a job a week later is a new insult in and of itself. If nothing else, it strongly suggests that school systems simply do not take racism seriously.
A similar fight is going down right now in Arkansas over yet another openly bigoted white man on a school board. This time, the man openly dressed in full blackface, with fake rotten teeth, and a sign that read “Blak Lives Matter.” Yes, the “c” was left out on purpose. What he did should’ve warranted his immediate termination, but he’s been fighting it off for months now. A man who is so willing to be that offensive and racist has no place making any decisions on the education of any children.
Another white school board member was found to be posting outrageously racist and bigoted memes on Facebook. This time, the board member was in Roseville, Mich., and is the Vice President of the board. A man could not post what he posted about Muslims and African Americans and treat everyone fairly. His posts revealed how he thinks of Muslims and black folk. Again, he should’ve been removed or fired immediately, but people are instead arguing for his freedom of speech.
{snip} If you are racist, and you act on your racism, you do not deserve any position inside of a school system. PERIOD!
{snip}
Original Article
Share ThisA flotilla of rigs, barges and other heavy machinery stood ready at the site on Tuesday [Reuters]
A flotilla of rigs, barges and other heavy machinery stood ready at the site on Tuesday [Reuters]
Patience is running out and anger has been growing over the oil giant's inability to stop the oil leak that sprang more than a month ago after an offshore drilling rig exploded on April 20.
Eleven workers were killed in the blast and by the most conservative estimate, 26.5 million litres of crude have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, fouling Louisiana's marshes and coating birds and other wildlife.
Leak could worsen
But the top kill procedure could also make the leak worse.
Engineers were doing at least 12 hours of diagnostic tests on Tuesday, checking five spots on the well's crippled five-storey blowout preventer to make sure it can withstand the heavy force of the mud.
A weak spot in the device could blow under the pressure, causing a brand new leak. The mud could also tear a new hole in the leaking well pipe.
BP has been drafting plans for the top kill for weeks but had to delay it several times as crews scrambled to assemble the equipment at the site 80km off the coast.
A flotilla of rigs, barges and other heavy machinery stood ready there on Tuesday with a stockpile of some 50,000 barrels of the heavy mud, a manufactured substance that resembles clay.
in depth
Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive, said chances of the top kill succeeding were 60 to 70 per cent, while Kent Wells, a BP senior vice-president, said the procedure could be delayed or scuttled if Tuesday's pressure readings were poor.
Wells said it could take anywhere from a few hours to two days to determine whether the top kill was working.
If it succeeds, BP plans to inject a stream of cement to permanently seal up the well and may also install a new blowout preventer.
BP has had limited success with a mile-long tube it installed more than a week ago to siphon up some of the oil, capturing more than 1.9 million litres but also allowing untold amounts to escape into the sea.
Once the results of Tuesday's diagnostic tests are in, BP said, it will consult with government officials, including scientists with the Minerals Management Service (MMS), before deciding whether to press on with the top kill.
Investigation ordered
But the MMS has been accused of having too cosy a relationship with the very oil companies it is supposed to have oversight of.
Ken Salazar, the US interior secretary, on Tuesday ordered an investigation into whether the rig involved in the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was properly monitored by the MMS.
The investigation follows a report citing workers from the MMS – which is under the interior department - accepting gifts and possibly allowing oil workers to fill out their own inspection reports.
An area slightly smaller than the size of Greece is now closed to fishing [GALLO/GETTY]
The report found it was commonplace before 2007 for MMS employees at a Lake Charles, Louisiana office to receive gifts including sporting event tickets and hunting trips from energy companies.
"This deeply disturbing report is further evidence of the cosy relationship between some elements of MMS and the oil and gas industry," Salazar said in a statement.
Salazar, whose interior department has been criticised in recent weeks for not doing enough to prevent the oil rig explosion, said he had directed the agency's acting inspector-general, Mary Kendall, to look into whether MMS employees adequately inspected and enforced standards on the Deepwater Horizon rig.
He also asked the inspector to determine if the improper behaviour outlined in the report had continued since he took office at the department.
The report said a confidential industry source accused some MMS inspectors of allowing energy company workers to fill out their own inspection forms for their platforms, but investigators have so far not been able to determine if any of the files they reviewed were fraudulent.
Tougher requirements
An inspector-general report released in 2008 found that MMS employees at another office received gifts, as well as used illegal drugs and had sex with workers from the oil companies they were supposed to oversee.
In response to the scandal then, Salazar instituted new ethics rules after he took the helm of the department in 2009.
Salazar and Kendall are set to testify before the House of Representatives' Natural Resource committee on Wednesday on the oil spill.
Barack Obama, the US president who on Friday is set to tour the oil-affected region for a second time, is expected to announce tougher safety requirements for off-shore oil drilling on Thursday, an administration official said on Tuesday.
Also on Tuesday, US officials expanded a fishing ban in the Gulf of Mexico by more than 20,000 square kilometres amid the spreading oil slick.
Some 140,000 square kilometres of water – an area slightly smaller than the size of Greece - are now closed to fishing, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said, but added that 77 per cent of the Gulf remains open.A world-first QUT study revealing light exposure plays a role in the weight of preschool children has been published by international research journal PLOS ONE.
PhD student Cassandra Pattinson and colleagues Simon Smith, Alicia Allan, Sally Staton and Karen Thorpe studied children aged three to five, from six Brisbane childcare centres. At time 1, they measured children's sleep, activity and light exposure for a two week period, along with height and weight to calculate their BMI, then followed up 12 months later.
"At time 1, we found moderate intensity light exposure earlier in the day was associated with increased body mass index (BMI) while children who received their biggest dose of light -- outdoors and indoors -- in the afternoon were slimmer," said Ms Pattinson of the Environmental Light Exposure is Associated with Increased Body Mass in Children study.
"At follow-up, children who had more total light exposure at Time 1 had higher body mass 12 months later. Light had a significant impact on weight even after we accounted for Time 1 body weight, sleep, and activity.
"Around 42 million children around the globe under the age of five are classified as overweight or obese so this is a significant breakthrough and a world-first.
"Artificial lighting, including light given off by tablets, mobile phones, night lights, and television, means modern children are exposed to more environmental light than any previous generation. This increase in light exposure has paralleled global increases in obesity."
The research team is from QUT's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation and the Centre for Children's Health Research.
Ms Pattinson said it is known the timing, intensity and duration of exposure to both artificial and natural light have acute biological effects in mammals.
"The circadian clock -- also known as the internal body clock -- is largely driven by our exposure to light and the timing of when that happens. It impacts on sleep patterns, weight gain or loss, hormonal changes and our mood," Ms Pattinson said
"Factors that impact on obesity include calorie intake, decreased physical activity, short sleep duration, and variable sleep timing. Now light can be added to the mix."
Ms Pattinson said the next step was to figure out how the research can be used in the fight against obesity in children.
"We plan to conduct further studies with pre-schoolers and also infants," she said.
"Animal studies have shown that timing and intensity of light exposure is critical for metabolic functioning and weight status. Our findings suggest that the same applies to us.
"This research suggests that exposure to different types of light (both artificial and natural) at different times now needs to be part of the conversation about the weight of children."Whoo, another one of my favourites! Bubba is great. I love his general design, and so I didn't want to stray from that too much - though, of course, I wanted to retain my style, as well as the ability to call this a REdesign, so I made changes where I saw fit. For instance, his stocky arms and large, defined body - Bubba strikes me as a very powerful and fearsome creature, so I tried emphasising that by making him appear to be one of the strongest of the bosses, even from a glance. His smaller head was meant to imply a...lack in mental capacity. Haha.
Bubba did not know much. Indeed, he did not even know much about himself. All he knew for certain was that he was always hungry, and that the glowy man was mean. His body ached. Oh, how it ached.
Bubba absentmindedly rubbed at the throbbing stitches coating his arm once again, the heavy chains on his wrists making a clinking noise as he did. He sniffed the air, his large ursine nostrils twitching with every inhalation of his mechanical lungs. He thought about what Glowy Man would do if he returned without the inanimate bodies of the four weird robots in his mouth, and winced at the possibilities.
Bubba, of all people, knew that the Glowy Man was bad news. After all, it was his fault that Bubba needed so many stitches.
One of the only memories that truly stood out in Bubba's mind was that of his family; or, at least, the family he'd had prior to his abduction. He'd never known his Momma Bear or Daddy Bear's names. He'd been too young to remember when he'd been stolen from them. It had been over in a literal flash - a blinding light filled his eyes, and then a pair of large arms wrapped around his tiny little body and he was whisked off, taken through the Shortcut.
Then Glowy Man had modified him; he could feel his code being altered. But no matter how much he screamed out for his Momma Bear, she had never come. Bubba was certain that whoever had owned the pair of arms which had stolen him from them had killed them whilst he'd been blinded by the light.
He grew. He grew, and he grew, and he grew, until he was taller and stockier than even the Glowy Man. Yet, the strange figure still unnerved him. Bubba felt like Glowy Man could kill him without a second thought, and so he stayed in line and did what he was told.
Bubba had been a 'pet' after that; a guard dog, of sorts. He was to guard the Pinwheel Funhouse alongside Security, being the first to any conflict.
Because of this, he sustained incredible amounts of damage after a short while. But the Glowy Man just wouldn't let him die. He kept stitching up fresh wounds and sending him back out to his doom.
And now Bubba waited once again. Waited for his next set of enemies; these ones were unique, though. They made the Glowy Man frightened. Bubba may not have been the smartest, but even he could sense fear when it presented itself.
Bubba growled as he caught sight of his targets - four relatively small animatronics, fighting their way through the many glitched out enemies in the circus. The group cut through the horde as if they were nothing. Bubba smiled slightly. These ones would be fun to kill. Or maybe, he could partner up with them and destroy his master for all of the torture he'd had to live through.
Or maybe, just maybe...
He could finally die.Vince Vaughn Confirmed for 'True Detective' Season 2; Justin Lin to Direct Two Episodes
The long-rumored and widely discussed casting of Vince Vaughn has been confirmed by HBO today. In “True Detective” Season 2, Vaughn will be playing Frank Semyon, a “career criminal” whose business partner is murdered, putting his empire at risk.
Farrell, who admitted to being in the second season this past weekend in an interview with an Irish paper, was also confirmed by the network. He will be playing Ray Velcoro, a “compromised detective” with ties to the police department and mob underworld.
Justin Lin, the director of the last three “Fast and Furious” films, was also confirmed as the director of the first two episodes. No word was given on other cast members or directors, though we know from previous reports Lin will not be directing the entire series (and saying he’ll helm the first two episodes today pretty much confirms that).
READ MORE: Colin Farrell Confirms He’s In ‘True Detective’ Season 2
Today’s news marks the first official word from HBO regarding the much-talked about casting, directing, and production rumors swirling around “True Detective.” With lensing slated to begin later this fall in California, the next questions become when Season 2 will premiere (a January release, in line with Season 1, is expected), and, of course, who will join Vaughn and Farrell in the cast.
The release makes a point to say there will be three police officers in the story, re-confirming what we already know but not going so far as to say the gender of those detectives. It’s expected two male cops and one woman will make up the three detectives with Taylor Kitsch being a name often reported as a potential addition. Jessica Biel, Elisabeth Moss and Rachel McAdams are reportedly also in the running for the last cast spot.
HBO also stated more casting news will be provided “as it is confirmed,” so expect more news from the pay cable giant soon.
From HBO:
Logline: Three police officers and a career criminal must navigate a web of conspiracy in the aftermath of a murder.
Colin Farrell as Ray Velcoro, a compromised detective whose allegiances are torn between his masters in a corrupt police department and the mobster who owns him.
Vince Vaughn as Frank Semyon, a career criminal in danger of losing his empire when his move into legitimate enterprise is upended by the murder of a business partner.
READ MORE: Are We Bound to be Disappointed By ‘True Detective’ Season 2?
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.By Ahmed Elumami
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - A car bomb went off in Libya's capital Tripoli on Monday in front of the headquarters of Mellitah, an oil and gas joint venture between Italy's ENI and Libyan state oil firm NOC, witnesses said.
"The explosion damaged the buildings around the ENI complex and burned three cars," said Omar Khadrwai, a senior security official. "No one was hurt."
A Reuters reporter said there were broken windows and damaged doors at the building located next to a state bank.
In a text message, an ENI spokesman played down the extent of the damage. "Nobody wounded and no significant damage to the office buildings," he said. ENI's joint venture partner NOC said in a statement the blast had caused only minor damage and would not impact Mellitah's operations.
ENI is still active in Libya, a major oil producer gripped by chaos and fighting. Like other Western companies, ENI has withdrawn expatriate staff.
Mellitah's biggest asset, the El Feel oilfield, has been closed for months due to a protest by local security guards. The Wafa oil and gas field and its offshore operations are still working.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the car bombing. Islamic State has claimed in the past a string of killings of foreigners as well as attacks on embassies and oilfields in Libya.
Islamic State militants have exploited chaos in the North African country, where two governments allied to a host of armed groups are fighting for control four years after the ousting of veteran leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Tripoli is controlled by a rival government which seized the capital a year ago by expelling the official premier to the east.
Tripoli government spokesman Jamal Zubia said in a message the car bombing was "an attempt to hinder the work of foreign companies." The eastern-based government blamed in a statement "terrorist groups occupying the capital."
(Reporting by Ahmed Elumami; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Hugh Lawson)On the week that we celebrated our 2nd (or 8th) birthday, it seems appropriate to share a bit about who we are. As you may know, DuckDuckGo staff are scattered across the world, mostly working remotely. So we're all sitting on the beach with a laptop in one hand and cocktail in the other, right? Not quite! Here's the view from a few of our office chairs (à la Basecamp).
Jag, Platform
Clearly Jag does not get freaked out by a ghost staring him all day. Movie trivia: it's from the animated film "Spirited Away."
Olivia, Community
Light, airy, and calm is Olivia's preferred style.
Chris, Design
You can tell Chris is on the design team. I wonder if his desk is always that clear?
Blake, Search
The desk may be small but I'm guessing there's a breathtaking scenic view behind the curtains. Right Blake?
Zac, Community
Zac's desk is actually in DuckDuckGo's headquarters in Philadelphia, shared with a dog and a robot.
Thom, Design
Another designer's desk with similar clean lines. Something tells me Thom has a deadline coming up.
Daniel, Community
And this is where I sit — a shared office with space for yoga, zen meditation, or an afternoon nap. Even ducks have to rest sometimes...Looking up at the night sky, we know that a star’s brightness can tell us something about how far away it is, and even what it’s made of. But how do we know that?
As it turns out, our system for classifying stars comes from work done by a group of female astronomers at Harvard more than a century ago. Decades before American women gained the right to vote, the astronomers of the Harvard College Observatory shattered the “glass universe,” analyzing delicate photographic plates to discern patterns in the cosmos.
“They knew they were doing something unusual, that they'd been given a remarkable opportunity, and they ran with it,” says Dava Sobel, who charted the astronomers’ story in her new book, "The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars."
Studies of the glass photographic plates were led by Edward Pickering, who directed the Harvard College Observatory from 1877 to 1919. Sobel credits him with hiring many of the earliest female staff at the observatory — although not the first ones.
“He found some women there when he got there because the resident astronomers’ wives, daughters, sisters, had already been put to work. So, there was a precedent,” she says, adding, “They also cost less to hire, an evergreen theme.”
One of the first women Pickering hired to analyze the plates was his own maid, Williamina Fleming. She went on to become a top figure in the stellar classification project, cataloging thousands of stars over a long career that also included the discoveries of tens of nebulae and novae and hundreds of variable stars. Other women followed, leading to a research setting that was unusually open for the times. “By 1896, when Annie Jump Cannon came to the observatory, she was allowed to make her own observations,” Sobel says.
Sobel explains that the female astronomers worked in pairs, with one woman examining the plate and speaking aloud what she was seeing. The plates, some as large as 11 inches by 17 inches, contained images of thousands of stars, each appearing as a little black dot on the glass. “Or, for some pictures, the light got passed through a prism,” Sobel says. “And then instead of a dot, there'd be a little smear of a strip for each star, with shades of black, white and gray.”
“When they were looking at the spectra, they were really looking at the pattern of the lines and trying to figure out which patterns made a logical category,” Sobel says. “And people needed those different categories to be able to get a taxonomy of the stars.”
If it sounds laborious, it was. But Sobel adds that at the time, the glass plates were cutting-edge technology.
“This was a new thing in astronomy, to be able to take long-exposure photographs and discover things that couldn't be seen even through the most powerful telescopes,” Sobel says. “So, they were actually making discoveries. And they were trying to figure out how much they could learn from starlight about the content of the stars, their evolutionary history, their distances.”
In "Glass Universe," Sobel writes that the women led the way here for decades, and even today, their legacy remains intact. “The monumental work of stellar classification known as the Henry Draper Catalogue and Extension, begun under Williamina Fleming in the 1880s and continued through 1940 by Annie Jump Cannon, is still in regular use.”
Sobel says that the classification system led to the understanding that different categories of stars signified different temperatures. “At the beginning, it wasn't known what they signified,” she says. “They just looked different. Now we know there are different stellar temperatures because stars have different lifestyles. And they also helped show the life stage of the star.”
Sobel adds that the Harvard astronomers also studied stellar brightness and constitution, contributing research that showed the abundance of hydrogen in the stars. Another knockout |
The face of Leopold III on a bas-relief by Pierre De Soete.
Leopold III (3 November 1901 – 25 September 1983) reigned as the King of the Belgians from 1934 until 1951, when he abdicated in favour of the heir apparent, his son Baudouin. From 1944 until 1950, Leopold's brother, Charles, served as prince regent while Leopold was declared unable to reign. Leopold's controversial actions during the Second World War resulted in a political crisis known as the Royal Question. In 1950, the debate about whether Leopold could resume his royal functions escalated. Following a referendum, Leopold was allowed to return from exile to Belgium, but the continuing political instability pressured him to abdicate in 1951.
Leopold was born in Brussels and succeeded to the throne of Belgium on 23 February 1934, following the death of his father King Albert I.
Early life and family [ edit ]
Prince Leopold was born in Brussels, the first child of King Albert I of the Belgians and his consort, Duchess Elisabeth in Bavaria. His father became King of the Belgians, as Albert I, in 1909 and Prince Leopold became Duke of Brabant, heir to the Belgian throne.
He was sent by his father to Eton College in the United Kingdom in 1915. After the war, in 1919, the Duke visited the Old Mission and Saint Anthony Seminary in Santa Barbara, California.
He married Princess Astrid of Sweden in a civil ceremony in Stockholm on 4 November 1926, followed by a religious ceremony in Brussels on 10 November. The marriage produced three children:
On 29 August 1935, while the king and queen were driving along the winding, narrow roads near their villa at Küssnacht am Rigi, Schwyz, Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Lucerne, Leopold lost control of the car which plunged into the lake, killing Queen Astrid.
Leopold married Lilian Baels on 11 September 1941 in a secret, religious ceremony, with no validity under Belgian law. They originally intended to wait until the end of the war for the civil marriage, but as the new Princess of Réthy was soon expecting their first child, the ceremony took place on 6 December 1941. They had three children in total:
Prince Alexandre of Belgium, born in Brussels on 18 July 1942. In 1991, he married Léa Wolman, a marriage revealed only seven years later. He died on 29 November 2009.
Princess Marie-Christine of Belgium, previously Mrs. Drucker and later Mrs. Gourges, born in Brussels on 6 February 1951. Her first marriage, to Paul Drucker in 1981, lasted 40 days (and formally divorced in 1985); she subsequently married Jean-Paul Gourges in 1989.
Princess Marie-Esméralda of Belgium, later Lady Moncada, born in Brussels on 30 September 1956, a journalist, her professional name is Esmeralda de Réthy. She married pharmacologist Salvador Moncada in 1998. They have a son and a daughter.
World War II [ edit ]
When World War II broke out in September 1939, the French and British governments immediately sought to persuade Belgium to join them. Leopold and his government refused, maintaining Belgium's neutrality. Belgium considered itself well-prepared against a possible invasion by Axis forces, for during the 1930s the Belgian government had made extensive preparations to deter and repel an invasion of the country by Germany such as the one that had occurred in 1914.
On 10 May 1940, the Wehrmacht invaded Belgium. On the first day of the offensive, the principal Belgian strong point of Fort Eben-Emael was overwhelmed by a daring paratroop operation and the defensive perimeter thus penetrated before any French or British troops could arrive. After a short running battle that eventually involved the armies of all four belligerents, Belgium was overwhelmed by the numerically superior and better-prepared Germans.
Nevertheless, the Belgian perseverance prevented the British Expeditionary Force from being outflanked and cut off from the coast, enabling the evacuation from Dunkirk. Alan Brooke who commanded II Corps of the BEF thought that the 10th Belgian Division was in the wrong place and wanted to deploy north of Brussels to avoid "double-banking". He was advised by Roger Keyes to see the King, and on 12 May was "making progress in getting matters put right" in discussion with the king in English, but was interrupted (twice) by the King's advisor who spoke to the King in French (in which Brooke was fluent). The advisor was insistent that the Belgian division could not be moved and the BEF should be stopped further south and clear of Brussels; Brooke said he was not putting the whole case to the king; he found that arguing with the advisor was a sheer waste of time as he cared little about the BEF and most of his suggestions were "fantastic". The King's advisor Van Overstraeten was not the Chief of Staff, as Brooke had assumed, but the king's aide-de-camp, with the rank of Major-General, and would not give up the Louvain front. The French liaison officer, General Champon, told Brooke that Van Overstraeten had ascendancy over the King and had taken control, so it was useless to see the Chief of Staff. Later (15 May) Brooke found that the BEF was likely to "have both flanks turned" with French defeats, and started withdrawal on 16 May.[1][2]
After his military surrender, Leopold (unlike Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands in a similar predicament) remained in Brussels to surrender to the victorious invaders, while his entire civil government fled to Paris and later to London.
Surrender and constitutional crisis [ edit ]
On 24 May 1940, Leopold, having assumed command of the Belgian Army, met with his ministers for the final time. The ministers urged the King to leave the country with the government. Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot reminded him that capitulation was a decision for the Belgian government, not the King. The king indicated that he had decided to remain in Belgium with his troops, whatever the outcome. The ministers took this to mean that he would establish a new government under the direction of Hitler, potentially a treasonous act. Leopold thought that he might be seen as a deserter if he were to leave the country: "Whatever happens, I have to share the same fate as my troops."[3] Leopold had long had a difficult and contentious relationship with his ministers, acting independently of government influence whenever possible, and seeking to circumvent and even limit the ministers' powers, while expanding his own.[3]
French, British, and Belgian troops were encircled by German forces at the Battle of Dunkirk. Leopold notified King George VI by telegram on 25 May 1940 that Belgian forces were being crushed, saying "assistance which we give to the Allies will come to an end if our army is surrounded".[4] Two days later (27 May 1940), Leopold surrendered the Belgian forces to the Germans.
Prime Minister Pierlot spoke on French radio, saying that the King's decision to surrender went against the Belgian Constitution. The decision, he said, was not only a military decision but also a political decision, and the king had acted without his ministers' advice, and therefore contrary to the Constitution. Pierlot and his Government believed this created an impossibilité de régner:
Should the king find himself unable to reign, the ministers, having observed this inability, immediately summon the Chambers. Regency and guardianship are to be provided by the united Chambers.[5]
It was impossible, however, to summon the Belgian Chamber of Representatives or Belgian Senate at this time, or to appoint a regent. After the liberation of Belgium in September 1944, the government asked Leopold's brother, Prince Charles, to serve as regent.
After Leopold's surrender, the British press denounced him as "Traitor King" and "King Rat"; the Daily Mirror published a picture of Leopold with the headline "The Face That Every Woman Now Despises". A group of Belgian refugees in Paris placed a message at King Albert's statue denouncing his son as "your unworthy successor".[6] French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud accused Leopold of treason. Flemish historians Valaers and Van Goethem wrote that Leopold III had become "The scapegoat of Reynaud",[7] because Reynaud was likely already aware that the Battle of France was lost.
Leopold's surrender was also decried by Winston Churchill. In the House of Commons on 4 June 1940 he said:
At the last moment when Belgium was already invaded, King Leopold called upon us to come to his aid, and even at the last moment we came. He and his brave, efficient army, nearly half a million strong, guarded our left flank and thus kept open our only line of retreat to the sea. Suddenly, without prior consultation, with the least possible notice, without the advice of his ministers and upon his own personal act, he sent a plenipotentiary to the German Command, surrendered his army and exposed our whole flank and means of retreat.[8]
In 1949, Churchill's comments about the events of May 1940 were published in Le Soir (12 February 1949). Leopold's former secretary sent a letter to Churchill saying that Churchill was wrong. Churchill sent a copy of this letter to the King's brother, Prince Charles, via his secretary André de Staercke. In his own letter Churchill wrote,
With regards to King Leopold, the words which I used at the time in the House of Commons are upon record and after careful consideration I do not see any reason to change them (...) it seemed to me and many others that the king should have been guided by the advice of his ministers and should not have favoured a course which identified the capitulation of the Belgian Army with the submission of the Belgian State to Herr Hitler and consequently taking them out of the war. Happily this evil was averted, and in the end, all came right. I need scarcely say that nothing I said at the time could be interpreted as a reflection upon the personal courage or honour of King Leopold.[9]
De Staercke replied that Churchill was right: "The Prince, Monsieur Spaak [Belgian Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak] and I read your text, which states the precise truth and seems perfect to us."[10]
Belgian historian Francis Balace wrote that capitulation was inevitable because the Belgian Army was not able to fight any longer against the German army.[11] Even Churchill admitted that their position was perilous. In a telegram to Field Marshal Lord Gort on 27 May, only one day before the Belgian capitulation, he wrote, "We are asking them to sacrifice themselves for us."[12]
After the fall of France [ edit ]
Upon Leopold's surrender, the government ministers left for exile, mostly in France. When France fell at the end of June 1940, several ministers sought to return to Belgium. They made an overture to Leopold but were rebuffed:
Pierlot and his government saw that Western Europe had been conquered by the Germans completely and tried to make amends to their king. Would it be possible for them to return to Belgium and form a new government? Leopold showed his stubborn nature; he was insulted by his ministers... His reply was short: "The situation of the king is unaltered; he does not engage in politics and does not receive politicians.[3]
Because of the great popularity of the king, and the unpopularity of the civil government from the middle of 1940,[13] the government crisis persisted. The Royal Articles state:
This refusal [of the king to reconcile with the ministers] left the ministers with no other option than to move to London, where they could continue their work representing the independent Belgium. From the time of their arrival in London, they were confident about an Allied victory and soon were treated with respect by the Allies.... Pierlot and Spaak helped to build Leopold's reputation as a heroic prisoner of war and even said that the Belgians should support their king. But they had no idea what Leopold was doing in the Royal Castle of Laeken. He refused to reply to their messages and stayed cool toward them. What was he doing in the castle? Was he collaborating, did he oppose the Germans, or had he decided to just shut his mouth and wait to see how things would go?[3]
On 2 August 1940, several ministers conferred in Le Perthus in France near the Spanish border. Prime Minister Pierlot and Foreign Minister Spaak were persuaded to go to London, but they were able to start out for London only at the end of August and could travel only via neutral Spain and Portugal. When they reached Spain, they were arrested and detained by the regime of Francisco Franco; they finally arrived in London on 22 October.
Meeting with Hitler [ edit ]
Leopold rejected cooperation with the government of Nazi Germany and refused to administer Belgium in accordance with its dictates; thus, the Germans implemented a military government. Leopold attempted to assert his authority as monarch and head of the Belgian government, although he was a prisoner of the Germans. Despite his defiance of the Germans, the Belgian government-in-exile in London maintained that the King did not represent the Belgian government and was unable to reign. The Germans held him at first under house arrest at the Royal Castle of Laeken. Having since June 1940 desired a meeting with Adolf Hitler in respect of the situation of Belgian prisoners of war, Leopold III finally met with him on 19 November 1940. Leopold wanted to persuade Hitler to release Belgian POWs, and issue a public statement about Belgium's future independence. Hitler refused to speak about the independence of Belgium or issue a statement about it. In refusing to publish a statement, Hitler unintentionally preserved the King from being seen as cooperating with Germany, and thus engaged in treasonous acts, which would likely have obliged him to abdicate upon the liberation of Belgium. "The [German] Chancellor saved the king two times."[14]
Second marriage [ edit ]
On 11 September 1941, while a prisoner of the Germans, Leopold secretly married Lilian Baels in a religious ceremony that had no validity under Belgian law, which required a religious marriage to be preceded by a legal or civil marriage. On 6 December, they were married under civil law. The reason for the out-of-order marriages was never officially made public.
Jozef-Ernest Cardinal van Roey, Archbishop of Mechelen, wrote an open letter to parish priests throughout the country announcing Leopold's second marriage on 7 December. The letter from the Cardinal revealed that the king's new wife would be known as Princesse de Réthy, not Queen Lilian, and that any children they had would have no claim to the throne (though they would be Princes or Princesses of Belgium with the style Royal Highness). Leopold's new marriage damaged his reputation further in the eyes of many of his subjects.
The Political Testament [ edit ]
The ministers made several efforts during the war to work out a suitable agreement with Leopold III. They sent Pierlot's son-in-law as an emissary to Leopold in January 1944, carrying a letter offering reconciliation from the Belgian government-in-exile. The letter never reached its destination, however, as the son-in-law was killed by the Germans en route. The ministers did not know what happened either to the message or the messenger and assumed that Leopold was ignoring them.
Leopold wrote his Political Testament in January 1944, shortly after this failed attempt at reconciliation. The testament was to be published in case he was not in Belgium when Allied forces arrived. The testament, which had an imperious and negative tone, considered the potential Allied movement into Belgium an "occupation", not a "liberation". It gave no credit to the active Belgian resistance. The Belgian government-in-exile in London did not like Leopold's demand that the government ministers involved in the 1940 crisis be exonerated. The Allies did not like Leopold's repudiation of the treaties concluded by the Belgian government-in-exile in London. The United States was particularly concerned about the economic treaty it had reached with the government-in-exile that enabled it to obtain Congolese uranium for America's secret atom bomb program, which had been developed for use against Germany (although, as it turned out, Germany surrendered before the first bomb was ready).
The Belgian government did not publish the Political Testament and tried to ignore it, partly for fear of increased support for the Belgian Communist party. When Pierlot and Spaak learned of its contents in September 1944, they were astonished and felt deceived by the king. According to André de Staercke, they were dismayed "in the face of so much blindness and unawareness".[15]
Churchill's reaction to the Testament was simply, "It stinks."[16] In a sentence inspired by a quote of Talleyrand about the Bourbons after the restoration of the French monarchy in 1815, Churchill declared, "He is like the Bourbons, he has learned nothing and forgotten everything."[17]
Exile and abdication [ edit ]
Deportation and exile [ edit ]
In 1944, Heinrich Himmler ordered Leopold deported to Germany. Princess Lilian followed with the family in another car the following day under an SS armed guard. The Nazis held the family in a fort at Hirschstein in Saxony from June 1944 to March 1945, and then at Strobl, Austria.
The British and American governments worried about the return of the king. Charles W. Sawyer, US Ambassador to Belgium, warned his government that an immediate return by the king to Belgium would "precipitate serious difficulties". "There are deep differences even in the royal family and the situation holds dynamite for Belgium and perhaps for Europe".[18] "The Foreign Office feared that an increasing minority in French-speaking Wallonia would demand either autonomy or annexation to France. Winant, the American Ambassador to the Court of Saint James, reported a Foreign Office official's concern regarding irredentist propaganda in Wallonia."[19] and that "the French Ambassador in Brussels... is believed to have connived in the spreading of this propaganda".[20]
Leopold and his companions were freed by members of the United States 106th Cavalry Group in early May 1945. Because of the controversy about his conduct during the war, Leopold III and his wife and children were unable to return to Belgium and spent the next six years in exile at Pregny-Chambésy near Geneva, Switzerland. A regency under his brother Prince Charles had been established by the Belgian legislature in 1944.
Resistance to Leopold's return [ edit ]
Van den Dungen, the rector of the Free University of Brussels, wrote to Leopold on 25 June 1945 about concerns for serious disorder in Wallonia, "The question is not if the accusations against you are right or not [but that...] you are no longer a symbol of Belgian unity."[21]
Gillon, the President of the Belgian Senate, told the king that there was a threat of serious disorder: "If there are only ten or twenty people killed, the situation would become terrible for the king."[22]
The president of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, Frans Van Cauwelaert, was concerned that there would be a general strike in Wallonia and revolt in Liège. He wrote, "The country is not able to put down the disorders because of the insufficient forces of the police and a lack of weapons."[23]
In 1946, a commission of inquiry exonerated Leopold of treason. Nonetheless, controversy concerning his loyalty continued, and in 1950, a referendum was held about his future. Fifty-seven per cent of the voters favoured his return. The divide between Leopoldists and anti-Leopoldists ran along the lines of socialists and Walloons who were mostly opposed (42% favourable votes in Wallonia) and Christian Democrats and Flemish who were more in favour of the King (70% favourable votes in Flanders).
General strike of 1950 [ edit ]
On 31 July 1950, after the fusillade of Grâce-Berleur Liège and other municipalities of Wallonia replaced the Belgian flag with the Walloon flag
On his return to Belgium in 1950, Leopold was met with one of the most violent general strikes in the history of Belgium. Three protesters were killed when the gendarmerie opened automatic fire upon the protesters. The country stood on the brink of civil war, and Belgian banners were replaced by Walloon flags in Liège and other municipalities of Wallonia.[24] To avoid tearing the country apart, and to preserve the monarchy, Leopold decided on 1 August 1950 to withdraw in favour of his 20-year-old son Baudouin. His abdication took effect on 16 July 1951. In this postponed abdication[25] the king was, in effect, forced by the government of Jean Duvieusart to offer to abdicate in favour of his son.[26]
Post-abdication life [ edit ]
Leopold and his wife continued to advise King Baudouin until the latter's marriage in 1960. Some Belgian historians, such as Vincent Delcorps, speak of there having been a "dyarchy" during this period.[27]
In retirement, he followed his passion as an amateur social anthropologist and entomologist and travelled the world, collecting zoological specimens. Two species of reptiles are named after him, Gehyra leopoldi and Polemon leopoldi.[28]
He went to Senegal and strongly criticized the French decolonization process,[how?] and he explored the Orinoco and the Amazon with Heinrich Harrer.[29]
Leopold died in 1983 in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert (Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe) following emergency heart surgery. He was interred next to Queen Astrid in the royal vault at the Church of Our Lady of Laeken. Leopold's second wife, the Princess de Réthy, was later interred with them.
Notable royal descendants [ edit ]
As of 2018, two of Leopold's grandsons are reigning monarchs: Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg since 2000, and King Philippe of Belgium since 2013.
Titles, styles and honours [ edit ]
Titles [ edit ]
3 November 1901 - 23 December 1909: His Royal Highness Prince Leopold of Belgium, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony
Prince Leopold of Belgium, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony 23 December 1909 – 1921: His Royal Highness The Duke of Brabant, Prince of Belgium, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony
The Duke of Brabant, Prince of Belgium, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony 1921 – 17 February 1934: His Royal Highness The Duke of Brabant, Prince of Belgium
The Duke of Brabant, Prince of Belgium 17 February 1934 – 16 July 1951: His Majesty The King of the Belgians, Sovereign of the Congo
The King of the Belgians, Sovereign of the Congo 16 July 1951 – 25 September 1983: His Majesty King Leopold III of Belgium
Honours [ edit ]
National [ edit ]
Foreign [ edit ]
Ancestry [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]PRAGUE, Czech Republic — A hospital does not have to compensate a young Gypsy woman it sterilized without her consent, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.
In overturning the Czech Republic’s first monetary award for forced sterilization, the court said the statute of limitations had expired.
Human-rights groups believe hundreds of women from the Czech Republic’s Gypsy minority of about 250,000 people were sterilized against their will.
Under communism, which ended in the Czech Republic in 1989, sterilization was a semi-official tool to limit the population of Gypsies, or Roma as they prefer to be called, whose large families were seen as a burden on the state. The practice ended only recently, according to a 2005 investigative report by the national ombudsman.
Iveta Cervenakova, now 32, was sterilized without her consent in 1997 after she gave birth to her second daughter by cesarean section.
She filed a lawsuit in 2005. A lower court ruled two years later that the hospital in the northeastern city of Ostrava had to pay compensation and apologize for violating her rights.
Court spokesman Petr Angyalossy said the 500,000 koruna ($26,330) judgment was overturned because the award came after the three-year statute of limitations in the case had expired.
He said the hospital needs only to apologize.
The Czech League for Human Rights sharply criticized the ruling and said it would appeal it to the Supreme Court. Lawyer David Zahumensky of the League for Human Rights, who consulted with Cervenakova’s lawyer, said she will argue that there should be no statute of limitation applied in sterilization cases.
Several other Czech Gypsy women are seeking damages from hospitals for illegal sterilizations.SAN FRANCISCO—While President-elect Rodrigo Duterte may not have directly endorsed the killing of journalists who are deemed corrupt, we in the Philippine American Press Club in the San Francisco Bay area believe that he sent the wrong signal to those who, for whatever reason, may want to physically attack or assassinate members of the Fourth Estate. It’s a signal that endangers Filipinos’ constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press.
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“Just because you are a journalist, you are not exempted from assassination if you’re a son of a b****,” he said, answering a reporter’s question on the recent assassination of a reporter in Manila. It was one of the many killings that have made the Philippines the seventh most dangerous country in the world for journalists, according to the watchdog Reporters Without Borders.
Mr. Duterte reasoned that assassinated journalists had only themselves to blame because many of them solicited bribes or were paid hacks that were bound to step on someone’s toes. Never mind that a few corrupt journalists do not represent the generally hardworking, truthful and underpaid ranks of the profession in the Philippines. Never mind that many journalist-victims of assassination were not corrupt but were targets of personal revenge or political violence.
Where is Mr. Duterte’s understanding and regard for due process? Where is his respect for the democratic Constitution of the Philippines? His justification for the summary execution of “corrupt” journalists is practically an extension of his avowed preference for vigilante violence into the realm of civil liberties. His direct or indirect espousal of summary justice threatens every citizen’s constitutionally protected democratic rights.
President-elect Duterte may prefer a plainspoken manner of communication. His legions of followers certainly relish his unadorned, even rude, style of speaking. However, he should realize that he is now the head of state of a democratic republic and no longer an ordinary citizens. His utterances have an impact on the Filipinos’ political culture and also reflect on the country of our birth.
We urge President-elect Duterte to comport himself with the dignity of his office. Please, do not let careless rhetoric undermine the people’s constitutional rights. Please, do not let insensitive and provocative speech sully the Philippines’ image in the community of nations.
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LATEST STORIES
MOST READThe Washington Post, New York Times, and CNN, among others, are desperately trying to get rid of Trump to support the status quo, the deep state, and prevent any economic reform whatsoever. Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for $250 million and cut a deal with the CIA to build their cloud getting $600 million.
The real question mainstream media will not dare answer is how does a private meeting between Trump and Russia end up with leaks to the Washington Post and New York Times because Trump informed the CIA and NSA about the meeting. This leak PROVES beyond a shadow of doubt that the collusion between the Deep State and mainstream media is in full swing.
The culprits in the press immediately, with the help of John McCain, jumped and called the firing of Comey Watergate level. Even Yahoo ran a story implying the stock market should drop 50% showing charts of what happened when they impeached Nixon. The problem with all of this is the firing of Comey is not at Watergate level and the charts showing a 50% drop in the stock market attributing this all to Watergate and Nixon is totally a complete fraud. The decline in the market had to do with the collapse of the dollar in the aftermath of abandoning the gold standard on August 15th, 1971. The market kept declining well after Nixon even resigned. So why are they trying to create a bear market so desperately? They have to get rid of Trump to preserve the status quo and stop the tax cuts.
As long as there is a progressive tax system, then the big corps and rich donors get to lobby for loopholes to avoid taxes. Why would the “rich” donate to any Democrat to pay more taxes? They don’t. They donate to the Democrats to tax anyone aggressively trying to complete with them and to ensure they have their loopholes. A flat tax does more that lower taxes for the rich, it eliminates the corruption of loopholes.
One must question if these news stories are not being used to further short positions by journalists. For anyone who thinks this is just speculation probably has never heard of the the Federal appeals court decision that upheld the securities fraud conviction of R. Foster Winans, who was a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal. He was found guilty trading on the basis of his advance knowledge of what was to appear in the newspaper’s ”Heard on the Street” column. All mainstream press do is publish bearish stories why the stock market should crash. You have to wonder between the owners of these media companies and journalists with editors, what do they have in their personal accounts for they hsve been above the law for way too long when it comes to insider trader.
We are in an all out civil war in the newspapers and TV to get rid of Trump to protect the status quo. CNN broadcasts virtually nothing but Trump impeachment constantly. This is the agenda. They are trying so hard to create a serious bear market to blame Trump and force him out of office.
So watch the numbers. They will define the percentage movement and the arrays will define the timing. This ahead is a Bear Trap that can set up everything for the opposite directional swing.You know how, in practically every war movie, the captured soldier only gives his name, rank, and serial number when being interrogated? For the longest time astronomers have had the same problem probing the basic characteristics of stars.
Temperature is the one easy quantity to measure; luminosity (total energy output) is a snap if you know the star's distance. But other essentials such as a star's diameter and mass are difficult to measure directly unless it happens to be in a binary system or (pure gold) an eclipsing binary system.
[fw-embed-media url="https://s22380.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/Kepler_star_art_341px.jpg" url_large="" alt="Sunlike star and planet" caption="A star like our Sun is shown with an orbiting planet in the foreground. NASA's Kepler Mission is studying Sunlike stars by tracking changes in their brightness caused by internal oscillations." credits="Gabriel Perez Diaz / Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias" width="" height="" align="right"]Well, get ready for what some scientists are already hailing as a "golden age for stellar physics," thanks to observations being made by NASA's Kepler spacecraft
Kepler, you'll recall, was launched two years ago to make wholesale discoveries of transiting extrasolar systems and, it's hoped, to identify worlds like Earth. It does so by staring at some 145,000 stars near the Cygnus-Lyra border. Those results have steadily poured in — just two months ago, mission scientists released a list of nearly 1,200 exoplanet candidates, many in multiple systems. Surely thousands more will be found.
That alone would be a boon to stellar studies, since those transiting planets make it easy to determine their host stars' masses and diameters. But now an international team of five dozen scientists has found a way to extract those values for stars without transiting planets. As the team writes in April 8th's Science, continually monitoring the light from all those stars has turned up many that periodically pulse in brightness due to acoustic waves coursing through their interiors.
[fw-embed-media url="https://s22380.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/Sun_oscillation_modes.jpg" url_large="" alt="Acoustic waves in the Sun" caption="A computer model of acoustic (p mode) waves resonating in the interior of the Sun." credits="Stanford" width="" height="" align="right"]"Asteroseismology" isn't new. Physicists have known for decades that the Sun rings like a bell at frequencies with periods ranging from 1½ to 20 minutes. Each of these oscillation modes is sampling different parts of the solar interior.
A couple of dozen other stars were known to oscillate too, but Kepler's data has just blown the field of asteroseismology wide open. “These new observations allow us to measure the detailed properties of stars at an accuracy that wasn’t possible before,” notes Steve Kawaler, a coauthor of the paper from Iowa State University.
Led by William Chaplin (University of Birmingham), the team tracked more than 2,000 solar-type stars in Kepler's view for a month, using a special spacecraft mode that measured their brightness once per minute (versus the usual twice per hour). The observers found that about 500 of these stars exhibit oscillations, from which the stars' diameters and masses could be determined. The details get a little messy, but the Kepler data now provide a powerful new method for studying stellar interiors.
[fw-embed-media url="https://s22380.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/Kepler_star_census.jpg" url_large="" alt="Kepler's stellar census" caption="A census of 500 stars observed by Kepler reveals that while the distribution of stellar diameters runs close to theorists' predictions, their masses generally are less than expected." credits="W. Chaplin & others / Science" width="" height="" align="right"]For example, Chaplin's team finds that Kepler's census of stellar diameters is a good fit to predictions, but that the studied stars generally have lower masses than expected. (The authors note that the masses could be skewed by unresolved binary systems.)
In any case, once these observations are melded with estimates of the stars' ages (now in the works), the full import of these new results will undoubtedly "shake up" astronomers' assumptions about how stars form and the range of sizes and masses they're born with.Former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping has talked about making the UFC’ London event on March 17 the site of his farewell fight.
Consider rival Luke Rockhold uninterested.
Rockhold and Bisping have famously split a pair of fights -- Rockhold winning their first fight via submission in 2014, and Bisping knocking out Rockhold to win the title two years later -- and have engaged in countless rounds of verbal sparring.
But Rockhold isn’t interested in settling things with a trilogy fight, for two reasons: One, he’s got an eye on regaining the middleweight belt, and two, Bisping doesn’t appear to be in any position to fight so soon.
“Of course it would be sweet to shut that guy’s mouth,” Rockhold said on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “It never stops no matter what the situation is. But it’s not on my radar any more. He’s taken himself out of the conversation, I want to move forward and fight for the belt.”
After a very bad November for Bisping, he’s not a fighter who can help Rockhold get close to the title. Bisping lost the belt to Georges St-Pierre at UFC 217 in New York City, when he went unconscious rather than tap out. He was controversially cleared to fight Kelvin Gastelum just three weeks later in Shanghai, China, where he was on the wrong end of a violent knockout.
For his part, Rockhold questions why those around Bisping even allowed him to be put in position to suffer the loss to Gastelum.
“I think that’s f*cking ridiculous for Bisping to come back after getting knocked out two weeks before,” Rockhold said. “Just because it’s in China, where there’s no commission, to allow that. I mean, New York would never allow that in the States. I mean, for his family, his friends, his team whoever the f*ck is in his corner. It’s sad. It’s said that he has that type of people around him that allow him to do something like that.”
That said, Rockhold also doesn’t believe that Gastelum vaulted ahead of him in the race for a title shot due to the win over Bisping. Nor is he interested in meeting Gastleum, who was finished by Chris Weidman in July, in a title eliminator bout.
“I will be ready to fight when it makes sense,” Rockhold said. “I’ll keep apace. But it’s got to make sense. I’ll tell you who doesn’t make sense. Kelvin Gastelum does not make sense. Weidman has more of a case.”BALTIMORE — Horse players had been checking the weather radar all afternoon — there was a storm rumbling toward Pimlico and a wet track, well, that made the Kentucky Derby winner American Pharoah a lock to win the Preakness Stakes and the second leg of the Triple Crown.
The colt’s trainer, Bob Baffert, wasn’t so sure. Yes, he knew American Pharoah had sliced his way like a Jet Ski to a six-and-a-quarter-length win two months ago on a sloppy track in Arkansas. But as the colt and his seven rivals stepped onto the track here Saturday, thunder was booming and a deluge had chased thousands of raucous infield revelers to seek cover and made the jockeys in their colorful silks and aboard their horses barely visible.
“I was getting a little leery,” Baffert said. “These horses, you could tell they didn’t like getting pelted.”
Vict |
UN Environment Program predicts up to a 5C increase by 2050.)
Whenever we reach the 4C increase, whether it is by 2050, or sooner, this shall mark the threshold at which terrestrial trees and plants are no longer able to soak up any more carbon from the atmosphere, and we will see an abrupt increase in atmospheric carbon, and an even further acceleration of ACD.
And it’s not just global weather events providing the signs. Other first-time phenomena abound as well.
For the first time, scientists have discovered species of Atlantic Ocean zooplankton reproducing in Arctic waters. German researchers say the discovery indicates a possible shift in the Arctic zooplankton community as the region warms, one that could be detrimental to Arctic birds, fish, and marine mammals.
Another study shows an increase in both the range and risk for malaria due to ACD, and cat parasites have even been found in Beluga whales in the Arctic, in addition to recently published research showing other diseases in seals and other Arctic life.
Distressing signs of ACD’s increasing decimation of life continue unabated. In addition to between 150-200 species going extinct daily, Monarch butterflies are now in danger of disappearing as well. Experts recently reported that the numbers of Monarch butterflies have dropped to their lowest levels since record-keeping began. At their peak, the butterflies covered an area of Mexican pine and fir forests of 44.5 acres. Now, after steep and persistent declines in the last three years, they only cover 1.65 acres. Extreme weather trends, illegal logging, and a dramatic reduction of the butterflies’ habitat are all to blame.
A recently published study that spanned 27-years showed that ACD is “killing Argentina’s Magellanic penguin chicks.” Torrential rainstorms and extreme heat are killing the young birds in significant numbers.
Distressingly, the vast majority of these citations and studies are only from the last six weeks.
More Pollution, More Denial
Meanwhile, the polluting continues as global carbon emissions only continue to increase.
Another recent study shows that black carbon emissions in India and China could be two to three times more concentrated than previously estimated. Black carbon is a major element of soot, and comes from the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels. The study showed that parts of India and China could have as much as 130 percent higher black carbon concentrations than shown in standard country models.
India is now rated as having some of the worst air quality in the world, and is tied with China for exposing its population to hazardous air pollution.
Meanwhile, Australian government authorities recently approved a project that will dump dredged sediment near the Great Barrier Reef, a so-called World Heritage Site, to create one of the world’s largest coal ports.
Also on the front lines of the coal industry, miners now want to ignite deep coal seams to capture the gases created from the fires to use them for power generation. It’s called underground coal gasification, it is on deck for what comes next after the fracking blitz, and it is a good idea for those wishing to turn Earth into Venus.
Then we have BP’s “Energy Outlook” for the future, an annual report where the oil giant plots trends in global energy production and consumption. With this, we can expect nothing less than full steam ahead when it comes to vomiting as much carbon into the atmosphere in as short a time as possible.
BP CEO Bob Dudley announced at a January press conference that his company’s Outlook sees carbon emissions projected to rise “29% by 2035.”
Speaking of BP, the corporate-driven government of the United States continues to serve its masters well.
The US State Department recently released its environmental impact statement that found “no major climate impact” from a continuation in the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, a pipeline that will transport tar sands oil – the dirtiest fossil fuel on Earth, produced by the most environmentally destructive fossil fuel extraction process ever known.
US President Barack Obama claims he has yet to make a decision on the pipeline, but we can guess what his decision shall be.
In late January, the US House Energy and Commerce Committee voted down an amendment that would have stated conclusively that ACD is occurring, despite recent evidence that ACD has literally shifted the jet stream, the main system that helps determine all of the weather in North America and Northern Europe. The 24 members of the committee who voted down the amendment, all of them Republicans and more overtly honest about who they are working for than is Obama, have accepted approximately $9.3 million in career contributions from the oil, gas, and coal industries.
Systemic problems require systemic solutions, and thinking the radical change necessary to preserve what life remains on the planet is possible without the complete removal of the system that is killing us, is futile.
The fact that the planet is most likely long past having gone over the cliff when it comes to passing the point of no return regarding ACD is a fact most people prefer not to contemplate.
And who can blame them? The relentless onslaught of distress signals from the planet, coupled with the fact that the governments of the countries generating the most emissions are those marching lock-step with the fossil fuel industries are daunting, to say the least.
Oil, gas, and coal are the fuels the capitalist system uses to generate the all-important next quarterly profit on the road toward infinite growth, as required by the capitalist system.
Systemic problems require systemic solutions, and thinking the radical change necessary to preserve what life remains on the planet is possible without the complete removal of the system that is killing us, is futile.
Half measures, as we have seen all too often, avail us nothing.PARIS — A man armed with two large knives and shouting “God is great” in Arabic lunged at a military patrol near an entrance to the Louvre on Friday, causing little harm, but rattling a city already on edge over terrorist attacks and casting another shadow over its international image.
A soldier opened fire, hitting the attacker several times, but not before he slashed at one of the other soldiers, causing minor injuries.
The Paris prosecutor, François Molins, said the attacker, who was 29 years old, was believed to be an Egyptian who arrived in France on Jan. 26 from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, on a visa he obtained last November.
The intervention by soldiers from the 1er Régiment de Chasseurs Parachutistes, an airborne unit based in Pamiers, in southwestern France, “ended a terrorist attack and enabled the arrest of its perpetrator, who by all indications was very determined,” Mr. Molins said.WASHINGTON – First she “misspoke,” now she misheard.
Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday seemed to deny that she told New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson that Barack Obama could not win the presidency.
But her campaign later said she misheard a reporter’s question.
McCain in the 1996 Dole-Drums
Barack Runs Up $core
Asked at a press conference whether she made the comment to Richardson, Clinton said, “That’s a no.”
She added, “We have been going back and forth in this campaign of who said what to whom and let me say this, that I don’t talk about private conversations but I have consistently made the case that I can win.”
Campaign spokeswoman Mo Elleithee later said Clinton thought she was being asked whether she’d disclose what she actually said to Richardson, who has endorsed Obama.
“Senator Clinton was simply reiterating what she had just said – she doesn’t talk about private conversations,” Elleithee said.
Clinton has come under fire in recent weeks about inconsistent statements.
She admitted late last month, that she “misspoke” when she claimed she had dodged bullets while arriving in Bosnia as first lady.
She poked fun at the controversy last night in an appearance on “The Tonight Show” telling host Jay Leno, “I was so worried I wasn’t going to make it. I was pinned down by sniper fire.”
The latest misstep came as supporters of Obama called her claims that he can’t win the desperate act of a losing candidate.
“I’m sure she is frustrated,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who supports Obama.
“Up until late last year, the common wisdom around here was that Hillary Clinton had it. In fact, there are many who even thought that Barack Obama was probably being foolish to try.”
Now that Clinton is 135 delegates behind Obama in the race for the Democratic nomination, she and her loyalists have begun arguing that Obama cannot win.
“Sen. Clinton is absolutely qualified to be president, and I am sure it is difficult for her to see herself behind,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), a superdelegate who has endorsed Obama.
Federico PeÑa, who served in two Cabinet posts for Bill Clinton, was one of the first to endorse Obama, “because I absolutely believed that he could win.”
“She must believe that Barack can’t win and she can, or she wouldn’t still be running – but the evidence is absolutely to the contrary,” PeÑa said.
Clinton, who has been courting superdelegates to catch Obama, hinted yesterday that she would go after pledged delegates.
Pledged delegates are a “misnomer,” she said. “The whole point is for delegates, however they are chosen, to really ask themselves who would be the best president.”
Meanwhile, two of Clinton’s top supporters hinted yesterday that they might switch their support to Obama if he maintains a lead in delegates and popular vote.
“I’m going to look at delegate selection, who has the most. I’m going to look at the popular vote, who has the most votes,” said New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, a superdelegate who currently backs Clinton.
Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) echoed Corzine.
[email protected] 15th, 2014 at 2:04 pm Posted in Annexation, White Center news | Comments Off on Video: Seattle Council approves ‘placeholder’ resolution regarding White Center (and vicinity) annexation
(ADDED: Full Seattle Channel video of this afternoon’s meeting)
2:04 PM: Just before its morning meeting wrapped up today, Seattle City Councilmember Tim Burgess described the annexation resolution to be discussed this afternoon as a “placeholder” – to keep the state’s tax-credit support from expiring – not necessarily a declaration that they intend to carry it through. The afternoon meeting has just begun; it is starting with council discussion of other matters and then public comment – you can watch live online here.
2:13 PM: First up in the public-comment period is Amanda Kay Helmick from the Westwood-Roxhill-Arbor Heights Community Council (who also is running for Seattle City Council, though she is speaking in her role as WWRHAH chair rather than as a candidate). She is talking about her work on an updated neighborhood plan for the area and why annexation would make sense so that the planning does not address, for example, one side of Roxbury and not the other. The speaker after her, who said he lives in Burien, opposed annexation, saying Seattle can’t be trusted.
2:31 PM: Lost our connection to the stream but the last speaker was Barbara Dobkin, president of the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council, which has historically supported annexation by Burien – you’ll recall that Seattle stepped aside to allow Burien to have an annexation election in 2012, but a majority of those who voted rejected the proposal, and after some leadership changes, Burien has so far declined to resume pursuing it. (We’ll be adding video of the hearing as soon as Seattle Channel turns it around.)
2:39 PM: The resolution is up now. Councilmember Burgess again describes it as a “placeholder” and talks about many issues that would have to be resolved before Seattle would wholeheartedly approve it – including financial help via a better state tax credit. He also notes that it’s not clear there’s majority support in the potential annexation area for joining Seattle. “There are multiple offramps on this road going forward,” he elaborates. Councilmember Tom Rasmussen, the only West Seattle resident on the council, says he supports “keeping the option open.” Councilmember Kshama Sawant says she thinks it’s reasonable for the city and county to ask the state to cover the extra cost of services if the area was annexed, but she says, ultimately the area consists of “human beings” with needs they deserve to have filled.
2:45 PM: Burgess clarifies that the annexation proposal would not change the school-district boundaries – this area, if Seattle annexed it, would remain part of Highline Public Schools. And shortly after that, the annexation resolution passed 8-0. Its text says that even if pursued avidly, an election wouldn’t be possible until 2016. We’ll keep close watch on the process as – if – it goes.Another Police Officer Suicide (is one more too many)
I received a Facebook message in from a police officer telling me that his partner had just taken his life the day before – his request was that I focus on the topic here on the show. We will do exactly that, join me and Susan Simons, President/Founder of Under The Shield as we take on this troubling trend in policing.
Just recently, a special request was posted on Lt. Sutton’s Facebook page from a young police officer on the east coast – asking for a big favor. The message went on to explain that his partner had committed suicide just the day before, and that he was having great difficulty dealing with the trauma. He talked about his partner having suffered with alcohol issues, and had experienced some trouble at work – all causing him to take his own life.
The officer was wondering if Lt. Sutton would cover this heavy topic on the show. With that Lt. Sutton reached out to Susan Simon, an expert on Law Enforcement Stress and Director of “Under The Shield” an organization the helps police to cope with the stress associated with the job. Susan is doing some extraordinary work and making an impact in the profession, she was the perfect one to join me so that I could properly honor the request.
“I DEDICATE THE SHOW TODAY TO THE POLICE OFFICER WHO TOOK HIS LIFE AND HIS PARTNER WHO REACHED OUT TO ME.” LT. SUTTON
Law enforcement personnel statistically lead our society in suicide, alcohol and substance abuse, domestic violence, divorce, depression, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. These statistics are indicative of the serious lack of support and resources for law enforcement personnel and their families. That’s where Under The Shield comes in – to provide that support in those crucial moments in an officer’s life.
Susan Simons, President/Founder of Under The Shield. Simmons is an internationally recognized Expert in the specialized field of Stress Management in public safety/emergency services and military. She provides training seminars and programs focusing on stress management, critical incident response/reactions and the impact of this “lifestyle” on the family.
For Further Insight:
Website: http://undertheshield.com
Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/UndertheShieldI
CALL US IF YOU NEED TO TALK: 855.889.2348
Randy Sutton is a 34 year Law Enforcement veteran and the National Spokesman for ‘BlueLivesMatter”. He is recognized as one of the most highly decorated officers in America, having awards for Valor, Community Service, Exemplary Service and multiple Lifesaving awards. Author: “True Blue To Protect and Serve” – Police Stories by Those Who Have Lived Them and “A Cop’s Life” – True Stories from the Heart Behind the Badge and the “Power of Legacy”.A rebus-style "escort card" from around 1865, to be read as "May I see you home my dear?"
A German rebus, circa 1620.
A rebus () is a puzzle device which combines the use of illustrated pictures with individual letters to depict words and/or phrases. For example: the word ‘been’ might be depicted by a "rebus" showing an illustrated bumblebee next to a plus sign (+) and the letter "n". It was a favorite form of heraldic expression used in the Middle Ages to denote surnames.
For example, in its basic form, three salmon (fish) are used to denote the surname "Salmon". A more sophisticated example was the rebus of Bishop Walter Lyhart (d.1472) of Norwich, consisting of a stag (or hart) lying down in a conventional representation of water.
The composition alludes to the name, profession or personal characteristics of the bearer, and speaks to the beholder Non verbis, sed rebus, which Latin expression signifies "not by words but by things"[1] (res, rei (f), a thing, object, matter; rebus being ablative plural).[2]
Rebuses within heraldry [ edit ]
Rebuses are used extensively as a form of heraldic expression as a hint to the name of the bearer; they are not synonymous with canting arms. A man might have a rebus as a personal identification device entirely separate from his armorials, canting or otherwise. For example, Sir Richard Weston (d.1541) bore as arms: Ermine, on a chief azure five bezants, whilst his rebus, displayed many times in terracotta plaques on the walls of his mansion Sutton Place, Surrey, was a "tun" or barrel, used to designate the last syllable of his surname.
An example of canting arms proper are those of the Borough of Congleton in Cheshire consisting of a conger eel, a lion (in Latin, leo) and a tun (barrel). This word sequence "conger-leo-tun" enunciates the town's name. Similarly, the coat of arms of St. Ignatius Loyola contains wolves (in Spanish, lobo) and a kettle (olla), said by some (probably incorrectly) to be a rebus for "Loyola". The arms of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon feature bows and lions.
Modern rebuses, word plays [ edit ]
A modern example of the rebus used as a form of word play is:
H + = Hear, or Here.
By extension, it also uses the positioning of words or parts of words in relation to each other to convey a hidden meaning, for example:
p walk ark: walk in the park.
A rebus made up solely of letters (such as "CU" for "See you") is known as a gramogram, grammagram, or letteral word. This concept is sometimes extended to include numbers (as in "Q8" for "Kuwait", or "8" for "ate").[3] Rebuses are sometimes used in crossword puzzles, with multiple letters or a symbol fitting into a single square.[4]
Pictograms [ edit ]
The term rebus also refers to the use of a pictogram to represent a syllabic sound. This adapts pictograms into phonograms. A precursor to the development of the alphabet, this process represents one of the most important developments of writing. Fully developed hieroglyphs read in rebus fashion were in use at Abydos in Egypt as early as 3400 BCE.[5]
The writing of correspondence in rebus form became popular in the 18th century and continued into the 19th century. Lewis Carroll wrote the children he befriended picture-puzzle rebus letters, nonsense letters, and looking-glass letters, which had to be held in front of a mirror to be read.[6] Rebus letters served either as a sort of code or simply as a pastime.
Rebus principle [ edit ]
In linguistics, the rebus principle is the use of existing symbols, such as pictograms, purely for their sounds regardless of their meaning, to represent new words. Many ancient writing systems used the rebus principle to represent abstract words, which otherwise would be hard to represent with pictograms. An example that illustrates the Rebus principle is the representation of the sentence "I can see you" by using the pictographs of "eye—can—sea—ewe."
Some linguists believe that the Chinese developed their writing system according to the rebus principle,[7] and Egyptian hieroglyphs sometimes used a similar system. A famous rebus statue of Ramses II uses three hieroglyphs to compose his name: Horus (as Ra), for Ra; the child, mes; and the sedge plant (stalk held in left hand), su; the name Ra-mes-su is then formed.[8]
Freud[9] posited that the rebus was the basis for uncovering the latent content of the dream. He wrote, "A dream is a picture puzzle of this sort and our predecessors in the field of dream interpretation have made the mistake of treating the rebus as a pictorial composition: and as such it has seemed to them nonsensical and worthless."
Use in game shows [ edit ]
Canada
United Kingdom
Catchphrase is a long-running game show which required contestants to decipher a rebus. The show began as a short-lived American game show hosted by Art James before being seen in the United Kingdom from 1986 to 2004 and returning in 2013. There was also an Australian version of the show hosted by John Burgess.
is a long-running game show which required contestants to decipher a rebus. The show began as a short-lived American game show hosted by Art James before being seen in the United Kingdom from 1986 to 2004 and returning in 2013. There was also an Australian version of the show hosted by John Burgess. In 1998, Granada TV produced Waffle, a single word rebus puzzle show that was hosted by Nick Weir, and included premium telephone line viewer participation.
United States
Rebuses were central to the television game show Concentration. Contestants had to solve a rebus, usually partially concealed behind any of thirty "squares", to win a game.
Contestants had to solve a rebus, usually partially concealed behind any of thirty "squares", to win a game. The HBO children's game series Crashbox features three rebus puzzles in the game segment "Ten Seconds."
features three rebus puzzles in the game segment "Ten Seconds." A short-lived ABC game show from 1965 known as The Rebus Game also involved contestants creating rebuses to communicate an answer.
India
Dadagiri Unlimited is a game show, in which some rebus puzzles are used in the googly round. The show is broadcast by Zee Bangla and hosted by the famous Indian cricketer Sourav Ganguly.
Historic examples [ edit ]
It is reported[11] that when Voltaire was the guest of Frederick the Great at Sanssouci Palace, they exchanged puzzle notes. Frederick sent over a page with two picture blocks on it: two hands below the letter P, and then the number 100 below a picture of a handsaw, all followed by a question mark. Voltaire replied with: Ga!
Both messages were rebuses in the French language: deux mains sous Pé à cent sous scie? "two hands under 'p' at [one] hundred under saw" = demain souper à Sanssouci? "supper tomorrow at Sanssouci?"); reply: Gé grand, A petit! "big 'G', small 'a'!" (= j'ai grand appétit! "I am very hungry!").
The early 16th-century Bishop of Exeter, Hugh Oldham adopted the owl as his personal device. It bore a scroll in its beak bearing the letters D.O.M., forming a rebus based on his surname, which would probably have been pronounced at the time as owl-dom. [12]
. The 19th-century French sculptor Jean-Pierre Dantan would place rebuses on the socles of his caricature busts to identify the subject. For example, Victor Hugo was an axe ( hache in French, which sounds like the French pronunciation of "H") + UG + crossed bones ( os, sounding like "O"). Hector Berlioz was represented by the letters BER low on the socle, with a bed ( lit, for "li") comparatively high on the socle (to mean " haut ", the French for high, pronounced with a silent "h" and "t" and so sounding like "O"). [13]
in French, which sounds like the French pronunciation of "H") + UG + crossed bones (, sounding like "O"). Hector Berlioz was represented by the letters BER low on the socle, with a bed (, for "li") comparatively high on the socle (to mean " ", the French for high, pronounced with a silent "h" and "t" and so sounding like "O"). Rebus Bibles such as A Curious Hieroglyphic Bible were popular in the late 18th century for teaching Bible-reading to children.[14]
Japan [ edit ]
A rebus for the names of Japanese provinces, from around 1800.
Yamato Shizuku ( やまと しずく, Japan droplet) sake (name spelt out at top right), with a rebus ∧ト💧 which is read as yama ( 山, mountain) (symbolized by the ∧) + to ( ト, katakana character for to) + shizuku ( 雫, droplet) (symbolized by the 💧). A bottle ofsake (name spelt out at top right), with a rebus ∧ト💧 which is read as(symbolized by the ∧) +(symbolized by the 💧).
In Japan, the rebus known as hanjimono (判じ物)[15] was immensely popular during the Edo period.[16] A piece by ukiyo-e artist Kunisada was "Actor Puzzles" (Yakusha hanjimono) that featured rebuses.[17]
Today the most often seen of these symbols is a picture of a sickle, a circle, and the letter nu (ぬ), read as kama-wa-nu (鎌輪ぬ, sickle circle nu), interpreted as kamawanu (構わぬ), the old-fashioned form of kamawanai (構わない, don't worry, doesn't matter). This is known as the kamawanu-mon (鎌輪奴文, kamawanu sign), and dates to circa 1700,[18] being used in kabuki since circa 1815.[19][20]
Kabuki actors would wear yukata and other clothing whose pictorial design, in rebus, represented their Yagō "guild names", and would distribute tenugui cloth with their rebused names as well. The practice was not restricted to the acting profession and was undertaken by townsfolk of various walks of life. There were also pictorial calendars called egoyomi [ja] that represented the Japanese calendar in rebus so it could be "read" by the illiterate.
Today a number of abstract examples following certain conventions are occasionally used for names, primarily for corporate logos or product logos and incorporating some characters of the name, as in a monogram; see Japanese rebus monogram. The most familiar example globally is the logo for Yamasa soy sauce, which is a ∧ with a サ under it. This is read as Yama, for yama (山, mountain) (symbolized by the ∧) + sa (サ, katakana character for sa).
In popular culture [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]Deregulation of the airline industry 30 years ago made air travel affordable to most Americans. Rising airfares threaten to again make flying a service for the affluent. Airfares have risen this summer more than any year in the past quarter century, new studies by airfare experts show. The studies, done by Travelocity, FareCompare.com and Harrell Associates at USA TODAY's request, show that domestic fares this summer are up 12% to 15%, and on some routes, more than 200%. NATIONWIDE CHART: Bargain fares get more expensive GRAPHIC: Airline schedule changes at 300 U.S. airports "Consumers are already shell-shocked by higher prices, but their wallets are going to be hit harder than ever before on their next vacation or business trip," says Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.com, which tracks airfares for consumers. Airlines are raising fares to combat record jet-fuel prices, which have nearly doubled during the past 12 months. The fares often include fuel surcharges that can range from a few to hundreds of dollars, and a growing number of tickets include restrictions that require fliers to buy further in advance or stay a number of days at a destination. Fliers also face an escalating number of extra fees for roomy seats, checked bags, ticket changes and other services. For a family of four, a cross-country flight this summer may cost about $1,000 more than last summer. In late July, for example, United Airlines' cheapest non-stop round-trip coach fare for travel in mid-August between San Francisco and Washington was $580, or $2,320 for four people, according to FareCompare.com. That's $920 more than the family would have paid United on that route last summer. Higher airfares are causing vacationers and business travelers to cut back on air travel, and raising many companies' travel costs. Robert Yodice, of Cleveland, flew to Las Vegas 10 times last year, but only twice this year. He says he's cut back because the round-trip fare is at least double the $200 to $300 he used to pay. "With rising airfares, I've had to take a completely different approach to my leisure travel," says Yodice, who owns a TV production company. "There's a lot more time invested in researching better fares, looking at alternate airports and determining any potential savings from driving to an airport that may not necessarily be closest to home." Changing perspective on 'cheap' An extreme example of the new price of air travel is found on the Chicago-Minneapolis/St. Paul route. On July 10, US Airways' (LCC) cheapest fare for travel at the end of the month was $406 — a 276% increase on last July's $108 fare, according to FareCompare.com. United Airlines' (UAUA) cheapest fare was $376 — a 382% increase on last July's $78. Northwest Airlines' (NWA) cheapest fare was $140 — up 79%. United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski says the $78 fare last year was a special sale price in line with competitors' prices. Such bargain airfares may be hard to find this year, but they haven't disappeared and can often be found on airline websites. Discount carrier Spirit offers $19 one-way fares on its website for August travel between Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, Orlando or the Bahamas. Spirit also has $89 fares from Boston to Fort Lauderdale. Bigger airlines also offer some bargains. American Airlines' (AMR) cheapest round-trip coach fare last week for travel in September between Kansas City and West Palm Beach, Fla., with a stop in Dallas/Fort Worth, was $120, plus $42 in taxes and fees. Besides Spirit, the lowest fares are usually found on routes where Southwest (LUV) flies, says airfare expert Tom Parsons of Bestfares.com, an online ticket wholesaler that identifies fare bargains for consumers. Competing airlines match Southwest's low fares, but they charge more fees for checking bags and other services, he says. Low fares can also be found on routes flown by AirTran (AAI), JetBlue (JBLU) and Frontier, says Bob Harrell, head of Harrell Associates, a consulting firm that focuses on airlines and fares. Still, even low-fare airlines are raising prices. Southwest said recently that its average fare in the second quarter was $114.48, up 8.4% from the same period last year. JetBlue's average fare rose 13.1% to $138.13. More increases are expected in the fall, when carriers say they will reduce seat capacity on many routes and stop flying some others. Some airlines have already reduced capacity up to 10%, and further cuts — up to 15% — are planned for the fall. Reductions are needed because rising prices mean less passenger demand, American Airlines CEO Gerard Arpey said in a recent conference call announcing the carrier's second-quarter financial results. American "has initiated or participated in over 30 domestic fare and surcharge increases" this year, he said. On 21 occasions this year, Seaney says, one of these six airlines — American, United, Delta (DAL), Continental (CAL), Northwest and US Airways — raised round-trip fares more than $10 on two-thirds of its routes, and 15 times the other airlines matched the fares. In 2007, an airline in that group raised fares 23 times, and the other carriers matched 17 times. If oil prices, which recently have fallen to the mid-$120s a barrel, rise to $150 a barrel, the cost of jet fuel could increase ticket prices to a level only the affluent could afford, says Seaney. "While travelers are no doubt feeling pinched — especially in light of rising food and gasoline prices — it is difficult to blame airlines for raising prices in order to cover costs that are, by and large, beyond their control," says Darin Lee, an airline economics expert at LECG, a consultant in Cambridge, Mass. Consumers have enjoyed cheap fares since the airline industry was deregulated in 1978. Stiff competition has kept fares low, but it has also driven many airlines out of business and forced others to struggle for profitability. Faced with record fuel prices, airlines this year may lose up to $10 billion, says the Air Transport Association (ATA), an airline trade group. "We have had our fun; the party is over," Ray Neidl, an industry analyst for Calyon Securities, told Boeing executives last month. "We have had cheap flights, and now it is time to pay the bill." Leisure travelers have been hit with some of the biggest fare increases, airfare studies show. •The average cheapest coach fare in June and July was 16% more expensive than last summer, according to Harrell Associates, which tracked published fares each Monday from June 16-July 7 for six airlines' top revenue-producing domestic routes. Those fares are highly restricted, with advance-purchase and minimum-stay requirements and a penalty for itinerary changes. Combining those fares with the least expensive coach fares generally used by business travelers — refundable fares booked no more than three days before departure with no minimum-stay requirements — the average cheapest coach fares this summer are 12% higher than last summer. •FareCompare.com data examined 145 domestic routes, comparing airlines' cheapest coach ticket prices on Thursday, July 10, with those of Thursday, July 12, 2007. Of 937 fare listings, more than three-quarters showed a fare increase from a year earlier; 54% showed a fare increase of at least 20%. The comparison excluded Southwest Airlines, which doesn't list its fares in all computer reservations systems. •Travelocity, which sells millions of tickets annually, says domestic tickets sold through May for travel between Memorial Day and Labor Day averaged $366. That's a 15% increase on last summer's average of $318, says Travelocity editor Amy Ziff. A 12% or 15% increase is huge compared with year-over-year pricing data compiled by the ATA. Such a large increase has not happened since 1980, when the price of tickets sold rose 28% from 1979. In 11 of 27 years since 1980, the price of tickets sold declined from the previous year. Only two years had a price increase of more than 7%. Trips not taken Many vacationers are swallowing the fare increases, but others are postponing trips, going to cheaper destinations or planning differently. Tiffany West, of Tacoma, Wash., planned to go to Hawaii last May with her husband, Jeff, and says she usually pays $500 to $700 for a round-trip ticket. But the cheapest tickets were more than $1,000, so she postponed the trip until September, when a $525 fare was available. Instead of paying the high airfares to London, Paris or Rome this summer, many vacationers are booking less expensive or better-value flights to Central America, South America or Asia, says Ziff. "They're starting to look at destinations like Buenos Aires, where you can have a relatively European experience and the dollar goes further," she says. Some international fares are lower this summer, but they have high fuel surcharges that make the total price higher than last summer, Parsons says. For example, he says, the cheapest round-trip fare on American Airlines last week for September travel between Dallas and London was $453, plus a $426 fuel surcharge, for a total of $879. Last summer, the fare was $476, plus a $130 fuel surcharge, or $606 total. Restricting business travel The airfare increases are also affecting business. Of 55 corporate travel managers who responded to a mid-July survey by the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, more than half said rising airfares have caused their companies to cut back on the number of business trips. The ACTE represents 2,500 travel managers and suppliers. Higher airfares may add "tens of millions of dollars" to the travel budgets of Fortune 500 companies that spend at least $100 million on airfares per year, says Hervé Sedky, a vice president at American Express Business Travel. Many business travelers buy tickets at the last minute and are unable to take advantage of cheaper, advance-purchase fares. Those last-minute, "walk-up" fares are also rising. For a one-way New York-Los Angeles ticket on Tuesday, for example, Delta Air Lines' cheapest "Y" fare — an industry classification for an unrestricted, full-price coach fare — cost $969, plus an $85 fuel surcharge, says Parsons. That's more than 40% higher than last year, when the price was $754 with no fuel surcharge. A growing number of companies have begun requiring approval for all air travel to company meetings, training sessions, conferences and conventions, says ACTE executive director Susan Gurley. Some companies are asking employees to share hotel rooms on business trips. The companies that have been hit hardest by airfare increases are those with a large volume of travel to Europe, Gurley says. Some have reported hundreds of thousands of dollars in increased travel expenses, and some no longer allow employees to fly to Europe on business- or first-class tickets. Small companies have also had to adjust. Faith Varwig, who runs an aviation security consulting company in St. Louis, says the price of tickets to some cities has doubled or tripled. "We are doing more teleconferencing and trying to reduce trips to client sites," she says. Wendy Desabaye runs a consulting business in Boston that plans corporate meetings for companies based in New England. She says rising airfares have caused companies to stop scheduling meetings outside the region. "I've been in business 10 years, and I've planned more meetings this |
original Dingux, and now OpenDingux. Dingux means access to emulators and software other than those that came with the original A320’s native uCos firmware. Dingux allows for ports of games like Doom and Duke Nukem. Dingux is what turned the A320 from a glorified media player into the device we know and love.It’s still necessary to put Dingux onto a stock standard A320 though, a…Walk Free Foundation, backed by Russell Crowe, names India as having highest number of slaves in the world
An Australian human rights group, founded by billionaire business magnate Andrew Forrest and backed by Hollywood actor Russell Crowe, has released research estimating that almost 46 million people are living as slaves.
The 2016 global slavery index, funded by Forrest’s Walk Free Foundation, says 45.8 million people are trapped in some form of slavery.
The report ranks incidences of slavery in 167 countries, with India having the highest number of slaves while North Korea has the highest percentage of slaves per capita. This year’s estimates are nearly 30% higher than in the previous report, which estimated 35.8 million people living in slavery in 2014.
Forrest says the rise is partially due to more accurate methodology but he also believes the number of people trapped in slavery is increasing year on year.
“It is time to draw a line and say, no more,” he said. “This isn’t Aids or malaria, it is a man-made problem that can be solved, and it’s time to take real action to free the world from slavery once and for all.”
The index was launched in 2013 after Bill Gates, another billionaire philanthropist, challenged Forrest to quantify the scale of modern slavery. This year’s index was launched in London on Tuesday by Crowe with video messages of support from Tony Blair, Bono, supermodel Karlie Kloss and Richard Branson.
Forrest, who says he found and addressed slavery in his own supply chains, warned businesses that they must step up their efforts to address slavery or face the consequences. He also called on consumers to question their buying habits.
“At one point, it was common to see Australian truck drivers throwing litter out of the windows of their cars because everyone else was doing it. Now, there has been a huge public outcry against this behaviour and it has stopped. The same can be done for slavery,” he said.
“We need to make it unacceptable for people to buy something without asking the company where it was made and who made it and if they can’t answer that question clearly then the next question must be ‘how do you know it wasn’t made with slave labour?’”
Walk Free said slavery is found in all 167 countries in the index, with India home to 18.4 million slaves. This year’s index also claims that over half of the 45.8 million people living in modern slavery are in five countries: India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.
It calculated that more than 4% of North Korea’s population is enslaved, with Uzbekistan and Qatar the other countries with the highest prevalence of modern slavery per capita.
The index has faced criticism for its methodology and rankings system since it launched. Despite naming 167 countries, this year’s index was based on interviews conducted by pollster Gallup with more than 42,000 people in 25 countries. In some cases, rankings and prevalence estimates are calculated using data from surveys conducted in other countries deemed to have an equivalent “risk profile”.
Kevin Bales, an anti-slavery campaigner who worked on collecting data for this year’s report, said he is “very confident” the estimations were an accurate reflection.
“Over the last few years we have really honed our methodology and have build a solid framework to build on year on year,” he said. “Measuring the problem is a hugely important factor in beginning to effectively tackle this enormous problem.”
Although modern slavery constitutes a huge illegal industry, deemed the third most profitable criminal industry behind drug and arms trafficking by the UN, data remains patchy.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that 21 million people are trapped in forced labour and other forms of modern slavery. The index says it hopes to work with the ILO to provide a single set of global estimates.ITV's kids channel is serving up an 80s and 90s nostalgia fest this weekend. Here are our favourites
It's the most miserable time of the year. You're poorer than usual, fatter than usual and going outside is more or less the same as being sandblasted with frozen gravel. It's time to fall back on that comforting old standard: mindless nostalgia.
Which is fortunate, because the CITV channel is about to deliver an industrial dose of exactly that in the form of its Old Skool Weekend. To mark the 30th anniversary of CITV's first incarnation, the channel has decided to dedicate this entire weekend to classic programming from its vaults.
There'll be something for everyone. If you grew up in the 80s and 90s, you can reminisce about a more innocent age where television was mainly about some spoons walking around on a button. If you're a parent of grownup children, you can reminisce about the time before your kids moved out and stopped calling you. And if you're too young to remember any of the shows, you can at least console yourself with the fact that you've got Baby Jake now, and that's probably better than something like Spatz.
Of course, an entire weekend of non-stop nostalgia is far too much for any normal human being to take. This is why I have cherrypicked a handful of Old Skool Weekend highlights for you:
Saturday
10.15am: Wizadora
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A series about a well-meaning wizard lady forced, for reasons never explained, to live with an irritating scarecrow, a worryingly aggressive Scottish telephone and a talking coathanger apparently modeled on Blakey from On The Buses. This is the final episode of the series, where it's revealed that Wizadora was dead all along.
10.30am: T-Bag
The tale of an evil witch and her young assistant who, fuelled by the effects of some magical tea, travel space and time together. T-Bag was notable for being my first ever crush. YouTube has already taught me how weird this is; there's no need for you to remind me as well.
12.25pm: Art Attack
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Art Attack is still going strong, albeit now on Disney Jr. But this is a golden-era episode, hosted by the legendary Neil Buchanan. Neil is now a heavy metal guitarist, a fact that will never get old.
1.30pm: Fun House
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It's wacky! It's fun! It's crazy! It's outrageous! But enough about Pat Sharp's dreadful haircut. Fun House was a great big soft play gameshow where children would bring themselves to the brink of suffocation in a hellish ballpit just so that they could win an Argos sleeping bag or something. Spiritually replaced by Total Wipeout.
Sunday
11.15am: Rosie and Jim
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Before the Teletubbies, there were Rosie and Jim: two puppets who gently meandered around the British countryside on a canalboat. It was never made clear whether Rosie and Jim were friends, siblings or lovers. The White Stripes would later rip off this dynamic for greater financial reward.
2pm: Knightmare
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One of the best kids' shows of all time – a near-impossible real-life video game set in a Game of Thrones-esque fantasy labyrinth, played by a child in an oversized hat and overseen by the incomparable Tregaurd. Easily the highlight of the entire weekend, and written about at length beautifully here.
4pm: Press Gang
The school newspaper drama that launched the careers of Steven Moffat, Julia Sawalha, Dexter Fletcher and a million thirtysomething journalists, despite secretly being a bit boring. In the last episode of the series, the gang all foresee the collapse of the British newspaper industry and jack in their dreams of journalism in favour of doing degrees in social media.
Needless to say, CITV won't be able to please everyone over just two days, so which shows have they left out? Zzzap? Your Mother Wouldn't Like It? The Geeks? Round The Bend? Leave your suggestions below.While in Estonia I was able to get an interview with Darian the newest Clash of Clans Community Manager! In this episode we Talk Clash about what it's like at Supercell and within the Clash of Clans te
While in Estonia I was able to get an interview with Darian the newest Clash of Clans Community Manager! In this episode we Talk Clash about what it's like at Supercell and within the Clash of Clans team!
Also, we discuss how new features come into the game and the many ways that Supercell recieves feedback, as well as the desire for increased communication and efforts being made in this direction.
Also addressed are several questions from the Reddit Community!
Thank you to Darian for his time...and hopefully there are some new pieces of info in here for anyone who would like to listen!
Because this episode of likely to be of high interest, the complete transcript is available on reddit! You can find it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClashOfClans/wiki/darian_interviewIn most of my posts on OpenWhisk, I either show running the actions via the CLI, or demonstrate them with the anonymous REST API end point. However, there is another way of using actions as well. Every time you use the CLI, it is making authenticated REST calls on your behalf. You can find the documentation for that API here: Using the OpenWhisk REST APIs
While you make use of this via the CLI automatically, there may be times when you choose to use the authenticated APIs in your code as well. For example, imagine a simple Node application that performs a set of functions. It’s possible you may migrate one, or more, of those functions into serverless.
Now - I know what you’re thinking - why would we still use a Node server if we’re moving to serverless? Like most transitions, not everything is done at once. You may have ten different things going on with your server and only some have migrated to serverless. Embracing serverless isn’t about destroying every single server you have left, and there are some things that simply don’t make sense in serverless. So I thought I’d build a simple Node app that demonstrated how this could look.
I began with a simple Node/Express app that consisted of three different routes. A home page, a cat listing, and a dog listing. Here is my main index.js:
const express = require('express'); const app = express(); const dataService = require('./dataService'); app.use(express.static('public')); app.set('port', process.env.PORT || 3000); // 3 simple routes, /index.html is served via static app.get('/cats', (req, res) => { /* imagine calling a db to fetch a list of cats and then render it. */ dataService.getCats().then((cats) => { console.log(cats); let result = '<h2>Cats</h2><ul>'; cats.forEach((cat) => { result += '<li>'+cat+'</li>'; }); result += '</ul>'; res.send(result); }); }); app.get('/dogs', (req, res) => { /* imagine calling a db to fetch a list of dogs and then render it. */ dataService.getDogs().then((dogs) => { let result = '<h2>Dogs</h2><ul>'; dogs.forEach((dog) => { result += '<li>'+dog+'</li>'; }); result += '</ul>'; res.send(result); }); }); app.listen(app.get('port'), () => { console.log('Running on http://localhost:' + app.get('port')); });
I won’t share the home view (it’s all in GitHub), but notice my /cats and /dogs routes both work with a dataService module to get their respective list of animals. Let’s look at that.
function getCats() { return new Promise((resolve, reject) => { let cats = ["Robin", "Cracker", "Luna", "Pig"]; resolve(cats); }); } function getDogs() { return new Promise((resolve) => { let dogs = ["Cayenne", "Panda Express", "Kimchee"]; resolve(dogs); }); } module.exports = { getCats, getDogs }
I assume this is all pretty standard stuff, but let me know if not. In both cases, I’m faking an asynchronous response by using promises and static data. And just to be sure I’m not crazy, here is a screen shot of the only view that matters - the cats:
Alright - so this is the core, initial application. It’s static, but you could imagine that dataService module using Mongo or some other persistence system. Now let’s see about migrating part of this to serverless.
For my demo, I’ll focus on the Cats data since, well, that’s obviously the most important one. I’ll begin by creating a new action that handles this logic.
function main(args) { let cats = ["Miss Serverless","Robin", "Cracker", "Luna", "Pig"]; return { cats }; } exports.main = main;
Note that I’ve modified the list of cats a bit just to make it obvious to me in the UI that I’ve switched to it. After saving this file, I used the wsk command line to deploy it to Bluemix:
wsk action create safeToDelete/getcats getcats.js
And then obviously ran a quick test to ensure it worked:
wsk action invoke safeToDelete/getcats -b -r
The result is what I expect:
{ "cats": [ "Miss Serverless", "Robin", "Cracker", "Luna", "Pig" ] }
Woot. Ok, so how do I update my Node app to use it? As I said, there is a REST API, and I could just hit that by making a HTTP request. Instead, I’m going to use the openwhisk npm module. It makes using OpenWhisk actions a heck of a lot easier. How easy? Here is my new dataService.js:
const openwhisk = require('openwhisk'); const options = { apihost:'openwhisk.ng.bluemix.net', api_key:'super_secret_key_no_one_will_guess' } const ow = openwhisk(options); function getCats() { return ow.actions.invoke({name:'safeToDelete/getcats',blocking:true,result:true}); } function getDogs() { return new Promise((resolve) => { let cats = ["Cayenne", "Panda Express", "Kimchee"]; resolve(cats); }); } module.exports = { getCats, getDogs }
I begin by adding the openwhisk module to my code, specifying my options, and then creating a new ow object. Note that you can, and probably should, specify your credentials with environment variables. If you do, you can skip the entire options part and just go to town.
Next - look at getCats. My index.js file was already expecting a promise, and the OpenWhisk library uses promises in everything it does. So I run my action and ask it to be blocking and get just the result. (This works exactly like the CLI.)
That’s almost enough. Unfortunately, my initial code returned an array, and my OpenWhisk action returns a JavaScript object with the array in the cats property. I could just tweak index.js, but that feels wrong to me. Instead, I made this change:
function getCats() { return new Promise((resolve, reject) => { ow.actions.invoke({name:'safeToDelete/getcats',blocking:true,result:true}).then((result)=>{ resolve(result.cats); }); }); }
I simply wrap the OpenWhisk call with my own Promise, and when OpenWhisk is done, I resolve just the cats.
And that’s it. Later if I migrate dogs to OpenWhisk as well, I could update that too. Or I may not. And that’s the point. Moving to serverless can be done as much, or as little, as it makes sense for your project. Let me know if you have any questions, or comments, about this example.
Full source code: https://github.com/cfjedimaster/Serverless-Examples/tree/master/nodeexampleJust as the U.S. House of Representatives is returning from the July 4 recess to take up the Schumer/Rubio Amnesty/ Immigration Surge bill, the Labor Department has reported that unemployment remained stubbornly stuck at 7.6% in June, although the reported 195,000 jobs created in June was better than expected. This persistently high unemployment is not surprising: nearly half of the June job gains are needed just to absorb the 90,000 legal immigrants that arrive in the U.S. every month. It’s why VDARE.com keeps saying there should be an immigration moratorium. Instead, incredibly, Schumer-Rubio proposes to double (at least) that legal influx.
Indeed, our analysis of the June data indicates that the job market is fairly strong—but for immigrant workers only. Native-born Americans continue to lose jobs, exit the labor force, and retire earlier than planned.
Result: immigrant displacement of American workers had reached an all-time Obama Era high.
The “other” employment survey, of Households, shows a 160,000 job gain in June. The Household Survey now reports place of birth (but not legal status—it includes illegals). This allows us to see that behind the job growth lie two disparate job markets:
Total employment rose by 160,000, or by 0.11%
Native-born employment fell by 84,000, or by -0.07%
by 84,000, or by -0.07% Foreign-born employment rose by 244,000, or by 1.05%
Immigrant job growth north of 1.0% per month is particularly noteworthy. If that rate persists, immigrant employment will double within 72 months—or by June 2019. That surely rivals (exceeds?) immigrant job growth in any comparable period of U.S. history.
Perhaps there are seasonal factors that propel immigrant employment up faster than native-born employment in the month of June. Nevertheless, the spike in foreign-born employment this June stands in sharp contrast to the declines over the past two Junes.
In fact, the immigrant share of total U.S. employment in June—16.34%—was higher than in any other June during the Obama years:
Foreign-born Employment (millions) May June % chg. 2009 21.499 21.665 0.77% 2010 22.113 22.418 1.38% 2011 22.176 22.134 -0.19% 2012 22.967 22.859 -0.47% 2013 23.298 23.542 1.05% Foreign-born Share of Total Employment (%) May June % chg. 2009 15.31% 15.47% 1.06% 2010 15.86% 16.11% 1.60% 2011 15.87% 15.89% 0.13% 2012 16.14% 16.05% -0.56% 2013 16.19% 16.34% 0.94% Source: Author's analysis of BLS unseasonalized data.
The displacement of native-born Americans by immigrants also reached an Obama-era peak in June. This is made clear in our New VDARE.com American Worker Displacement Index (NVDAWDI). It tracks native-born and foreign-born employment growth for every month since the start of the Obama Administration:
Native-born employment growth is the blue line, immigrant employment growth is in pink, and NVAWDI—the ratio of immigrant to native-born job growth—is yellow. To chart American worker displacement, we set both the native-born and immigrant employment indexes in January 2009 at 100.0.
Since January 2009:
Foreign-born employment rose by 1.895 million, or by 8.8%. The immigrant employment index rose from 100.0 to 108.8.
Native-born American employment declined by 58,000 or by -0.05%. The native-born American employment index in June 2013 was a tad below 100.0—actually below the level of January 2009. In other words,
NVDAWDI (the ratio of immigrant to native-born employment growth indexes) rose from 100.0 to a record 108.8 (100X(108.8/100.0)
A more detailed picture of American worker displacement over the past year is seen in figures published in the BLS household monthly job report:
Employment Status by Nativity, June 2012-June 2013 (numbers in 1000s; not seasonally adjusted) Jun-12 Jun-13 Change % Change Foreign born, 16 years and older Civilian population 37,315 37,658 343 0.9% Civilian labor force 25,009 25,305 296 1.2% Participation rate (%) 67.0% 67.2% 0.2% 0.3% Employed 22,985 23,670 685 3.0% Employment/population % 61.6% 62.9% 1.3% 2.1% Unemployed 2,024 1,635 -389 -19.2% Unemployment rate (%) 8.1% 6.5% -1.6% -19.8% Not in labor force 12,306 12,353 47 0.4% Native born, 16 years and older Civilian population 205,840 207,894 2,054 1.0% Civilian labor force 131,377 131,785 408 0.3% Participation rate (%) 63.8% 63.4% -0.4% -0.6% Employed 120,217 121,172 955 0.8% Employment/population % 58.4% 58.3% -0.1% -0.2% Unemployed 11,160 10,613 -547 -4.9% Unemployment rate (%) 8.5% 8.1% -0.4% -4.7% Not in labor force 74,464 76,110 1,646 2.2% Source: BLS, The Employment Situation - June 2013, July 5, 2013. Table A-7. PDF
Over the past 12 months:
Immigrants gained 685,000 jobs, a 3.0% increase; native-born workers gained 955,000 positions, a 0.8% increase. ADVANTAGE (RELATIVELY SPEAKING) IMMIGRANTS
685,000 jobs, a 3.0% increase; native-born workers 955,000 positions, a 0.8% increase. The immigrant unemployment rate fell by 1.6 percentage points – or by 19.8%; native-born unemployment fell by 0.4 percentage points – a 4.7% decline. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS; IN ADDITION:
by 1.6 percentage points – or by 19.8%; native-born unemployment by 0.4 percentage points – a 4.7% decline The labor force participation rate—a measure of worker confidence—increased for immigrants but declined for the native-born Americans. At 67.2%, the immigrant participation rate in June was 3.8% points above the native-born American rate. ADVANTAGE IMMIGRANTS.
Footnote: the herbivorous Center for Immigration Studies has just released a report, Immigrant Gains and Native Losses In the Job Market, 2000 to 2013,[PDF] which essentially confirms our work since 2004. CIS has a long record of triangulating against VDARE.com and not giving credit to anyone (ask them why not). Nevertheless, we welcome them to the club.LAS VEGAS – It's one of the most hostile hacker environments in the country –- the DefCon hacker conference held every summer in Las Vegas.
But despite the fact that attendees know they should take precautions to protect their data, federal agents at the conference got a scare on Friday when they were told they might have been caught in the sights of an RFID reader.
The reader, connected to a web camera, sniffed data from RFID-enabled ID cards and other documents carried by attendees in pockets and backpacks as they passed a table where the equipment was stationed in full view.
It was part of a security-awareness project set up by a group of security researchers and consultants to highlight privacy issues around RFID. When the reader caught an RFID chip in its sights – embedded in a company or government agency access card, for example – it grabbed data from the card, and the camera snapped the card holder's picture.
But the device, which had a read range of 2 to 3 feet, caught only five people carrying RFID cards before Feds attending the conference got wind of the project and were concerned they might have been scanned.
Kevin Manson, a former senior instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Florida, was sitting on the "Meet the Fed" panel when a DefCon staffer known as "Priest," who prefers not to be identified by his real name, entered the room and told panelists about the reader.
"I saw a few jaws drop when he said that," Manson told Threat Level.
"There was a lot of surprise," Priest says. "It really was a 'holy shit,' we didn't think about that [moment]."
Law enforcement and intelligence agents attend DefCon each year to garner intelligence about the latest cyber vulnerabilities and the hackers who exploit them. Some attend under their real name and affiliation, but many attend undercover.
Although corporate- and government-issued ID cards embedded with RFID chips don't reveal a card holder's name or company – the chip stores only a site number and unique ID number tied to a company or agency's database where the card holder's details are stored – it's not impossible to deduce the company or agency from the site number. It's possible the researchers might also have been able to identify a Fed through the photo snapped with the captured card data or through information stored on other RFID-embedded documents in his wallet. For example, badges issued to attendees at the Black Hat conference that preceded DefCon in Las Vegas were embedded with RFID chips that contained the attendee's name and affiliation. Many of the same people attended both conferences, and some still had their Black Hat cards with them at DefCon.
But an attacker wouldn't need the name of a card holder to cause harm. In the case of employee access cards, a chip that contained only the employee's card number could still be cloned to allow someone to impersonate the employee and gain access to his company or government office without knowing the employee's name.
Since employee access card numbers are generally sequential, Priest says an attacker could simply change a few digits on his cloned card to find the number of a random employee who might have higher access privileges in a facility.
"I can also make an educated guess as to what the administrator or 'root' cards are," Priest says. "Usually the first card assigned out is the test card; the test card usually has access to all the doors. That's a big threat, and that's something [that government agencies] have actually got to address.""
In some organizations, RFID cards aren't just for entering doors; they're also used to access computers. And in the case of RFID-enabled credit cards, RFID researcher Chris Paget, who gave a talk at DefCon, says the chips contain all the information someone needs to clone the card and make fraudulent charges on it – the account number, expiration date, CVV2 security code and, in the case of some older cards, the card holder's name.
The Meet-the-Fed panel, an annual event at DefCon, presented a target-rich environment for anyone who might have wanted to scan government RFID documents for nefarious purposes. The 22 panelists included top cybercops and officials from the FBI, Secret Service, National Security Agency, Department of Homeland Security, Defense Department, Treasury Department and U. S. Postal Inspection. And these were just the Feds who weren't undercover.
It's not known if any Feds were caught by the reader. The group that set it up never looked closely at the captured data before it was destroyed. Priest told Threat Level that one person caught by the camera resembled a Fed he knew, but he couldn't positively identify him.
"But it was enough for me to be concerned," he said. "There were people here who were not supposed to be identified for what they were doing... I was [concerned] that people who didn't want to be photographed were photographed."
Priest asked Adam Laurie, one of the researchers behind the project, to "please do the right thing," and Laurie removed the SD card that stored the data and smashed it. Laurie, who is known as "Major Malfunction" in the hacker community, then briefed some of the Feds on the capabilities of the RFID reader and what it collected.
The RFID project was a collaboration between Laurie and Zac Franken – co-directors of Aperture Labs in Great Britain and the ones who wrote the software for capturing the RFID data and supplied the hardware – and Aries Security, which conducts security-risk assessments and runs DefCon's annual Wall of Sheep project with other volunteers.
Each year the Wall of Sheep volunteers sniff DefCon's wireless network for unencrypted passwords and other data attendees send in the clear and project the IP addresses, login names and truncated versions of the passwords onto a conference wall to raise awareness about information security.
This year they planned to add data collected from the RFID reader and camera (below) – to raise awareness about a privacy threat that's becoming increasingly prevalent as RFID chips are embedded into credit cards, employee access cards, state driver's licenses, passports and other documents.
Brian Markus, CEO of Aries Security who is known in the hacker community as "Riverside," said they planned to blur the camera images and superimpose a sheep's head over faces to protect identities before putting them on the wall.
"We're not here to gather the data and do bad things with it," he said, noting that theirs likely wasn't the only reader collecting data from chips.
"There are people walking around the entire conference, all over the place, with RFID readers [in backpacks]," he says. "For $30 to $50, the common, average person can put [a portable RFID-reading kit] together.... This is why we're so adamant about making people aware this is very dangerous. If you don't protect yourself, you're potentially exposing your entire [company or agency] to all sorts of risk."
In this sense, any place can become a hostile hacker environment like DefCon, since an attacker with a portable reader in a backpack can scan cards at hotels, malls, restaurants and subways, too. A more targeted attack could involve someone simply positioned outside a specific company or federal facility, scanning employees as they entered and left and cloning the cards. Or someone could even wire a coil around a door frame to collect data as people pass through the door, which Paget demonstrated at DefCon.
"It takes a few milliseconds to read [a chip] and, depending on what equipment I've got, doing the cloning can take a minute," says Laurie. "I could literally do it on the fly."
Paget announced during his DefCon talk that his security consulting company, H4rdw4re, will be releasing a $50 kit at the end of August that will make reading 125-kHz RFID chips – the kind embedded in employee access cards – trivial. It will include open source software for reading, storing and re-transmitting card data and will also include a software tool to decode the RFID encryption used in car keys for Toyota, BMW and Lexus models. This would allow an attacker to scan an unsuspecting car-owner's key, decrypt the data and open the car. He told Threat Level they're aiming to achieve a reading range of 12 to 18 inches with the kit.
"I often ask people if they have an RFID card and half the people emphatically say no I do not," says Paget. "And then they pull out the cards to prove it and... there has been an RFID in their wallet. This stuff is being deployed without people knowing it."
To help prevent surreptitious readers from siphoning RFID data, a company named DIFRWear was doing brisk business at DefCon selling leather Faraday-shielded wallets and passport holders (pictured above right) lined with material that prevents readers from sniffing RFID chips in proximity cards.
(Dave Bullock contributed some reporting to this piece.)
Photo at top: Former Fed Kevin Manson got RFID'd at DefCon and all he got was this spoof t-shirt – made by Brian Markus. All photos by Dave Bullock.
See also:This email has also been verified by Google DKIM 2048-bit RSA key
09.24.15 Latest on Email Guidance
From:[email protected] To: [email protected] CC: [email protected] BCC: [email protected] Date: 2015-09-24 16:50 Subject: 09.24.15 Latest on Email Guidance
All - Please see below guidance regarding two recent reports from Bloomberg and the Washington Post. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks! AE *Friends & Allies Talking Points * *Guidance on Bloomberg Report that FBI Has Restored Clinton's Personal Emails * *September 24, 2015* Assuming the Bloomberg report is true, the reason the FBI may be able to recreate these emails is exactly because, as the tech company that maintained Hillary's server has said, the rumors that steps were taken to "wipe" the server's contents were never true. Even if FBI can indeed recreate her personal emails as Bloomberg reports, they are unlikely to be released publicly as they are not work-related. Remember, the Justice Department just said in court two weeks ago that they did not have a basis to seek access to her personal emails, since the regulations required that it be Hillary Clinton who separated her work emails and personal emails -- and she had no obligation to keep her personal ones. Hillary Clinton turned over her work-related emails. She directed her legal team to sort through her emails and provide any that might potentially be work-related; and, the State Department has already stated that more than 1200 emails based on their review were personal and would be returned to her as they need not have been given in the first place. We believe the Justice Department should be allowed to conduct its independent, security-related review process without interference. Chuck Grassley, who is attempting to compete with Trey Gowdy in making partisan attacks on Hillary's emails, should stop trying to interject himself into the process to score points. *GUIDANCE ON WASHINGTON POST STORY ON HOW STATE DEPT REQUESTED CLINTON'S EMAILS* Nothing in this story contradicts what Hillary Clinton has said. The Post is reporting on a verbal notification that the State Department made last year to Clinton's personal attorney, indicating that it might be requesting a copy of Hillary Clinton's emails from her time as Secretary. As Clinton has explained, the State Department later formalized that request in writing via a letter to all former Secretaries of State, asking them to provide any work-related correspondence they still had in their possession. Clinton complied with that request in full; indeed, she was the only Secretary of State to provide any emails. -- Adrienne K. Elrod Spokesperson Hillary For America *www.hillaryclinton.com <http://www.hillaryclinton.com>* @adrienneelrod -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "HRCRapid" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.E
mutton sali boti, chicken farcha, dhansak, patra ni machchi
lagan nu custard
For the uninitiated, Parsi is an ethnic identity restricted to the descendants of Zoroastrian refugees from the Pars region in Persia (now Iran) that escaped persecution in the eighth century.
Legend has it that the refugees escaped via sea and landed on the coast of Gujarat. The story goes that the local ruler expressed concern over accommodating the refugees in an already overpopulated region. Asking for a bowl of milk and some sugar, one of the Parsi leaders dissolved the sugar in the bowl full of milk and made a promise that his people would be like the sugar that would only sweeten the community and not cause it to overflow. They adopted local customs and vowed to not conduct conversions to their faith.
“When the Union territory of Goa got a Parsi lieutenant governor in 1983—Kershasp Tehmurasp Satarawala—advertisements calling all Parsis in Goa to meet him were published in the newspaper. That was when we got to see how many Parsis were in Goa,” shares Yazdi Shroff, who made Goa his home with his wife Serena in the seventies and raised their two daughters here. “Goa was too lovely a place with too lovely a people. It has changed now, but it is still home,” says Yazdi.
It’s mostly the shipping industry or alternative career options that brought Parsis to Goan shores. When Adi Doctor moved to Goa to pursue a teaching career at the state university in 1974, little did he imagine that his grandson would be celebrating what is believed to be the first navjote (initiation ceremony) in Goa. “Goa has given me so much. I wanted all my friends and fellow Goans to experience and witness the thread ceremony,” shares Porus Doctor of his son Shiroy’s navjote ceremony.
But in this Goan paradise, they are devotees without a temple, known to double as a community centre. The nearest agiary (fire temple) is in neighbouring Belagavi in Karnataka. But the absence of an agiary is not all that bad, feel some in the community. “Consecrating a fire temple and bringing the fire, which can never be allowed to extinguish and finding a permanent dastoor (priest) pose major logistical problems. What we need is a community hall where we |
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